Hi All,

I'm planning a honeymoon and looking into booking a Continental ticket. Our wedding is in late August and our honeymoon will be in late October. We are just about to book a plane ticket and haven't because we realized there would be name change issues. Does Continental charge a fee for changing names?

I'd recommend just waiting on the name change until after the honeymoon. You're looking at roughly 2 months to get a new passport which is cutting it kind of close.

Completely agree. As someone who has cut it extremely close on getting a new passport, it is not something I would recommend (especially right after your wedding).

If you do decide to change it before, by then it would be completely under United's control. I believe there is a $150 fee for changing the name on a ticketed reservation. It might be up to the discretion of a supervisor on whether they will actually charge it due to it being the same passenger.

The other option is just keep your names separate until after you return. Dont legally change your name.

Thanks everyone!

Just keep your old ID and passport and travel with that until it's convenient to get a new one.

Even if you officially change your name, travel will not be an issue and is easily explained provided you have your old ID.

Or marriage license that shows original name.

I travelled around for 3 years+ on my passport in my maiden name when I got married because I was too tight to fork out the change fee. I had not long got a new 10 year passport when darling hubby decided to pop the question.

In fact - the only reason I decided to change it was the arrival of Miss UK and we wanted to add her to one of our passports (back when you could do that sort of thing) so I killed 2 birds with one stone - changed name and added her, and only got charged one fee.

The airlines don't mind as long as you book your tickets with the name on the passport you will be using..... only trouble is - the longer you carry on with it - the easier it is to book with the married rather than the maiden name......

Why do you want to change your name anyway upon marriage?

It totally depends on where you are going and what ID's you will be using, but the ticket name has to match the name on the ID.

So get the ticket in whatever name the ID will be in when you are going to use it.

If your honeymoon is in Hawaii and you live in a state that hands you a new drivers license on the spot when you show up with your old one and a marriage certificate that's a much different situation than waiting to change the name on a passport because the honeymoon is in Europe. One takes ten minutes, the other ten weeks.

Either way, there's no need to wait on buying the ticket, just make sure it's in the name of the ID you will be using when you fly.

But yes, there will be a fee to change the name on the ticket, but you don't have to wait to purchase it until after the wedding if that's the name you will be using for it.

That isn't true everywhere these days - places can and do refuse to accept anything other than current, official identification that matches the reservation. It is easily explained, and less official places may take it (like the hotel loyalty program I had forgotten to change last weekend!) but for things like flights they want government issue ID in the same name as the ticket.

Out of interest-- does this work very differently in the US than here?

Here when one marries, one's name does not legally change, but one gains the right to use the spouse's name. That name is added to one's passport, but does not replace one's original name.

In the US, most will replace their maiden (original) name with the husband's last name.

I'm not sure I'd say "most" in the USA do this, but it depends of course on location, education, etc. I know few women of my generation and younger who use their husband's name, especially if they have a good professional jb.

According to this (unscientific) article, 70%-88% of brides take their husband's name...

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/bride...ory?id=8410832