Originally Posted by Fredde87

Hey guys,

Recently flew Santorini to Rome with Blu Express (low budget version of Blue Panorama). Has anyone flown with them before and been a victim of their middle name scam?

Basically I booked my flight with them a few months ago when they operated their old outdated website. The website asked me for my first name and last name (there was no field to input my middle name so I left it out). But when I got to the airport the check-in lady insisted I had to go pay a 50 euro name change fee because my middle name was not on the booking. I tried to explain to her that their website never asked for a middle name but it fell on deaf ears as the airline has no representation at the airport and she didn't work for the airline.

So I had to go to the Swissport desk and pay the 50 euro name change fee. I checked their website and noticed that they have now launched a new modern website which does now ask for the passengers middle name. She told me it was launched on the 8th of April, just 4 days after I made my booking using their old website.

She said though the airline is aware of this, they (Swissport) are still instructed by the airline to still deny boarding unless the passengers pay the 50 euro fee (there was a queue of 20 other passengers in the same situation as me). She said they have been doing this for over 2 years. I had a quick google for the airlines name plus the word fraud/scam which confirms this as you can find loads of various facebook/twitter groups and petitions with thousands of other passengers that have fallen for this scam.

We were told to try to contact the airline in FCO to reclaim the fee, but arrive into Rome they had no representation at this airport either... I've emailed them to raise the issue and they just copied and pasted a standard reply referring to their condition of carriage which states middle name has to be on the booking. But they failed to answer my follow up question about where in the booking process I am supposed to supply the middle name if there is no field for it. I can't telepathically tell them my middle name and even if I called them up 10 seconds after making the booking they would probably still charge me a 50 euro name change fee to add my middle name onto the booking.

I've contacted the Italian Civil Aviation Authority (ENAC) about it as well as the ECC (European Consumer Centre), although I am still waiting to hear back from both.
may also contact my credit card provider for a reverse charge because even though I paid the 50 euros, they just charged my card and gave me a receipt to say I had paid 50 euros. They never actually changed the name on my booking and when they printed out my boarding card it still did not have my middle name on it. So I might try to argue that they charged me for a service they never provided.

I dont really care about the 50 euros to be honest. Its mostly a matter of principal and because I was shocked at how many other passengers were held hostage too at the airport. The Swissport lady says this happens for all their flights every week, so they must be scamming thousands of passengers per year.

In one way i was lucky. A American couple in the queue with me had booked via Priceline. They had supplied their middle names to Prlceline but Priceline had not passed it on to the airline. Even though they could show their Priceline booking had the their middle name the airline wouldn't budge. And I think because they had booked it after the new website was launched (even though they used priceline and not the airlines website) they were forced to pay 399 euros each. I suspect the airline just cancelled their original ticket and resold it back to them at full price.

Anyone else come across this disgraceful airline before? Has anyone else fallen for their tricks and had any luck at claiming their money back (or more importantly reported them to the appropriate authorities?).