Originally Posted by
NewYorkMoscowFlyer64
I have a new problem as a result of this. I, too, needed to add in my middle name. However, in my Delta profile, my middle name is entered with an initial capital letter. In the secure flight data, my middle name got entered in all caps. Despite extreme efforts on my part, Delta refuses to have the capitalization match on the way my middle name appears in the two places. The real problem is that when I try to buy a ticket in Delta.com, it now populates (or only recognizes the skymiles account of) my name with 4 names, the usual first and last, but with the middle name appearing twice -- once in all caps and the other time with initial cap. I can no longer buy tickets online and have to buy them on the telephone because of this problem. Delta claims to be working to resolve this problem, but insists that, no matter what, I cannot change the capitalization of my middle names in the two places -- they must appear different (seems bizarre to me).
My Delta Skymiles account had my first and middle initial together listed for my first name (separated by a space). While it would initially use this for my first name when booking a ticket on delta.com, I found that I could change it by editing the passenger info section before making the purchase. Of course, after purchase, it's too late. I noticed they seemed to have moved my middle initial to the middle name section in my account. Also, I see they now have a "Preferred First Name" field in your profile. I believe this is a recent addition as I don't recall seeing it before.
More recently, I just noticed that delta.com seems to be using my Secure Flight Passenger Data profile information to initially populate my passenger name information when purchasing my tickets. So I no longer need to explicitly modify the passenger info section when booking a flight. Note that each ticket has a copy of your Secure Flight Passenger Data stored with it. You used to be able to modify your Secure Flight name after purchase for each ticket, but now it says you have to call (it will show what it currently has stored with the individual ticket). It still allows you to modify your gender and birthdate under the "Passenger Information" drop-down on each ticket. I do not believe they attempt to match your Skymiles account name with your Secure Flight Passenger Data on your ticket. I believe they only match the passenger name recorded on each ticket with the Secure Flight Passenger Data passenger name associated with that ticket.