"Secure Flight" and Name Issues
 

Like a fair number of people, I use my middle name instead of my first. My parents determined that, and it's fine with me. But it may not be fine with the TSA, right?

Now WN and AA are after me for a precise legal name, citing "Secure Flight," as United was some time ago (I travel internationally with them).

But I have no intention of changing my middle name + last name combination with credit card companies, hotels, etc. And therein might lie a problem, perhaps, when it comes time to charge a purchase with an airline, or transfer points to/from a hotel program? I think some programs require that names match exactly.

Who has had a problem in this regard?

And is it really necessary to use your first name instead of your middle name in the "Secure Flight" program?

With secure flight you need to provide your name as it appears on the ID you will be using at the airport when you take your flight.

My passport has my full name, so I need to provide my full name, as it appears on my passport, when I travel abroad or use the passport for ID.

My drivers license is LASTNAME, FIRST, MI .. so for domestic flights I just provide my first and last names as it appears on my drivers license.

The bottom line - what does your drivers license and passport have? Name will need to match the document you use for the secure flight information submission.

Edit to add:

I've also found TSO's are starting to get strict matching the name as it appears on your ticket to your ID. The ticket name field is different entry than the secure flight field - but I'd suggest your first and last names match your ID to prevent any problems.

Secure Flight is crap...don't pay it any attention...and you don't need to do the 'registration' with your airline unless they force it to complete the registration.

There is no checking of your secure flight inputs against your PNR at the checkpoint - just make sure your boarding pass name matches your ID name, although the absence or inclusion of a middle name on one or the other is not an issue. The screener has absolutely no way of knowing what information you gave SF - for all they know, you could have named yourself 'Baba Ganouch' on their system.

My DL has my middle name...my BP does not. No issues. I have not 'registered' for SF with my airline. No issues.

I've stopped providing my data too as it does not appear to be mandatory at this point.

In fact, I just used online check-in for flights tomorrow morning where I didn't submit the Secure Flight data. Are any booking outlets making it mandatory yet?

Best thing for the OP is to make sure the ticket name matches the ID name. I've seen the TSA get shirty over differences like Bill vs William, Steve vs Steven vs Stephen, etc.

My DL is LASTNAME, FIRSTNAME, MI .. I just provide first and last names for my tickets.

My company's travel agents made us do this. We were going to get in trouble with our management if we didn't put full name, db, and gender in the TA's website.:td: I dragged my feet, but since I don't have another job lined up I did comply. I haven't updated anything else though and i'm not sure what their booking site does with the info.

Funny how the TSA spends so much time and money on this, yet they leave a huge loop-hole ... nobody verifies the secure fright data against your ID.

Don't want to give them any ideas though .. TSA is bad enough as it is.

It appears a number of airlines have started to collect the Secure Flight data, but it is not mandatory yet.

After you book a ticket on delta.com, for example, the purchase thank you screen appears and there is link to provide your secure flight data .. but they don't force you to provide it.

I've given it a couple of times until I realized it isn't mandatory at this point.

Well it's good to know that registration isn't required at this point. But, assuming it is someday, is there something wrong with just using my middle and last names? Both those names are on my drivers license and passport. But those documents also have my first name, which doesn't appear on much else. Any problems?

But this is just my corporate TA. I have no clue if their system is actually transmitting anything. I don't even think it's mandatory to have filled in on their site, but if the agency tells my manager it's not filled in I get in trouble even though it's not mandatory with TSA

An extra (or missing) middle name isn't a problem - but an extra (or missing) first name could be...depends on the ID Smurf

I have refused to enter my data on AA's website sine they started asking for it. I will make up data if they begin to require me to enter it.

I'm not going for this crap, the TSA can go stick it.

First initial OK
 

According to a 16 Dec 08 TSA document, first initial is ok:

Secure Flight allows first initial only; however, may cause a higher occurrence of Inhibited responses.
Alphabetic, no numeric or special characters, except dash ( - ) and single quote ( ‘ )
Do not include honorifics.
Truncate names longer than 35 characters to 35 characters."

(Lower part of Page 1.)

They should just forget about "Secure Flight", it makes nothing "secure".

(In)Secure Flight should be scrapped. It's a system that depends on multiple myths becoming true and the goodwill of criminals.

Secure Flight is an expensive joke - but it's not there to make anything more secure, it's there to undo some of the havoc caused by the completely botched and mismanaged watch/no-fly list which of course doesn't actually contain the names of any known terrorists :rolleyes:

Think of it as a Jedi mind trick you're playing on the TSA - by registering, you're basically saying "I'm not the Bob Smith you're looking for. Move along"

So - this generally means that you should register if you have NFL/watch list issues as it will help you - otherwise, either don't bother registering or you can put in phony data if you choose to. Just hope the phony data doesn't accidently match someone ON the NFL :)

The name is a silly marketing spin - make it appear to 'secure' or improve aviation security so it encourages compliance. TSA nonsense at its best (worst).

The name match (ID to BP) could be an issue under the following circumstances (depending on the Smurf in question), as it pertains to the OP:

Name on ID: Robert T Jones
Name on BP: Thomas Jones (bad)
Name on BP: R Thomas Jones (not so bad, but could still be a problem)

If you want proof that this is never going to work, do a search for "HSPD-6 terrorism nexus criteria." There are so many fingers in the pot that this program can't possibly function properly.

From the FBI, a bunch of hogwash:

"TSC (Terrorist Screening Center) is leading significant improvements in counterterrorism information sharing among federal, state, local, and international agencies by distributing information about encounters with known or suspected terrorists reported to its 24/7 call center."

"The TSC has no authority to conduct intelligence collection or other operations. The TSC does not collect intelligence, but only receives identity information collected by other governmental entities authorized by law to do so, with their own policies and procedures to protect privacy rights and civil liberties. The TSC maintains information on known or appropriately suspected terrorists only; it does not maintain information on persons who have no nexus to terrorism."

If it's the same TA as our corporate travel fools, they transmit that and a lot more. For example, for a flight on UA yesterday, the transmitted not only my UA FF number, but also AA, CO, DL and B6. They were inserted into some odd field by the UA site and showed up on the check-in screen.

Be very, very careful what you put in the TA site, else stuff like your DL or PP number will be transmitted to the airline for every reservation. TAs take as many steps to protect your privacy as my kitchen strainer holds water.

How about
Name on ID: Robert Thomas Jones
Name on BP: Thomas Jones

?

I think this will be one of those 'up to the Smurf' deals. If you've been making it through the checkpoint this way up to now, I don't see anything changing.

Well I'm not American, although I travel to and within the US a lot. In the country where I was born and which issued my passport, there is no connection whatsoever between first and given names. In fact, almost everybody is called by their second or third forename. Whilst official records keep track of our given names, passports do not specify them, but they do list all our forenames in full. In my case, my given name is my third forename. I have absolutely no desire to be called by my first name, which I don't consider mine at all, but my grandfather's. I have always travelled under my third and given name without any problems, apart from one or two INS morons who took it upon themselves to cross out my given name on the visa waiver form and replace it with my first name. Is Secure Flight likely to create any problems for me travelling under my actual, third name, carrying a passport which lists all my forenames?

Unless your third name and the other name(s) in which you get your ticket issued is the same name of a person on the government blacklists, the (In)Secure Flight engine shouldn't give you any problem.

DHS employees -- such as TSA's Kafkaesque ID clerks -- don't routinely make an issue of such things at the airport but that's no guarantee that some zealot won't be on the war path.

Many thanks, that's reassuring

Well if that actually happens, it'll be me they're after - I'm one of a kind :D

I'm less scared of them than of the immigration nazis. It's never happened yet, but if it does, and if I have time, I might entertain myself by playing the ethnic discrimination card ;)

A variety of people with roots in various parts of Europe and huge parts of Asia or Africa would have a good claim to make about ethnic discrimination if this were to be made an issue by the TSA.

As you are aware, the traditional naming convention that is most prevalent in the US and Europe is not the traditional naming convention for every culture around the world. In some parts of the world, application of the most prevalent US and European naming convention to persons of cultures with their own naming conventions would be considered a violation of traditional cultural norms or even an insult.

Sorry, me again. I flew to the US (on United) using my third = given name as usual just before Christmas without any issues. However, the other day, when checking in at Heathrow, I was given a strong talking to by the UA check-in agent who said that continued use of my given and actual forename would no longer be acceptable when traveling to the US. Fortunately, this flight was LHR-BRU, but it made me feel a bit apprehensive about the risk of United (or another airline) refusing me boarding even if the TSA doesn't. Has anybody had any recent experiences with this?

I must the the possibility of being forced to travel under a name that neither I nor anybody else knows me by fills me with trepidation. Obviously, all my frequent traveller accounts, credit cards, and work ID and other documents are issued in my actual name.

Sorry to keep trying to resurrect this one, but I'm about to book a number of flights to the US and getting increasingly anxious. My attempt to ask the question in the UA forum led to immediate thread closure without appeal. I tried to ask the question to the TSA using their web form - their response was an e-mail without a word, enclosing a traveler redress program form (how could I be so naive to expect anything less moronic?). So, again, if anybody has continued to travel to the US in recent months using their given (but not first) forename, with or without problems, on UA or any other airline, I would be immensely grateful if you could share your experiences. I did see a rather desperate thread on the CO forum back in December (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/conti...-ueseless.html), but it fizzled out after a day without any update about how it ended.

I've been flying with people last month and this month on UA flights from Europe to the US who were traveling in a situation akin to yours and they had no problems other than the old issue related to the frequent flyer program and/or the agents being able to pull up the reservation with a swipe of the passport. UA is more than capable to pull up a reservation without swiping a passport, and Ua is also capable of forwarding over the passport-related details the way the government wants it regardless of the name on the ticket.

Don't take the data matching too seriously - I've booked and flown 3 trips, albeit domestic, using my name (without the middle name which appears on my ID), and using a slightly different date of birth each time. No issues.

Agree. The OP is making too big a deal of this. The tickets will be honored, in my opinion.

Me, too. I haven't made up birthdates; I just haven't added mine to any reservation. I've flown a bunch of domestic flights on a couple of carriers this year. I always get the red warning flag that my required Secure Flight data is incomplete. I've ignored the warnings since Day 1 and printed my BP anyway. My name shows up the way it always has -- MI rather than full middle name that's on my brown passport.

People of any age who can't get off the list by a number of proven techniques have to go through what amounts to a security clearance background check for the privilege of maybe being allowed to buy a plane ticket. Ugh -- don't get me going...

With regard to some passengers who had never before to deal with their name being blacklisted when such passengers were not supplying DOB and gender info for "Secure Flight", their providing accurate date-of-birth and gender info for "Secure Flight" processing is nowadays resulting in blacklisted person treatment.

InSecureFlight has solved nothing.

Some people may be better off indeed by providing these clowns with incorrect information.

First Name and Middle Name Problem
 

Flying several itins on AS domestic recently. When booking award tickets, as demanded I used my real first name as the traveler, as opposed to the middle name I use for everything else: common speech, AS Mileage Plan account, credit cards, etc. As a result, I wasn't able to use online checkin for either me or my wife (same PNR), and we had to do this at the airport. Seat change capability suffered, and we had to arrive a little earlier.

Lesson: put middle name in the "first name" box. Leave middle name blank. My identification shows all three names in full, so there shouldn't be a problem at the TSA checkpoint. Anyone with experience to the contrary, please weigh in.

My employer was forcing this as well, and even wanted those of us who don't fly on a regular basis to do it. Needless to say, I couldn't properly remember my gender or correct birthdate when I provided the information.