Searching Gmail for Flights

July 11, 2014 8:22 AM

Hey guys. So I'm trying to determine how far I've flown over the past five years; I'd like to search my Gmail account for every flight confirmation, but the results are terrible--it seems like the search is bringing up all kinds of unrelated emails. Does anyone know of a better way to do this? Thanks!
posted by Aanidaani to Computers & Internet (10 answers total)

If you use Travelocity, search for "Travelocity Trip ID" (in quotation marks).
posted by John Cohen at 8:25 AM on July 11, 2014

Could you text-search for airline-only vocabulary? Things like "cabin baggage" or "boarding pass"?
posted by mdonley at 8:28 AM on July 11, 2014

I would try searching for "itinerary"
posted by Sunburnt at 8:33 AM on July 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

"baggage allowance" OR "baggage regulations" works pretty well for me
posted by Nothing at 8:33 AM on July 11, 2014

Sign up for a Tripit account and give it access to your inbox - it will auto-import all your itineraries and give you a total mileage I think. I think you might need to tell it to pull in older ones though.
posted by Happy Dave at 8:35 AM on July 11, 2014 [3 favorites]

It might be fun to sign into AirHelp (Lifehacker article); though I didnt get any money for delayed flights, it did produce some statistics on my recent travel. It does, however, only track flights in the past few years.

Otherwise, what about the search term "Terminal"?
posted by offrecord at 9:37 AM on July 11, 2014

I am somewhat horrified by the suggestion that you sign up for a service and give them access to the entirety of your inbox just to answer this question. Different people have different privacy threshholds, but consider what you think is an appropriate level before casually doing that.
posted by Nerd of the North at 10:15 AM on July 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

"boarding pass" (with quotes) seems to be a good balance of catching every flight confirmation, regardless of where I made it, and not pulling in too much extra.
posted by He Is Only The Imposter at 10:45 AM on July 11, 2014

Nerd of the North: "I am somewhat horrified by the suggestion that you sign up for a service and give them access to the entirety of your inbox just to answer this question. Different people have different privacy threshholds, but consider what you think is an appropriate level before casually doing that."

If you've got a Gmail account (which the OP does), it's scanned for ads every second of every day.

You can also manually forward trip confirmation emails to Tripit (that's what I do), but the OP is looking for a quick way to get a total mileage. This is a quick way.
posted by Happy Dave at 12:35 PM on July 11, 2014

I usually search on the airport codes - they are pretty unique, and I usually originate / return to one of just a handful.
posted by sagwalla at 1:34 AM on July 12, 2014