What To Do If You Can't Find Your Flight Confirmation Email

On any given day, the Federal Aviation Administration is tasked with handling around 45,000 flights. Across the globe, there are an estimated 100,000 flights daily zipping through the skies and around 90,000 of those are dedicated passenger flights. Each seat on these flights has to be booked which works out to plenty of people experiencing the same sort of stress.

Booking flights can feel daunting. From picking the right seats and flight routes to ensuring everyone in your group is seated together, it's not always simple. There are definitely a lot of details to handle and specifics to make sure you've covered before you ever board.

When you've finally confirmed your booking and breathed that sigh of relief, the last thing you want is your peace of mind taken from you by not being able to find your flight confirmation email. This is something that many passengers deal with regularly that can create a panic-inducing scenario. In reality, there are plenty of reasons why an email might be "lost" in the abyss of an inbox or elsewhere. The good news is there are plenty of options for tracking it down too.

While we live in an age of instant answers and gratification, it's important to keep in mind that airline confirmation emails don't necessarily subscribe to this same approach. In fact, it can take up to four hours to receive a flight confirmation email for your booking, so begin by giving yourself that much leeway before you start searching.

If four hours have flown by and you still haven't received a flight confirmation email, it's a good idea to check that your booking was successfully processed. Even if you don't have the confirmation email available, you'll have received a confirmation code at the time of booking. This can be used on the airline's website to look up your flight information and confirm your reservation was processed.

Still not seeing your email confirmation after ensuring your reservation has gone through the airline's system? That means it's time to review your credit card statement and recent activity. Many credit cards come with an app where you can easily track recent purchases, even those that are still in a pending status. If you see the cost of the booking included in the lineup, you can rest assured your information has been received and your transaction is being processed.

Of course, one of the biggest culprits when it comes to not receiving your flight confirmation email is often the junk email folder. If your email provider doesn't recognize the confirmation address, or flags it as spam, it's going to send it directly to the junk pile. A quick look here often reveals the mistake and "lost" email confirmation. You can easily flag the email as safe for future correspondence and be on your way.

Another reason your flight confirmation email is missing could be basic human error. It's easy to mistakenly input a familiar email address on your flight booking when you intended to use another. Take some time to look through your various accounts to see if this is the case.

Using autofill in your browser can present another issue. Autofill functions in Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and beyond are convenient when it comes to completing digital forms quickly. However, it can also inadvertently send your booking to an email address you didn't intend.

When booking flights for multiple passengers, the chances for mistakes increase too. This is especially true when it comes to the email portion of the reservation. Be sure to double-check that you didn't accidentally put another passenger's email address into your own booking information. In this case, your email could simply be sitting in someone else's inbox.

If all else fails and you can't find that flight confirmation email anywhere, you're going to want to go directly to the airline. Calling and speaking with a representative on the phone is your best bet. Yes, you'll likely have to wait a while, but talking to the airline is a sure way to know your booking is in place and successfully processed.

Above all, don't panic. There's a good chance you'll track the email down with a little time and effort. You can then be on your way to great adventures without any added stress.