The other day I took a visitor back to the airport, on her way home to BRU.

For some reason she had her brother (same surname) buy her ticket using his credit card. Ticket bought back in april, thus long paid, and long CC bill paid presumably.

First, in BRU they gave her some trouble, checking CC data, who paid, etc. Brother being on holiday, traveling and out of reach.

At YYC on the way back again, although she had checked in online fine, when bringing her luggage, similar story, took the agent ten/fifteen minutes to sort things out.

Now, I understand that there are cases of people copying CC numbers, and buying tickets using a stranger's CC. Had happened to me on a couple of occasions. So, I can understand that a ticket bought on someone else's CC might raise a red flag.

However, when using my CC to buy a ticket for my wife, who uses her maiden's name, it's never an issue. Additionally, if the Cc bill that included the charge was paid by the cardholder, clearly the charge is legitimate so why a red flag?

Anyway, in the end things worked OK. But I wonder, why the issue in the first place?