Originally Posted by Dad5659
My son name is Andrew but he purchased a ticket in the common nmae he uses Drew. Do I need to be concerned? He is traveling to Spain and Germany this summer. We have been on international travel before but made sure ticket name adn passport matched. he used his Orbitz account name Drew to purchase.
I am thinking of providing him a notatrized document stating he goes by both names and have him take his birth certificate along with his passport.
Thoughts?
Presuming he's American, what I would consider doing is contacting the airline and have the name "difference" noted in the PNR. If the diminutive/nickname used was Andy for Andrew, it'd be far less of an "issue"; and, FWIW or not worth, I'd simply travel and not give it a second thought. With "Drew" for Andrew, I have no experience; but as long as the airline goes for it, there's no issue.
The notarized document noting both names being used is not a bad idea, but it's more clutter to burden the airline rep with. (The immigration authorities in the EU Schengen zone and in the US won't require it and it could just complicate matters so I would certainly not have him even consider presenting such unless asked specifically for such evidence.)
When it comes to Americans, the European immigration officials basically don't care; and once he's travelled there and his passport details are in the PNR, then on the return there'd be no trouble as long as the airline rep found the reservation in the system. (That is to say, a swipe of the passport to pull up the reservation may not be as productive as having the airline agent pull up the reservation with either the record locator or the ticket number. Instead he should simply tell the airline rep at check-in that the reservation has his first name recorded as the common version of his name and they should use XYZ record locator to pull up the reservation.)
US Immigration doesn't make an issue about it either, although US immigration officials may have trouble trying to figure out which flight he came off. But that's just one very quick question and answer.