Booked velocity biz reward flights and just realized there is ONE letter wrong on the name a few days out... am I screwed??

[elwayz]

I booked 3 reward flights on SQ and Qatar for myself and my mum who has never been overseas before. Was supposed to be her birthday present. We are due to fly out on the 8th and I just realized her official passport name doesn't match the name she goes by. Her passport says Lea but I booked it under the name she goes by Leah. I never realized her official name didn't have the H.

I called Velocity and they said there is nothing they can do, so I tried to call Singapore in australia and no luck that way either

So I called Singapore office in singapore and she said that it *should* be fine and that that she will make a note of it for the Melbourne check in staff that there is an error but I'm just worried about how much I can rely on this.

What's more is the flight is full now so I can't even cancel her reward flight and buy it in cash.

I haven't had a chance to contact Qatar yet since it's further out and I have more time to work with it but I'm not sure how that will go either.

It seems like my options are:

1) Chance it and just rock up to the airport early and hopefully they can fix it on the day and if they can't buy an economy ticket instead which has availabilities. (But then maybe I lose the whole ticket and points associated).

2) Cancel her portion of the reward flight and watch the reward availability for the flight like a hawk, and pray to the gods that the same flights show up and rebook them.

3) Completely change the route/date and fork out 10k - 20k for biz flights over but it will be costly and a lot of mucking around because I'll probably have to mess with my hotel dates etc too to make it all work.

Seems like there are no good options

 

[odysseus]

QR's rules say they won't make any changes/corrections to award tickets.

However, per this older thread they say under 3 characters wrong should be okay, especially if it's not in the last name as sounds the case here, with only one character wrong:

Name spelling mistake in flight ticket - Qatar Airways - FlyerTalk Forums

Qatar Airways | Privilege Club - Name spelling mistake in flight ticket - Qatar Airways - Originally Posted by Bobby Amado hi im new here i need a help my flight will be two days from now it happen i have a problem with my ticket my boyfriend is the one who booked it..my name is mispelled by two...

www.flyertalk.com

If it were me, I'd probably chance it with a fall back as the alternatives are much more costly and undesirable. Though I'd also contact their CS in advance just to see if it can equally be logged in the PNR.

 

[Mwenenzi]

Staff at check-in desks can be more pragmatic than phone agents, who will say what the screen shows them.

 

[elwayz]

Update: Singapore Airlines were happy to change the ticket at check in at both Melbourne airport and changi. No fees required or questions asked and took them all of about 2 seconds. Spent the week stressing about nothing haha.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Perfect! I believe IATA allows corrections to spelling of up to three characters… provided of course that doesn’t completely change the name!