hussainkothari

Hi,

I had asked my travel agent to book me flights from LHR - BOM on Qatar airways for Dec2012. Although I had given him the correct details the names on the tickets are wrong. There is no way ascertain whose mistake this is. The blame game will just continue. On my families tickets (wife and child) the names have been spelled as - FirstName MiddleName. And the lastName is completely missing.

The agent and the airline have told me that name changes are not possible as the system will automatically cancel the ticket. And the cost to cancel and reissue the ticket is a steep 320£.

So what shall I do? I have paid by direct debit.

Options I can think of -
1. Dispute the transaction with the help of the bank (last resort. will it help?)
2. The Qatar online system allows me to add a middle name. Shall I just add my last name as the middle name and then argue that the names are all there but not in the correct order?
3. What if I turn up at the airport. I guess they will not refuse me boarding? Probably sort it out then?
4. go to the small claims court?

How do I make the travel agent to get this sorted? They have ads on TV claiming to book 1000 tickets per day. I guess this should not be a big problem for them. Kindly advice?

Thanks,
H

mecabq

I think that option (2) should work. There is a risk, of course, but I bet that you'll be fine. Hopefully others will weigh in.

Penbank

Very good thinking! I would choose this. Hopefully, the boarding pass will print out the entire name, even if in the wrong order.

Either that or do this and, a few weeks later, ask them to correct the order of the names.

hussainkothari

Just spoke to the airline and they have said that the middle name will not appear on the ticket. And the only way is to cancel and reissue.

320£ is a steep deal. How do I get the travel agent to cough this up? I am sure I gave the correct details over the call but the calls don't seem to be recorded.

-H

mecabq

Interesting. Can a good travel agent not contact the airline directly, explain the mistake, and get them to fix it as a special case?

I still think that you should be OK -- if you get to the check-in counter, hand over your passport, then, if they complain, point out the issue, play dumb and say "I guess the travel agent made a mistake," I would imagine that you'd be fine. If you add your "middle name," it must show up somewhere in the PNR that the agent could see. Then again, Qatar Airways is not known for its agents' creativity and problem-solving empowerment. Certainly a gamble.

I would like to see some travel agents post here about possible remedies.

obscure2k

Please continue to follow this thread in the Qatar Airways Forum.
Thanks..
Obscure2k
TravelBuzz Moderator

lsed

Ok Here is my experience,

In my passport my full name is presented as: Firstname Lastname Middlename

If anything, my Lastname appears as if it is my middlename and my according to my tickets booked over the past few years I have never used my Middlename which appears as my "Lastname". Flown about 15 airlines - EK QR SQ MH, many EU airlines and all without issue.

Pertaining to QR, I have booked tickets QR with Firstname Lastname and Lastname Firstname. (the latter because the QR booking system recently puts last name as the first field, and I keyed in my first name). No issues at all - (done about 20+ flights with QR so far).

Not saying you won't have a problem, but I never ever thought about using my full name. The system should have your DOB and your PP number in your booking. If not contact your agent to add those information and you should have a much stronger case to prove that the ticket is indeed matched to the correct person.
And once you get your BP the agents never seem to care if you're full name is on the BP so long as what's printed does appear in your passport I've always been cleared.

Guy Betsy

I'm gonna address Ised's question first..

S'pore and M'sian passports have First/Last/Middle names cos in Chinese its always the Last name then other names..

When booking, as long as the last name appears somewhere, the airline wouldn't care. That's for Chinese names. The issue gets more complicated when the names are Muslim or Indian ... cos their surname is either first or last or somewhere in between.

Other countries passports have always indicated their last names first.. and then other names in another line. But for others its all in one line which is where the confusion lies.


Basically your TA is at fault because rather than verifying in what order your name should be , he/she just assumed that the first word is your last name, and the others filled in as and when.

Your TA should contact their sales department for QR and ask for a waiver to get the ticket reissued in the correct name as it was their fault. Now whether they will do it or not, is the problem, but as a TA myself, I know what to do based on my 25+ years experience and what I will do may not be what your TA will or is willing to do ! If your TA has 1000s of bookings then their clout with every airline should be great. If not, you may want to question their credibility. You may even tell them that you might name them on FlyerTalk !

Name changes are possible if the ticket has not been issued. After that, it is not possible.

Number 2 - of the QR system is that QR will add your passport information to the reservation. It does not change the ticket.

If your TA refuses to contact their sales department, the only thing that they can do is to add a SSR message to the reservation which will show up something like this... (say your name is John Cairn Bombay, and its now booked as John Cairn)... Contact their manager and tell them what to do..

3SSR QR NB DUE TO BKG ERROR FULL NAME SHD BE JOHN CAIRN BOMBAY
3SSR QR PLS ACCEPT PASGR FOR TRAVEL

OR you can try to go to QR's sales office in London (they're at Earl's Court) and get it sorted with their manager over there. They can put the remarks on your reservation but they most likely cannot reissue the ticket as that is the responsibility of your travel agent.

Take it as a lesson learned... that you MUST MUST check your reservation on a printed piece of paper to see how it is spelt out.. (name) before you get anything issued !!


Hope this helps.

lsed

Just wondering, with reference to my names.
My father's is: Lastname Middlename Firstname, and as mentioned earlier
mine is: Firstname Lastname Middlename.

How does a check in agent know which is the correct lastname? My passport doesn't underline which is my Lastname, and though it may look obvious (Chinese lastnames are common), my Middlename actually looks German.

I do have a hunch that if one day I use my Firstname + Middlename I won't have any problems. Unless there is information stored in my biometric passport which my actual last name is?

Guy Betsy

If you look at your passport's auto reader, it will generally show the surname first. It is then up o agent to determine which is the surname. Generally they don't care as long as most of the names are there.

I don't put my full name when I travel. I only use surname/firstname MR.

Or else surname/middlefirstnames

Issues will only arise when trying to accrue mileage as last name must match FFP info and either initial or first name.

FlyerTalker7654

Don't TA's have insurance for this sort of thing???

hussainkothari

Hi Guys. Thanks for all your feedback. Well my ticket was already issued and my TA (after a lot of persuasion) cancelled and reissued the ticket with the correct names.

The employee that I was interfacing with said that since it is his mistake he would have to bear the cancellation fee from his salary. I agreed to pay a nominal fee towards this. It would be sad if he had to take the brunt of the cancellation (~250£) and the fare difference(~50£). Or maybe it just a way to get the customer to pay by way of sympathy?!

Either ways, now I don't have to wait to find out what happens at the check in counter :-) I must say that finally the TA did sort it out.

Thanks again for all your help.
-H

lsed

Got it. Indeed my passport shows PASGPSurname<<Firstname<Middlename

daniellam

Just out of curiosity, why does the Singaporean government put the surname and given names all on the same line in the Singapore passports? Given that they are able to distinguish between the surname and other names by putting "<<" in the machine readable line just like all other countries, why don't they just put the "surname" and "given names" in separate fields of their passports?

lsed

Beats me.

In fact something happened to my name in my birth cert, to when I made my passport.

In my birth cert my Chinese name (middle name) is Xxxxx 'Xx (2 words, with an apostrophe)
In my passport and identity card it is Xxxxxxx (joined)

To the point where a few years back when I was in school, I was still confused as to which was correct.

And, my surname is slightly different from my father's due to some conversion to Simplified Chinese or something. It's really odd.

Anyways, glad OP got it settled.