TRIFlyer

My corporate travel department managed to mess up my last name and Delta kindly reissued the ticket with the correct spelling at no charge. I was told if the last name didn't match my SkyMiles account there would be no upgrade or mileage. So, if you are on FlyerTalk you probably care about the aformentioned items.

GoCanes

Given the age we live in now with Terrorism and stricter security I would request to have this corrected right away. There should be no reason or excuse as to why DL could not due this. IMO the agent you spoke to was just lazy and did not want to be bothered with the time it takes to make these types of corrections. When I booked SEA-LGW a couple of years ago, the agent did not make my ticket match to my passport. I spoke to DL and actually finally just went into Sea-Tac airport and had them fix it, with no charge.

I could see if you went to them with Jones and said it should be Smith. That is suspicious. But when it is one letter off, it is obviously a mistake on DL's part. They should be held accountable and make the correction. I can promise you no one from DL is going to come rushing to help you out when the TSA agent does not allow you in (well if you find one keen enough to notice the mispelling). Still, not worth the hassel on your day of travel. IMO I would rather make it a hassel now when I had the time and patience to handle it.

The Juiceman

I once had a friend named Carl who found out at the airport that his travel agent had mistakenly spelled his name as Carol. Delta refused to board him with that ticket (understandibly) and he had to purchase a full fare o/w ticket on the spot to get home. I think his TA reimbursed him the difference, however.

the_traveler

In January, I got 2 award tickets for my sister and her boyfriend. The only thing was that his reservation had an extra "b" in the spelling of his last name. (This "b" was in the middle of the last name.) When I noticed this, I contacted Delta and it was corrected with the correct spelling.

In this day and age of security and name checking, I did not want him to have any problems. (BTW - his name is foreign and he has an accent.)

Gargoyle

It is if your name is Harold.

My first and last names are both names which are commonly used for first or last names. Call centers regularly try to invert them. Once I was booked as Last First instead of First Last, when I got to the gate they told me the flight was overbooked and my seat was issued to someone else. After a few minutes of run around I asked if the seat was assigned to Last First, and the GA checked and confirmed that. I said, "that's me, the name is backwards", and I cleared and got my BP a minute later.

(hope that convoluted paragraph makes sense!

GUWonder

Letters transposed, letters missing, wrong letters, first and last name reversed. Seen it all. As long as the PNR's noted, it's a non-issue almost completely and a quick explanation to the check-in staff is sufficient. (The exception is if you have an e-visa/ETA -- e.g., Australia -- that was acquired separately than one procured by your ticketing agent/firm. And even there, it's a non-issue.) IATA has rules that allow for a certain amount of errors in ticketing names and up to 3 is a non-issue completely. Even "crackdown/lockdown countries" don't care.

Even APISs used by several countries have allowances for such. It's also why the use of things like Soundex and other providers of back-ended systems to "name match" have gotten paid more money than some of them deserve.

Frequent flyer mileage credit can be an issue, but there are also benefits of retroactive credit requests.

GUWonder

If the right gender was noted (and this was a relatively recent experience), DL was in the wrong to deny the passenger boarding. One spelling error is certainly allowed and the TA (if not stupid) was probably just getting reimbursement from DL.