Ticket problem - surname and initial
 

I recently bought a xONEx for Mrs og and myself. This was from CX in their downtown BKK office. All seemed fine until I rang AA to request seats on several sectors. They said "you have a problem, your ticket won't be accepted because you only have your first initial with your surname instead of your whole first name. You'll have to get it re-issued with the correct information".

Sent a message back to CX and their reply was that I'd have to pay a re-issue fee to them for them to re-issue with my full name on the ticket.

Needless to say, full name information was presented to CX when the ticket was bought. That may well be my word against theirs. AA also accepted the reservation because they issued an AA PNR back to CX with the confirmation of the bookings. Now, AA tells me that the ticket is not acceptable (even though they still made seat reservations at my request).

In addition, Mrs og's real name (surname and first name) is too long to fit on the ticket. I don't know how they will cope with this - but that is not the point at the moment.

Can I get some worldly advice on what to do - please fellow FTers. Should I hope for the best and front up at the AA desk (for a US domestic flight) and hope that they accept me? Should I get the tickets re-issued with full names - and how much of a fight is warrented to avoid the re-issue fee since the ticket was issued in the first place by CX with (what AA call) errors that make it not acceptable?

I sympathise with your problem which was caused by CX rather than by you - but I would strongly recommend getting the tickets and pnr changed to the correct name - in my previous job as a travel agent I have found all US carriers to be more and more strict about correct names in bookings - to the extent that I can remember some instances where the airline actually cancelled reservations that only had initials .

I am very surprised at CX making a booking on an itinerary involving the US without a full name - my understanding is that all major carriers to / from the US have required full name/passport matching for quite some time.

In a situation where your wife's name cannot fit into the ticket field it does get quite tricky - some countries permit an endorsement in the passport stating "also known as" unfortunately with the current level of paranoia in the US this could also be asking for trouble.

If I were you I would go back to CX and press them to waive the reissue fee - but if they wont I would still get the tickets changed at my own expense - it is simply not worth the risk

good luck :)

In my past 3 DONE4 experience I always just used my initial and Surname. Not a problem. The checkin agent jsut enter in the full name and PAssport number to make sure things work.

Was this on AA flights in the USA?

My previous xONE4 has surname / initial as you relate. The AA USA segments were OK with just that - but it was 9 months ago. Surely things have not changed that much?

Yep it was on both AA and CX. Both of them enter in the full name into the PNR (as it is seperate PNR) and the Passport numbers.

The last one I did was back in Dec 2004.

I think to be safe just call up CX and ask them to put a SSR into the AA booking alerting to the Full name and Passport name. This should NOT be a ticket reissue.

Og, you may not like this news but my ticket US-Australia (we are off in 2 weeks) was just issued by AA with not just lastname/firstname, but lastname/firstnamefirstmiddlenamesecondmiddlename. And it was just about that many letters. Their comment was that even though the whole name didn't fit, they still needed it. Kind of like my green card which cuts off mid way through one of my names and the INS say "that's fine, sir." It is freakish over here. Personally, I would belly up passport in hand and I am sure you would carry the day, but if you are nervous then get the reissue done.

The AA agent was absolutely wrong.

As per the IATA rules, a ticket requires a last name + the 1st initial (e.g. SMITH/J). All other elements (e.g. Title/First Name/Middle Name/21st Name/Suffix/etc.) are entirely optional.

Agree but maybe this is about Homeland Security requirements rather than IATA?

Then, is a note in the PNR with full name details sufficient ? - as newcx12345 stated:
I think to be safe just call up CX and ask them to put a SSR into the AA booking alerting to the Full name and Passport name. This should NOT be a ticket reissue.
(and what is a SSR)?

Well, "Under CAPPS II, airlines will ask passengers for a slightly expanded amount of reservation information, including full name, date of birth, home address, and home telephone number" but it has not yet been implemented. And although the US and the EU have reached detente on PNR information exchange, the full name is not part of the Schedule A information although what is will probably astound several folks out there. I don't believe full names is a DHS requirement as of today, and I would speculate that it is a systems requirement that the US airlines are putting in place in anticipation of CAPPS II going live.

Note that DHS uses the term "will ask for", which is different from "will require".

To clarify it further, as this article explains:
http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs....78&SectionCat=

Some folks don't use (or have) a real "first name": W.Clement Stone, F.Scott Fitzgerald ...

In my other reality, "gov't issue photo ID" says {X Caveat Empty}, as does the primary points-plastic; others are just X C Empty. Even TSA doesn't bat an eyelash.
The only real fuss comes at Travelocity -- first 'name' has to be 2 letters; X-dot makes it acceptable, but you can't login... :confused:

On another website, we call them 'farktards'.
No problem - no business for them.
/.

Thanks for those links eamus, and thanks to the others for posting. Looks like I'll contact AA and seek, in writing, their requirements - if any such requirements exist beyond that of the phone agent I spoke to. I do think it a bit rough that the AAagent also said "your whole itinerary is likely to be cancelled without this information".

Also looks like I'll be requesting that the issuing agent (CX in this case) annotate the PNR with our full names since it seems CAPPS II can extract from the PNR pretty much anything it wants to (I am not objecting to these measures). This is consistent with the comment from newcx12345 (and I do now know what SSR is).

Sorry. Actually SSR is a message that CX will send to AA via Telex (Maybe I am not using the correct term, but I see this on my PNR history dump.

SSR is a type of message that airlines (and some non-airlines use) use to communicate passenger info between each other. It's not strictly a CX and AA thing.

The passport format usually begins with SSR PSPT, and includes elements such as passport number, country of passport, date of birth, sex, and full name on passport.