I booked through BA using Avios and there wasn't the option to input the middle name. I called CX and they said BA would be able to add the middle name. I called Ba and they said they could not make any changes to the names. They would have to cancel and rebook and potentially lose my booking. This is not my fault and I do not want to risk losing my seat. A lot of finger pointing and nothign is done.

1) Will CX not allow me to board because the ticket doesn't match the passport?

2) What is the best way around this.

For me, I always try to avoid using any "Middle Name" field in general. What I usually do is enter my First and Middle names in the "First Name" field, and that always seems to work.

Thanks for the advice. It would've been helpful if BA provided that advice at booking!


Anyway.. so I think I will leave it alone. I called CX last time and they were adament that I add the middle name to the booking by calling BA.

Today I called back and got another agent and she said no bigggie and just leave it at that.

Two calls and two responses. I'm not about to waste another 30 min on hold.

If anyone here have experience pls share. I'm guessing that there won't be a problem.

Middle name not required on ticket. I have a middle name and never enter it. Not once had a problem.

I totally agree!

It actually causes more problem for me as my middle name would never print properly on any of my boarding passes (it gets cut off in the middle) as all of my names combined is too long.

I just book my flights using my FIRST and LAST name and never had a problem.

However, if you are flying to/from the US, always ask the airline/travel agent to input your LAST/FIRST/MIDDLE names into the SSR DOCS field for APIS and SecureFlight purposes (this field never shows up on your ticket/boarding pass) and only your LAST/FIRST name in the name field of the reservation (this field gets printed onto your tickets and boarding pass).

Please! I'm sure their TAs know what to do.

the only issue you will have is when crediting milege to your frequent flyer account. it maybe rejected so you will have to call up and request them to do it manually for you....but you will not have any issues when flying....

Depends. In my case my MPC account has no middle name either.

Even when travelling to USA, nobody has ever raised a flag and in case any internal field needs to be updated, they probably do so at checkin.

Yeah, I have not had this problem flying with Singapore or anywhere in the USA. It appears that it's just a Cathay Pacific requirement, or so I was told.

Just irritating to be told different things by CX. Supposedly they even sent BA a memo stating that if the name does not match exactly, the passenger will not be allowed to board.

God to know others did not have any problems relating to the exact name on passport with CX. Feel more confident now!

In future, if there is a field for middle name just fill in. Otherwise, use first and last (family name). In certain cases, the form will ask first, middle initial and last name. In all cases, all the names on the ticket MUST match the names on the passport. However, if the ticket has just your first and last name although your passport has a middle name you are pretty safe to board. Moving forward, if middle name is asked for in the form make sure you have it in full and not just the initial.

my tickets for my child with two first names and last names always get squished together with BA mile bookings on CX so it is FIRSTNAMESECONDNAME FIRSTLASTNAMESECONDLASTNAME all the time with no middle names. never an issue and does not match my childs passport that obviously has spaces between the names.

It is an official requirement of CX that the passenger name on the passport must match the ticket. The agent was not wrong to say this. However, in practice, the absence of a middle name on your ticket will cause no problem.

My passport:

Given name: FIRSTNAME SECONDNAME
Surname: LASTNAME

All my tickets are booked as LASTNAME/FIRSTNAME MR and my MPC account reads Mr FIRSTNAME LASTNAME.

In travelling to various continents throughout the world, including the US recently, I have never had any problem and the OP has absolutely nothing to worry about.

Since it is an Avios ticket, even if then name doesn't match the BAEC account, it doesn't matter, because you're not going to earn miles on it anyway.

My problem is that the form did not have middle name field. I called cx and was told ba could add it afterwrd but ba said they couldnt. Ba's failure to make that field available caused his problem.

Ditto - I have been in the same situations for quite a few times, never had an issue.

Maybe the form should be reviewed and improved to avoid SLC's confusion... but BA will not deny your boarding. My last experience with BA was upon check-in they looked at my passport and identified the ticket only had my First Name and Last Name - the Check-in agent simply prints the BP and hand wrote my middle name after my first name on the BP. She did the same for the person before me too. I didn't have issue to get the mileage credited into MPC either.

Funny, I had a similar experience in June 2011 when I booked an award ticket JFK-HKG using my BA miles. In my case my title ended up as my middle name. My passport doesn't show my title btw. When I first telephoned CX to remove it because it obviously wasn't my middle name, I was told to contact BA. CX even assured me that it was normal for a passenger's title to appear between first and family names... Naturally, I wasn't convinced and contacted BA but got the same answer that they could not make any changes to the name. So I contacted CX again, and they also told me that in order to change the name, they would have to cancel and rebook my ticket! However, the 2nd or the 3rd CX agent I spoke with was able to remove it somehow ^