Misspelled Name on Ticket
 

Yesterday, I booked 2 tickets on Icelandair and immediately realized that my friend's name was misspelled--the last letter is missing. (Jane Smit instead of Jane Smith.) I called to fix it. I understand there's a $25 fee to change it and I'm fine with that. However, instead of actually changing the ticket, the agent just added a note to the booking. I asked several times if this would be okay when we check in, and she said it was, but I'm not sure I believe her. Especially since this is an international flight. Will my friend be able to check in and get through security with a typo on her ticket?

One letter difference should be fine. Were you charged the $25 fee? If so they should correct and re-issue the ticket.

Thanks, nux. Nope, they didn't charge--I think the agent was trying to save me the fee.

Then I wouldn't worry about it, it should be fine to checkin at the airport.

This topic has been discussed many times on FT. I, and many others, have traveled with worse errors and no problems. Don't worry.

Have you done this on an international ticket touching the USA? CBP might be less happy with a different name, OPs worries are justified.

However the passenger data which is transmitted to CBP is usually edited by the traveller at checkin, or the checkin agent themselves, so I wouldn't really worry. (They have to transmit additional data including possible middle names, passport numbers and dates, and destination data - and from what I can remember all the fields including passenger name can be edited at this point.)

(I am of course assuming this is a flight to the USA, since that's Icelandair's main business - if it's a Europe to Iceland ticket I really wouldn't worry at all, if you're coming from Schengen then there's a good chance absolutely no-one will check your ID. Even from the UK they won't really care.)

CBP won't care. APIS data is entered at check-in based on passport data. So long as that matches, CBP could care less.

Yes, I have. More than once. My name is unusual and is easily misspelled. I get it right when I book online, but it's often wrong when someone else books my travel. (That's not unusual in the consulting biz when clients want to book travel for you.)

The worst that ever happened to me was that I needed to tell check-in agents what name to look under to find my booking. That's in about a quarter-century of serious travel, well over a million real butt-in-seat miles*, and several U.S. passports with extra pages that were pretty full. I really do know what I'm talking about here.

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*For what it's worth, which is not much, I'm posting this from the Adelaide, Australia airport, connecting to Sydney. I'll be 20,000+ miles closer to 1MM on Delta when I get home than I was a week ago.