We recently booked 2 business class tickets return from Ho Chi Minh to JFK, however the agent has booked in the wrong names as with Vietnamese names the surname is first, so has added ours as FIRSTNAME/ Middle, Surname instead of SURNAME/ First, Middle as is standard in western countries. We have checked with the US authorities and they have confirmed that we would not be able to fly with this incorrect order of names.

The agent has been totally unhelpful and said that we would need to book an entire new ticket and cancel the old ticket and wait 6 weeks for a refund which we are not willing to do as cost is almost $10,000.

We have contacted Qatar support staff who are unbelievably bad. We tried to call Qatar Thailand however the phone was constantly engaged for the past 5 days. We eventually got onto Qatar Vietnam who have said they cant do anything and have to deal with the agent.

Has anybody previously had this problem and no any work around as at present it looks like our only option is to cancel the flights and wait for 6 weeks for the refund which will result in us missing our flights as we are unwilling to pay again for something that has already paid for?