The Hassle of Ticket Name Changes
You can save yourself a lot of headaches by providing your first and last names AS PER PASSPORT when making an international airline reservation. Your name as per your photo ID, for example a driver’s licence, is sufficient for domestic bookings.
I always advise my customers of this when I’m providing them with a quote and I let them know of the difficulties they will experience if they don’t give me their correct names. Yet I still get people telling me, after a ticket has been issued, that the name is incorrect!! They either don’t read or don’t take me seriously.
Many airlines won’t allow you to change names once a ticket has been issued. You’ll end up losing the whole ticket if it’s non refundable. Then you’ll have to re-book under your correct name and you might be lucky to get another seat (at a higher price) if you haven’t left it until too late. For those airlines that permit name changes, they usually charge hefty penalties and the travel agent will also charge you for their time involved in correcting the name as the process involves more than just pressing a button.
Some airlines won’t even allow you to change names once a booking has been made (before it’s ticketed). It means the booking has to be cancelled and re-booked in the correct name and there are no guarantees you’ll get the same fare back. Others will do it for a price.
So the moral of the story is – read the fine print!