Originally Posted by Parachute07

I know that various variations of this question have been posted. I'm looking for some advice as to what to do.

My wife and I travel a fair bit. We got married just over a year ago and took a long honeymoon abroad (several months). We only had a month between the wedding and the start of the honeymoon (and had booked all of the tickets), so we didn't change her name before the honeymoon. Then, we got back, and we've had a number of flights this year as well and haven't changed it yet.

The rest of our travel for 2016 is domestic -- though we do have an award ticket coming up for her next month on UA booked with SQ miles. Then, in January and February, we've got a long international trip planned. We have tickets booked with QR, EK, JQ, and VA. I still have to book an award flight to return to the US on SQ. We're going to need to apply for visas for Mozambique and Australia. Then we have tix booked on AM mid-year (on a biz class error fare). All of that is booked in her maiden name (which we haven't changed).

Because of all of that, we still haven't made the move to change my wife's last name -- I'm not sure how easy it will be to do a name change on the QR and EK tickets (both revenue tickets, QR in deep discount economy, EK in first). I imagine JQ won't make it easy, either....and AM certainly has no incentive to make it easy.

However, we'd both *like* to apply for global entry. We'd also *like* to not get declined. Our marriage certificate shows her "premarriage surname" (which is the name she is still using) and her "new surname" (my name) -- and of course, this is dated from 2015, but she's still using the "premarriage surname".

If it were possible to apply for GE now in her maiden name (which is what her passport and SSN show), I wouldn't be opposed to paying for it now and then paying for it again to get it changed at some point in 2017 or 2018 when we get around to changing her name (plenty of my CCs reimburse the fee). But I'm wondering if she'd even get through with the marriage license showing the new married name and all of her documentation showing her maiden name.

If it makes a difference, we're both US citizens, born and raised here -- so nothing complex in that department.

Should we just wait it out on GE until we someday find the time to change her last name? Is it possible to change her name legally now and change the tickets with QR, EK, JQ, and AM?

We're constantly planning trips -- 2017 is looking pretty full. We've got a Southwest CP and will again next year and in '18, so getting access to PreCheck would be nice (and I understand we're likely to get it with GE -- neither of us EVER gets PreCheck now). I'm not sure what the best method is for all this and would appreciate the advice of someone who has been there, done that so to speak. Thanks in advance.