Hyphenated Name?

Old Jun 20, 2011, 6:57 pm
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Hyphenated Name?

I booked a flight (on BA) for a friend who has a hyphenated surname. However, the confirmation e-mail did not have the hyphen. I know that I put the hyphen on the booking form.
Will this be a problem, either checking in, or entering the US?
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Old Jun 20, 2011, 7:02 pm
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Just the - is missing?
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Old Jun 20, 2011, 7:15 pm
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I can't imagine that it would cause any issue, my US passport has an apostrophe but all the airlines I fly don't allow apostrophes on passenger name when booking a ticket. My wife also has a slightly different representation of our married name on her non US passport that does not match exactly the name I book her under or match her green card. You should be ok as long as the words are there, if it's completely different names, that another story.
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Old Jun 20, 2011, 7:24 pm
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My wife has a hyphenated last name, our experience is that no airline reservation/ticketing system allows hyphens. She has never had a ticket with the hyphen in the name, and never had any problem because of it.
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Old Jun 20, 2011, 7:33 pm
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Originally Posted by djk7
My wife has a hyphenated last name, our experience is that no airline reservation/ticketing system allows hyphens. She has never had a ticket with the hyphen in the name, and never had any problem because of it.
I agree.

My wife has three passports and only one matches her married name. She doesn't always use the one that matches her name on the ticket and hasn't had a problem yet. Although we'll have to remember that is unlikely to work when we go to the USA.
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Old Jun 21, 2011, 12:01 am
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Originally Posted by djk7
My wife has a hyphenated last name, our experience is that no airline reservation/ticketing system allows hyphens. She has never had a ticket with the hyphen in the name, and never had any problem because of it.
Same experience here. The system adjusts the surname to show with either a space or no space (i.e. just merging the two names into one continuous string).

It doesn't seem to cause any problems with matching to your EC account or with immigration details.

The only minor hassle we have experienced is when trying to retrieve a booking, you just have to try both options.
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Old Jun 21, 2011, 2:51 am
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Many thanks for your replies. It would seem that I can stop worrying.

HIDDY.......yes, only the - is missing. The two names have been joined together without the hyphen.
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Old Jun 21, 2011, 12:04 pm
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my last name consists of three words which always get compressed into one. Has never been a problem, hence why I think a missing hyphen shouldn't be a problem either; as long as the names are spelled correctly.
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Old Jun 21, 2011, 1:34 pm
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i echo others...

sometimes my childs first names are all together and same with her two last names...funny, but this most recent award booking it was perfect!!
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Old Jun 21, 2011, 4:37 pm
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Mr. halfcalf and I both have the same hyphenated name and it is always merged into one big name and has never been an issue.
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Old Jun 21, 2011, 8:01 pm
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Recognising BAEC details

The only thing I would add to this is that with a hyphenated surname I have had trouble with AA rejecting my BAEC details. Booking at AA.com seems to be OK with some playing around but booking through a travel agent, it was rejected time and time again and I lost the miles. Even when I tried to reclaim BA just didn't reply.
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Old Jan 31, 2018, 9:47 pm
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My son's name is hyphenated and also has an apostrophe. Recently he traveled to Canada and had a very difficult time because his ticket did not show either. Why is it that this happens sometimes and not others. We traveled abroad before and I don't recall if his ticket showed the hyphen or apostrophe but we did not have any problems.
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Old Jan 31, 2018, 11:01 pm
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Originally Posted by jlevy
My son's name is hyphenated and also has an apostrophe. Recently he traveled to Canada and had a very difficult time because his ticket did not show either. Why is it that this happens sometimes and not others. We traveled abroad before and I don't recall if his ticket showed the hyphen or apostrophe but we did not have any problems.
Neither a missing hyphen or apostrophe should cause any trouble when flying BA. That's all I can say.
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Old Jan 31, 2018, 11:31 pm
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Originally Posted by jlevy
My son's name is hyphenated and also has an apostrophe. Recently he traveled to Canada and had a very difficult time because his ticket did not show either. Why is it that this happens sometimes and not others. We traveled abroad before and I don't recall if his ticket showed the hyphen or apostrophe but we did not have any problems.
you don’t say what sort of problem. My best guess is an issue with api/electronic travel authorisation reconciliation? If the travel authorisation showed the punctuation but not the API or vice versa, maybe the passenger wasn’t automatically matched with the eta and the airline thus got an automatic warning that the passenger didn’t have travel authorisation?

I’m taking a wild guess here and maybe the issue was totally different but if not, in an age when much travel is about advanced reconciliation between various sources, consistency is the key so if you can’t hyphenate everything hyphenate nothing.

Last edited by orbitmic; Feb 1, 2018 at 2:46 am
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Old Feb 1, 2018, 1:56 am
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I also have a hyphenated surname and never had any issues on the variety of airlines (~100 excluding subsidiaries).

Either there is a space or both names are attached together.

Often there is a mismatch between the tickets and APIS/eTA/ESTA/GE/FFP etc [some with hyphen, some with space, tickets mainly without either], and yet it never caused any problems [other than cabin crew trying to greet me ]
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