Paper Ticket for Poland-Germany Trip

What site are u trying to book this on?
is it that you only need to show a paper ticket Frankfurt to Gdansk?

We booked (reserved) this on United.com. United says that the ticket for all legs must be a physical ticket, even though it's only one leg through Air Nostrum. Of course none of this was disclosed in advance. Seems like more gotchas than ever, we looked at one Delta flight operated by KLM and extra charges applied for a seat selection. Otherwise you can call KLM 24 hours prior to flight. That's fine when it's the short hop from AMS to where you are going, not o.k. when it's the long hop across the pond. We are accustomed to no seat selection on Lufthansa when connecting in Germany, often not even until you get to Frankfurt. There too it's the short hop so no big deal.

Does this seem strange to you, any cause for apprehension?

No, why would it? Do you realize that you can always get printed tickets at the ticket counter by showing your passport? This is nothing like carrying 2k in currency and losing it because you can always get it printed. You sound like a worrier (weren't you also worried about too much pollution in Krakow?). I've never heard of Air Nostrum but if they are more old school, then just roll with it. Remember that not everything is done via a smart phone code...there was a long time period where everything was done on paper. You will probably come away from this trip to Poland thinking a lot of things are strange in the way they do things (much more bureaucratic, that's for sure).

By the way, did you try LOT Airlines? They would likely route you through Chicago or NYC. They have some great fares sometimes.

If you have checked in you can get a boarding pass at the counter, that's not the same as a ticket. If you lose a physical ticket, you can buy a new one at the going rate and have the old one voided, I think. But it might cost you way more. This happened to me once when I was traveling on business ten years ago. I forgot to pick up the FedEx from the mail department in my office, showed up without the physical ticket. Fortunately the price difference was not much.

Yep, I will admit to being a worrier though.

Can you save a copy of the physical ticket (assuming you can get it in advance) as a scanned file that you can access from an e-mail or phone? Or just make a copy of both tickets and have your spouse keep in his/her luggage so you decrease the risk. I figure as long as you have a replica, there's no need to worry. I guarantee you won't lose it if you really believe you can't afford not to...it's no different than a passport or a driver's license. If it's too important to lose, you'll be really careful.

Talking to United again for the fourth time today, looks like this might have been a false alarm. The issue was merely that they had to wait 24 hours to confirm that a seat was available on the Lufthansa partner, but the email they sent me and the notations on the United customer service screens were both misleading. In the end it looks like they did the whole thing on a e-ticket after all. Although I am still not entirely sure because the last rep that I spoke with did not seem to understand the meaning of the term "physical ticket," confusing that concept wth "confirmed ticket." I'll call back for the fifth time tomorrow for confirmation. I about half want to cancel and re-book on Delta just because I am so mad at United.