Need4Speed

I took advantage of last November’s 50% redemption sale and booked the family First to BGI. We always travel CW to BGI, so it was an excellent opportunity to sample First for the usual redemption ‘cost’ of PE+. At the time of booking, I was unable to secure any suitable direct connecting flights to and from LGW. Bizarrely the majority of connecting flights were for LCY and LHR, and the only LGW flights offered would have resulted in a 14+ hour stop-over both ways. Despite phoning BA I was unable to get this resolved, so agreed to book the connecting flights myself and then get the two separate bookings linked.

Anyway I held back on booking the connecting flights until we finalized our schedules and decided what outbound connecting flight to take [night before or same day]. When I finally booked the connecting flights a few weeks ago, I inadvertently entered both my wife’s and daughter’s names back to front [first name as surname and vice versa]. After spotting my blunder, I contacted the Exec Club and the agent I spoke to contacted the check-in desk at EDI for advice on this. He advised me that they said this would be OK and made a note to this affect within the booking. I also spoke to someone else at BA regarding this and having read this note, they simply advised me not to worry about it.

Our trip is now fast approaching and I’m now a little bit concerned that my wife and daughter could effectively be denied boarding, due to their names being back to front. Should I request BA to rectify this for me before travel or is this nothing to worry about? I would be grateful for any advice on this.

KVS

The advice you have been given is correct.

Stez

I had tickets with my three names in different orders with BA and other airlines. There should be no problems.

beardedgeologist

Are you BOUTROS BOUTROS GHALI? What do his tickets say?

bizclassboy

Yeah but you forgot to tell us that you ended up in the North Pole

doreenmc

I'm sure this happens often ... well, at least that's my excuse for having done similar with an AA booking - I only became aware of my mistake when I couldn't access the booking and phoned - the agent didn't seem that worried and putting in my first name instead of my surname meant I could get to the booking.

One slight problem was my BA Tier points didn't post and I had to send in booking and boarding card, so hang on to the paperwork.

Globaliser

I did it earlier this year on JL. I called, and the agent just entered a note into the booking to say this was what had happened. No hitches with check-in or travel at all.

Our FF numbers wouldn't go into the system, though, because the names didn't then "match" the FF accounts. So, like doreenmc, I had to send in the paperwork - but all was well there, too.

Stez

I wish - I much prefer the cold. However, I ended up in Libya instead!

baggageinhall

I have just come back from a trip where one of our number had the same issue.

The only problem that we encountered was that when the self-service machine asked him to put his Passport in to verify the details the system wouldn't proceed further as the name was incorrect.

A quick trip to the check-in desk resolved the issue.

House

This issue happens to me on around 50% of my trips within China and around the region (Chinese names are written [Family Name] [First Name], hence the confusion) and there has never been a problem. I've even been booked onto domestic flights under my ridiculous made-up name in Chinese characters and even that was OK, though I had to produce my business card as evidence of my identity...

trickster

I had this problem on an Air Mauritius booking from JNB to MRU

Booked on their website and didn't realise that their web-form was surname first!

I called up and was told it was not a problem. Calling up and explaining to the agent in MRU was a challenge in itself.

The issue only manifested itself at the airport momentarily when the check-in agent scanned our passports and couldn't find us on the flight. As soon as I mentioned the names were the wrong way round, he found us. Phew! I'd be prepared for that happening, and I'm sure it will be fine.