Ticket / passenger issues due to "title" used in account profile
Mar 8, 2019, 1:22 pm
#46
Join Date: Jul 2017
Location: Outside of Cleveland Ohio
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Small child miss-gendered on UA despite being correct in profile
Hello all. I'm hoping for a fix on this. recurring problem for my soon to be 2yr old son. His UA profile is correct in gender but when I book him a flight my manage reservations tab and in several of the click through pages continue to gender him as a Ms. I've mentioned it to UA on calls and at the airport before and it has never seemed to matter for check in or security so I hadn't pressed until today.
We flew JP from LJU-MUC connecting onto a UA TATL. JP had significant trouble checking us in (30min at the counter) and could not get us checked in for the TATL flight, which required us to check in at MUC (though they could check our luggage through to the final destination). The JP rep repeatedly mentioned "But it is a boy" so I am guessing that this issue has finally caught up with us. below is a screen grab from my manage reservations tab showing the Ms., both other travelers on the reservation do not display any gender identifier preceding their names.
1K desk today said that on my saved travelers he did not have a specified gender though it was on his UA MP profile. The rep adjusted it on my page and said that it shouldn't be a problem moving forward but it has not changed on any of the bookings he is on.
Any advice or suggestions as to what to do? I'm not worried about UA flights as they seem to not matter (at least so far) but with the issue on JP I'm now concerned for future bookings on other partners if not checking in with UA for the first leg.
We flew JP from LJU-MUC connecting onto a UA TATL. JP had significant trouble checking us in (30min at the counter) and could not get us checked in for the TATL flight, which required us to check in at MUC (though they could check our luggage through to the final destination). The JP rep repeatedly mentioned "But it is a boy" so I am guessing that this issue has finally caught up with us. below is a screen grab from my manage reservations tab showing the Ms., both other travelers on the reservation do not display any gender identifier preceding their names.
1K desk today said that on my saved travelers he did not have a specified gender though it was on his UA MP profile. The rep adjusted it on my page and said that it shouldn't be a problem moving forward but it has not changed on any of the bookings he is on.
Any advice or suggestions as to what to do? I'm not worried about UA flights as they seem to not matter (at least so far) but with the issue on JP I'm now concerned for future bookings on other partners if not checking in with UA for the first leg.
Mar 8, 2019, 2:41 pm
#47
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Does he have a first/middle name that would be considered to be male in the USA, but might be a relatively unknown given name in Japan? That could explain why this was a problem for JAL but not UA.
Mar 8, 2019, 2:55 pm
#48
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: South Carolina
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Back in the early days when the TSA started requiring full names on the reservations, I had many an interesting encounters trying to get through security. In the early days, all the airlines could print on the boarding passes was first name, middle initial and last name with no spaces between the first name and initial. Well my name was Eric Andrew, which ended up showing as ERICA. The discussion about this with the agents could be quick or something quite protracted. My DL did not have any middle initial at that time, so I took to using my passport as the id as that showed my full name. Fortunately this only lasted about 1 year or so, but still made some fun times getting through security.
Mar 8, 2019, 2:55 pm
#49
Suspended
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: DCA
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This is why I wish that carriers would abandon titles of all manner on tickets. They make mistakes, TA's make mistakes, and passengers typing too quickly make too many mistakes. Just stick to a simple system of the first X letters of of two names and be done with it.,
Mar 8, 2019, 3:09 pm
#50
Join Date: Jul 2017
Location: Outside of Cleveland Ohio
Programs: UA *G. DL ̶G̶O̶L̶D̶ Member, Hilton/SPG Gold, Hertz PC
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Back in the early days when the TSA started requiring full names on the reservations, I had many an interesting encounters trying to get through security. In the early days, all the airlines could print on the boarding passes was first name, middle initial and last name with no spaces between the first name and initial. Well my name was Eric Andrew, which ended up showing as ERICA. The discussion about this with the agents could be quick or something quite protracted. My DL did not have any middle initial at that time, so I took to using my passport as the id as that showed my full name. Fortunately this only lasted about 1 year or so, but still made some fun times getting through security.
Mar 8, 2019, 5:04 pm
#53
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: LAS, ZQN
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Mar 8, 2019, 6:28 pm
#54
Join Date: Jul 2017
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Hmm. good idea, though it strikes me that UA is unlikely to employ such an abbreviation. If this were LH or BA it would seem more plausible.
Mar 8, 2019, 6:40 pm
#55
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: LAS, ZQN
Programs: UA PP (2MM), BA gold
Posts: 2,195
If the mistake is under his account, United will correct his profile if you cannot edit it.
Last edited by WineCountryUA; Mar 8, 2019 at 9:42 pm Reason: repaired quote
Mar 8, 2019, 6:43 pm
#56
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Mar 8, 2019, 9:48 pm
#57
Moderator: United Airlines
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Hmm. good idea, though it strikes me that UA is unlikely to employ such an abbreviation. If this were LH or BA it would seem more plausible.
Mar 8, 2019, 11:11 pm
#58
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Mar 2012
Posts: 19,490
I agree. I find it odd that the ‘Title’ field appears to be required in the MileagePlus account profile for the ‘Member/Primary Traveler’ (when I tried to change mine to ‘Not Selected’ it errored out and reverted to ‘Mr.’) but is specifically labeled as ‘Optional’ in the profiles for the ‘Other Saved Travelers’.
Mar 9, 2019, 5:59 am
#59
Join Date: Jul 2017
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I've deleted and recreated his saved traveler profile on my account to gender him as Mr. It had no effect on existing bookings (not surprising) but I will update once I make a new booking to see if it makes a difference.