Wrong name on the boarding pass
 

On our recent trip, my mother and I were listed as stand-by passengers for a flight. We were issued boarding passes just a few minutes before the gate closed, and since we were in a hurry, we did not bother to look at the names printed on the boarding passes, but were able to get on our flight without any trouble.

It was only when we arrived home that we realized my mother had been issued a boarding pass with another person's name on it, and had been able to use it without being questioned. I just want to know if this is going to pose any sort of problem for my mother or is this a common mistake that is often committed by ground agents, and is therefore overlooked? :confused:

Thank you in advance for your reply.

She might have some trouble getting mileage credit; no other likely
consequence. I was once issued a BP under the name Chad Stockov
and (under similar circumstances) boarded without looking at anything
but the seat number. Turns out that a bunch of BPs had been issued
at once and I'd just been handed the wrong one. In this case, someone
else sat in my seat and could see my mileage plan number (big whoop),
but of course I got credit for the flight.

shouldn't be any problems, this happens.

violist's account correctly explains the most common way that this can happen. An airline gate agent clears several or many standbys and prints each of their correct boarding passes and arrays them on the podium and calls all of the just-cleared passengers to the podium at the same time; but mistakenly hands someone else's boarding pass to the standby in the rush to close the flight on time.

If you're home now, this won't be an issue for you, but for others who may read this thread...

If you ever board your outbound flight with the wrong BP, and if no one boards the flight with yours, then the computer will show you did not fly and will likely cancel the return ticket.