simpleSnow

What's a A3 account? I have an airline card with United (tied to my US mileageplus account).

Barciur

Personally, I always put in my EU passport information when I book a ticket to EU and on my return check in, I put in the US information. Never had issues and I am not quite sure how ETIAS would cause any problems in this regard to be honest.

Also, from my experience, check-in lines at TATL flights are already crazy as majority of the people travel with checked luggage any way on those flights. So despite checking in online, I still have to go to the counter to drop off my luggage.

simpleSnow

Oh interesting, so you buy your ticket with EU passport info, but during check-in on the way back to US you check-in with your US passport info? Makes sense. The added complication for me is that my Given Names are flipped between the two passports (NAME1 NAME2 SURNAME vs NAME2 NAME1 SURNAME) but other than that same spelling and everything. I wonder if that will work for me or if it will raise a red flag and force me to manually check in.

TWA884

Aegean Airlines; it's a Star Alliance member.

stifle

How does the passport you use have any relevance to what frequent flyer program you credit?

GUWonder

A significant chunk of my dual US-EU citizen travel party members have their US passport-structured names not coming across as a direct match with their EU-passport structured names, and so I see these kind of issues with FFP credit for that reason too. Such US-EU dual-citizens with name "discrepancies" across passports may face an issue where the airlines can't load in their FFP number if the FFP account name is different in some ways than the name on the tickets. And even if the FFP number does get loaded by the flown/operating carrier, the crediting flying carrier or credited FFP carrier may or may not credit the FFP account for the flight segments when there is such an apparent discrepancy between names on the FFP account and the name on the ticket. Beside getting mileage credit for the flight, there is also the whole issue with getting FFP status benefits when the flight-operating carrier can't get the FFP account and its elite status to register in the operating carrier's system as a match for granting the FFP status benefits applicable to the account. [The idea of trying to change names on one or each of the countries' passports doesn't always fly well. Different countries have different rules applicable for what they will and will not allow with regard to changing names for their own nationals. And that's just for starters about issues in this sphere.] This was already an issue before ETIAS, but it will become more of an issue with ETIAS as some US citizens who currently more easily/cheaply just stick to flying out to the Schengen area with the US passport without even having to show an EU/Schengen country passport prior to arrival (if even then) will have to show the EU/Schengen country docs in order to try to get recognized as ETIAS-exempted. But these issues aren't novel ones, as they already come up with regard to the Australian ETA, Canadian ETA, etc -- it's just they will become more frequent when ETIAS and UK ETA requirements are no longer just on the horizon for ordinary US passport users but are actually coming into place so as to hit my flights before 2024 ends.

simpleSnow

Exactly. Also the concept of "middle name" is really a US thing, in German speaking countries for instance it's really just Given Name(s) and the names are co-legal. The issue of "middle name and first name being flipped" is more an issue in American systems where First and Middle name are treated as separate names.

stifle

Thanks cor the explanation.

SPN Lifer

This is the core issue. The traveller should do whatever it takes to have the names legally arranged in the same order in both passports. Perhaps a lawyer will be necessary. There is a similar issue with maternal and paternal family names in Latin American countries.

GUWonder

Not always legally possible, nor even always practical let alone desirable when and where it may be legally possible. Different countries — and even different jurisdictions within some countries (whether due to federal state structure or otherwise) — have different rules/restrictions for name changes. Also, the consequences of doing whatever it takes in pursuing or getting name changes varies; and even doing whatever it takes for some of those changes or attempts at changes to try to “harmonize” names across passports and other government documents are problematic. For this kind of situation where the names on the US passport don’t swipe in with the name in the same way as the foreign ID (which will evidence exemption from ETIAS), there is already a workaround that I’ve seen in play a bunch; but I’ve also seen nervous US check-in and gate agents get anxious when this kind of thing comes up for Europe-US-Europe round trip tickets both well before ETIAS was getting funded for development and since. I expect this to be more of an issue going forward once ETIAS is in place

simpleSnow

It was never an issue for American bureaucracy nor for the EU state bureaucracy all this time. I don't want to go through a legal process of name order change just for airline agents or frequent flyer accumulation in one account.

hfly

Sometimes it is down to the airline and its training. I find that at large stations things that any DL agent can easily handle be it most sorts of passport/visa issues that we are discussing here, without even asking the passenger a question, while AA agents get very flustered and ask a bunch of often inane questions and they take forever.

simpleSnow

Yeah I think a lot of this can be done online, esp with biometric passports, very hard to be granted entry on someone else's passport.

GUWonder Is it okay to have two frequent flyer accounts with the same airline for the two names? I'm thinking if miles accumulate with the 1 account can always buy a ticket with miles for the other name order just like you can buy tickets with miles for other people. Just don't want the airline to think I'm doing anything fishy.

GUWonder

Another way to try to deal with this situation is to try to become more reliant upon requesting "missing mileage credit", but that has become more of a wild card in such situations than it used to be even a decade ago despite there probably being more people nowadays with foreign country-issued docs evidencing exemption to destination-country visa type requirements -- evisas/ETAs included -- than when Australia got this ETA type thing rolling and on the radar of the USG -- and other countries -- as being a way to further monitor and control cross-border air travel even for nationals from other high-income countries and increasing the fuss over names on documents.

Just as happened with Australia's ETA, I have no doubt that ETIAS will come with more airline agent and passport control fuss over names than is already the case. The inclination of governments and airlines to accept diversity of practice with regard to names as normal has taken a nose dive as paranoia about travelers has risen or otherwise been used as an excuse of the day to expand monitoring and control of travelers.

Airlines often have language in their FFP terms that limit customers to one account in the program per individual. Some of those airlines, however, have had management allow -- actually even suggested and directly opened -- more than one account in the FFPs per individual despite the terms in the FFP. But then there can be employees down the chain in the airlines who will go ahead and merge or shut-down the "duplicates" with or without customer approval -- which can be a good thing if wanting a "free" transfer of the miles into one account. But to avoid a customer-unfriendly account shut-down or an account merger going the wrong way, the travelers could just pick a separate program per issuing country/jurisdiction of the passports/IDs to be used for travel.

[EgyptAir is a program where I've come across people who had themselves listed as same-household siblings or something -- and had the exact same birthday showing -- and the miles from the household accounts combined and counted toward status for the "head of household" individual in each such "family account", even when some would consider the docs to be for siblings (twins or otherwise). ]

iamflyer

Potentially delayed to 2024? The official site now says: