Typo on name on Award Reservation
 

Need some advice on best next steps.

Booked a C class award LAX-ICN-HKG for myself and one other person for late November using DM miles via the Gold Desk. Travel is on OZ.

Immediately after booking, log in to my profile on USAirways.com to double-check reservation. All is fine except person travelling with me, name is misspelled (missing one letter) - it is a long 11 letter last name, and is fine but one letter short (so only 10 letters) - not the last letter mind you, just dropped one of two N's in the last name.

I call immediately back to reservation desk to get it fixed (within 10 minutes of booking). Agent is polite but tells me I have no option to fix other than voiding entire reservation, redepositing miles and starting from scratch. She says if I do that I will likely loose the outbound leg as there are no other C class seats available on the date I booked, and none for 4 days either direction. I ask if when I call OZ to get seat assignments I can get this fixed and she says "no, this is a US Airways ticket so only US Airways can fix it". I politely ask what she would advise as the best course of action and she indicates she would advise "winging it" on the day of travel and since its just one letter off Asiana will just look beyond it. Alternatively, on the day of travel only, she indicates a US Airways rep at LAX "may" be able to adjust the name, but this is not a given.

Any advice ?

I'm not terribly comfortable "winging" it as I don't want person travelling with me to be denied travel.

Thanks for the help
Grunion

Let me just make sure I'm completely understanding this. Just one letter is left off the last name because it's too long? For example, instead of Mitchell it says Mitchel?

If so, it happens to me all the time and I've never had issues, neither domestically nor internationally. Nobody ever bats an eyelash.

I had something similar when booking a mileage plus award and Asiana was involved as well. Decided to wrung it and ended up just fine, though the Asiana check in agent had to spend a few minutes to fix it.

Thanks for the input
 

It was NOT the final letter of the name, to be clear the last name is Quintanilla and the reservation name is Quintailla....hence, just missing the second "n" as a typo by the agent. Since it sounds like others have has similar issues and just winged it with Asiana specifically maybe that is best??

I could ask US to pull the call recording because due to the length of the name we spelled it for the agent twice .... But im not sure I want to get in the weeds on this if it can be easily sorted at the airport.

Grunion

Simple omission, you'll be ok. Most won't even notice the mistake.

Enjoy your trip!

I agree. If OZ notices and cares about it, they can fix it at check-in. Don't lose a minute of sleep over it.

BTW, the agent was wrong about canceling the ticket. Technically, it can be changed and reissued under this circumstance -- he or she just has to know how (or want to). It's not your fault the agent made a typo. But again, I wouldn't worry about it.

Name changes/corrections are [technically] impossible when the reservation includes segments on other airline(s).

Well, I've had to do it twice in the past couple years. Both times, on multi-carrier award tickets and the US agent was able to get it done.

Perhaps, the relevant flights still had Availability, so the Agent was able to create a new PNR (with the correct name) and re-issue the ticket (which is not the case in the OP's scenario).

Thanks all for input
 

Thanks esp to AzTravelsTheWorld - knowing that it has not caused a hiccup on an award ticket, and specifically one with OZ is encouraging.

But I guess I'm confused on the "lack of availability" issue and KVS process and why simply reissuing the tickets with a fixed name is so problematic. Since there clearly is availability on the flights (since we grabbed the seats) is there not a way to "preserve" those available award seats while the ticket is promptly reissued ? It seems there is a fear that in the few minutes the agent needs to re-ticket with the proper name someone else would grab the seats that have ostensibly be returned to the "pool" of available award seats.

Wonder if a call from a US agent/manager to an OZ agent manager explaining the circumstances and requesting that the seats be "held" for purposes of re-ticketing is an option.

At this point I'm leaning towards "just winging it" but may try one escalation thru the US Gold desk to see and not sure on best approach.

Thanks
Grunion

There was Availability on those flights (before you grabbed them).

No, there is not.

There is no way return the seats "to the 'pool' of available award seats" -- once they are released, OZ's RM system will re-allocate the seats as it deems fit (which could well be to a different [non-Award] Booking Class).

That would be, by far, the best option.

That's what I would do.

KVS is certainly more of an expert in these matters than I am, as all I have are two experiences. In both cases that I recall, additional seat inventory was no longer available -- I got the only two seats on more than one of the flights -- and the tickets were reissued with the name correction without incident.

I cannot explain how or why, just that it was done. Both times I caught the problem as soon as I received the email confirmation, so called them inside of 24 hours. System-wise, that may have made a difference.

Should I be concerned?
 

I experienced a similar situation recently: my wife and I booked award tickets on us and austrian (os I think) in business and purchased an infant fare so that we could bring our 4 month old as a lap infant.

The agent correctly spelled the adult last names but omitted a letter from the infant's last name, which is the same as the adults.

I noticed the error the next morning about 6-8 hours after booking, and called in. the agent initially suggested we wing it but when I pushed back, she agreed to correct the infant's last name. The name appears correct on my us booking, and the infant gas never been visible online at os, though they claim to see him in their system. should I be worried?