Electronic ticket with no printer

With most airlines, you can print your boarding pass for free at the airport, either from an automatic check in terminal, or at a check in desk, or at a bag drop desk. A small number of budget airlines charge for printing boarding passes at the airport, but United Airlines is not one of them.

Alternatively, United Airlines provides an app that enables you to use your smartphone to display the boarding pass. This is usually the most convenient method in my experience.

1: Just print out a poor copy at home, take it to the airport, show it to the check in agent and the agent will replace it with one their machines can scan.

2: Check in online, go to the computer kiosk at the airport, print out new boarding passes.

3: Check in online, ask the baggage check person to print boarding passes because your printer at home is not working.

4: Get the app, but it may not work everywhere, especially at small or foreign airports where United has but one or two flights and shares gates with multiple airlines.

I've not printed my ticket for years. I either have it on my phone, or I just hand over my ID at the checkin counter and tell them the flight I'm on. Zero issues.

In the past two months I've done this for flights from Sydney, Melbourne, Tauranga, Christchurch, Auckland, Bangkok, and Krabi, and they didn't flinch - just looked me/us up and printed out the boarding pass.

If you're concerned, take the faded version to the airport with you as a backup, and if the ticket machines / kiosks exist for your airline, re-print, or go up to the counter and ask for them to re-print. Also check if you can check-in on line first, as it might make the process a little faster.