Made any travel mistakes lately?

[henleybeach]

Oh my gosh henleybeach, that is a disappointing story for your mum & dad. And for you wanting to do something special for them.

I know , I feel terrible ! I doubled checked the ticket home and names are correct ! I booked them j class home with Thai airways from Munich to Perth with lifemiles points . So at least they will taste business class once, just not quite the same standard !

 

[froggerADL]

I can never understand why they can't just change the name when it is obviously a simple error.

 

[Deleted member 29185]

Made a absolutely disastrous mistake

Exceptionally disappointing. That's a lesson to be learned for all of us. Such a simple thing becomes monumental. My wife has a hyphenated surname and that too is a right royal PITA. No booking engine will accept hyphens (at least not that I've come across) and I'm just waiting for the day someone says ... "but that's not her name"!!!!

 

[serfty]

Most airlines have misspelling policies of one or two characters/reversing names etc.

That one (Sue/Susan) would be borderline.

 

[Quickstatus]

I can never understand why they can't just change the name when it is obviously a simple error.

Yes there are other ways to reconcile the person to the ticket. DOB, email, phone , address, method of payment.
What are they worried about ?. Another Susan with exactly the same last name and other details might turn up?

 

[henleybeach]

Yes there are other ways to reconcile the person to the ticket. DOB, email, phone , address, method of payment.
What are they worried about ?. Another Susan with exactly the same last name and other details might turn up?

They said virgin in Adelaide were very nice and did everything , they rang velocity and asked them to change her name but they said they need 24 hours , they rang Etihad in Sydney to see if they will allow it but they said no. Mum said they had mangers in Sydney and Brisbane on the phone, they tried everything . A hard lesson to learn. I wondered how mum had gotten away with the velocity account only being sue and not Susan for so long . They have only flown domestically with virgin and after looking at her car license it says SUE. So up until now , when she has checked in domestically she has shown her car license as ID. I just wished I checked the name when I booked the ticket through velocity when it pre filled her name in.

 

[ozbeachbabe]

Made a absolutely disastrous mistake .
Booked my parents into business class last June ADL-AUH via SYD with velocity points flying J class.
They had just enough points , and had never flown business class ever before so when I booked them the tickets to say they were exciting is a understatement. Spoke to them this morning, Mum was so excited , couldn't wait to have a drink in the on-board bar on the a380. I get a phone call today at 330 pm can you come pick us up from the airport we have been denied boarding!

Ticket was under sue and the passport was Susan! Upon further investigation , mums velocity account is under sue and when I booked the ticket , velocity pre filled the name in and obviously used sue as that was the registrated name of the account . We never clicked looking at the ticket the whole time until they got to checkin today , and told their ticket is cancelled now. Lucky their cruise leaves in two days time and I have re-booked them on Qatar airways in Y tomorrow night. I never felt so bad , seeing how excited and then upset my parents were was terrible ! All they were talking about was this flight ! And that's how you waste 220k velocitypoints !!!

That seems awfully harsh. Is that an EY thing re first names really really having to match the passport to the absoulte letter or was it just a case of a VA domestic CSA that hardly ever does international checkin being a real naz_ and not bothering to verify with EY? Surely you wouldn't lose all 220K points and worse case scenario you'd just have to pay a cancellation penalty?

Doing checkin ex Brazil must be an absolute nightmare on EY then as if it's anything like the Brazilians flying ex-Australia 95% of them don't have bookings exactly as per passport.

I wonder when you make a Velocity booking, despite the system pre-populating the name fields, I wonder if their system allows you make any alterations ie change Sue to Susan prior to ending transaction on the booking?

I can never understand why they can't just change the name when it is obviously a simple error.

Probably because doing a name change then means re-issuing the eticket which is probably in the too hard basket and generally award tickets have to be re-issued by the award centre not airports.

 

[bam71]

Probably because doing a name change then means re-issuing the eticket which is probably in the too hard basket and generally award tickets have to be re-issued by the award centre not airports.

I'm thinking that was the case ....

 

[Deleted member 29185]

Probably because doing a name change then means re-issuing the eticket which is probably in the too hard basket and generally award tickets have to be re-issued by the award centre not airports.

By the sounds of it, it's likely that the flight was under airport control at that point and no changes possible.

 

[Quickstatus]

Tickets can be reissued all the time. Airport control or not. I suspect that the prob is at VA's end. Low cost heritage still bubbling to the surface?

 

[ozbeachbabe]

By the sounds of it, it's likely that the flight was under airport control at that point and no changes possible.

There should always be a workaround but I don't believe being under airport control affects the ability to perform a name change although CSA's generally can't do it as it would need to be actioned by a person who was ticketing trained. Ages ago when eticketing first was introduced in the late 90's I remember if you went to change the booking you'd get an error response saying "name does not match eticket" or something to that effect (in Amadeus).

It's probably easier to do in airline systems who don't issue tickets as such like the system JQ used to or still use - Flightspeed(?). Other airlines will still just check the pax in on whatever name is booked even if it differs slightly from the passport as when you swipe the passport the correct spelling of the name gets transmitted through to immigration/CBP of the destination country.

 

[Deleted member 29185]

There should always be a workaround but I don't believe being under airport control affects the ability to perform a name change

I have no idea, but I do know I tried once to correct a name for my daughter. Her name is my surname but my wife has a hyphenated name (when we married, she absolutely had to retain her maiden name combined with my surname, and what a pain in the neck it is). I had to make a VA phone booking due to VA web issues and the GCC lady used my wifes surname for my daughter rather than my daughters surname. I only noticed on check in (at the airport) and they tried and tried to get the name corrected (including telephoning supervisors and basically everyone except JB) and eventually became resigned to the fact they could not because the aircraft was, at that point in time, under airport control. It was only 2 x domestic sectors so they let her fly with alternate ID, but that event led me to believe that once the flight is transferred to airport control, the airline cannot make name changes.

 

[Quickstatus]

but that event led me to believe that once the flight is transferred to airport control, the airline cannot make name changes.

Why not just reissue the tickets?

 

[Deleted member 29185]

Why not just reissue the tickets?

Beats me! Maybe CASA rules??? who knows.

 

[Quickstatus]

I'm in the dark too but pretty sure Casa does not get involved in ticketing

 

[Deleted member 29185]

I'm in the dark too but pretty sure Casa does not get involved in ticketing

But they would after the flight transfers to airport control, I assume. I don't think this is a simple "ticketing" issue. I think there are prohibitions and restrictions that are outside the airlines control.

 

[Lemon_Party]

Made a absolutely disastrous mistake .
Booked my parents into business class last June ADL-AUH via SYD with velocity points flying J class.
They had just enough points , and had never flown business class ever before so when I booked them the tickets to say they were exciting is a understatement. Spoke to them this morning, Mum was so excited , couldn't wait to have a drink in the on-board bar on the a380. I get a phone call today at 330 pm can you come pick us up from the airport we have been denied boarding! Ticket was under sue and the passport was Susan! Upon further investigation , mums velocity account is under sue and when I booked the ticket , velocity pre filled the name in and obviously used sue as that was the registrated name of the account . We never clicked looking at the ticket the whole time until they got to checkin today , and told their ticket is cancelled now. Lucky their cruise leaves in two days time and I have re-booked them on Qatar airways in Y tomorrow night. I never felt so bad , seeing how excited and then upset my parents were was terrible ! All they were talking about was this flight ! And that's how you waste 220k velocity points !!!

Jesus henners - that's a shocker of a story. Hope there's some way you can get some points back at least.

It's disappointing there's nothing that can be done for that at the airport though - Sue/Susan - you'd think there'd be flexibility for shortened versions of first names...

 

[Jet L]

I have had the call centre take a flight out of airport control before to change something so I know for a fact that bookings can be changed after they are in airport control

 

[Gold60]

does booking a trip to South Korea count ?? Particularly with a trip to the JSA/DMZ area? Where they specifically get you to sign a waiver releasing them - the authorities - from responsibility if you get shot/blown up or similarly harmed whilst on the tour - that is only for the day !!! But i am still going....

 

[kpc]

does booking a trip to South Korea count ?? Particularly with a trip to the JSA/DMZ area? Where they specifically get you to sign a waiver releasing them - the authorities - from responsibility if you get shot/blown up or similarly harmed whilst on the tour - that is only for the day !!! But i am still going....

I have been to the JSA / DMZ...very interesting place. I personally would be very nervous going now although I suspect all the North Korean missiles are aimed at Seoul and Japan