Re ticketing a reward flight Due to Qantas ticketing with the wrong first name

[boko56]

Looking for some of your expert advice. I have booked 2 Business Reward flight with Qantas for a trip to Europe in March, first leg with Malaysian and then onward with Emirates. I was unable to book on the Qantas website as I continuously got error messages. I booked through the FF contact centre who voice switched me to a ticketing agent to finalise the trip. My ticket when it arrived has my first name wrong, Brain instead of Brian. So I won’t get through passport control due to ticket and passport mismatch. Despite contacting the FF contact centre (in South Africa twice) and being told they would fix it nothing has happened. I registered a complaint with customer care and have a reference number again no action, plus have been dealing with Qantas on messenger, still no result. I am a lifetime Silver member my wife is Gold. I am at my wits end I have been trying to resolve this since my ticket came through in late July.

Do you know how I may contact the FF call centre in Hobart or any other contact whom you think has the experience to help resolve this ? I used Hobart regularly when I was a platinum member. or does anyone have any Qantas contact whom I can talk to? hopefully to resolve this situation. I have read tales of AFF readers losing reward flights in similar circumstances due to inexperienced agents

Thanks in advance

 

[aikman]

Velocity did the same thing to me and I was told that the only way to fix it was to cancel the ticket and rebook. Thankfully in my case the reward seat came back immediately so I was able to rebook. You might be facing the same problem so the agents may not want to touch it.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Looking for some of your expert advice. I have booked 2 Business Reward flight with Qantas for a trip to Europe in March, first leg with Malaysian and then onward with Emirates. I was unable to book on the Qantas website as I continuously got error messages. I booked through the FF contact centre who voice switched me to a ticketing agent to finalise the trip. My ticket when it arrived has my first name wrong, Brain instead of Brian. So I won’t get through passport control due to ticket and passport mismatch. Despite contacting the FF contact centre (in South Africa twice) and being told they would fix it nothing has happened. I registered a complaint with customer care and have a reference number again no action, plus have been dealing with Qantas on messenger, still no result. I am a lifetime Silver member my wife is Gold. I am at my wits end I have been trying to resolve this since my ticket came through in late July.

Do you know how I may contact the FF call centre in Hobart or any other contact whom you think has the experience to help resolve this ? I used Hobart regularly when I was a platinum member. or does anyone have any Qantas contact whom I can talk to? hopefully to resolve this situation. I have read tales of AFF readers losing reward flights in similar circumstances due to inexperienced agents

Thanks in advance

I don’t think you will have a problem with this. IATA regulations allow the correction of simple spelling mistakes, up to three letters if I remember correctly.

Your name and passport details are swiped at checkin, those are the ones transmitted to immigration and overseas authorities. The boarding pass is kind of secondary (although slightly different in the USA where the TSA check the spelling on the boarding pass against ID).

Keep trying with qantas, the latest I got from them on an enquiry was that it would be dealt with ‘a couple of days before you fly’. Not ideal.

Given the ticket was issued by a agent, and the mistake is obviously not yours, I wouldn’t be too worried.

 

[bam71]

I personally wouldn’t give a rats about Brian or Brain. The last thing you want to do is call up and try to have it corrected only to have the whole thing cancel and be unable to rebook. If there are issues ( which I doubt there would be), let them sort it out at check in.

 

[clifford]

I don’t think you will have a problem with this. IATA regulations allow the correction of simple spelling mistakes, up to three letters if I remember correctly.

Your name and passport details are swiped at checkin, those are the ones transmitted to immigration and overseas authorities. The boarding pass is kind of secondary (although slightly different in the USA where the TSA check the spelling on the boarding pass against ID).

Keep trying with qantas, the latest I got from them on an enquiry was that it would be dealt with ‘a couple of days before you fly’. Not ideal.

Given the ticket was issued by a agent, and the mistake is obviously not yours, I wouldn’t be too worried.

A bit like a phone booking I made recently with UA, where the agent entered my first name as CliffordMr (all 1 word).

When I queried it, the UA agent said that she could change it, but it would cause TG to cancel the booking. So I just cancelled and rebooked elsewhere.

A real pain for such a minor error. But beware.

Post automatically merged: Sep 19, 2022

I personally wouldn’t give a rats about Brian or Brain. The last thing you want to do is call up and try to have it corrected only to have the whole thing cancel and be unable to rebook. If there are issues ( which I doubt there would be), let them sort it out at check in.

Which might mean denied boarding, which is not what you want.

 

[djkelly69]

the agent entered my first name as CliffordMr

I had this when I booked tickets through Asia Miles for 3 people, all had it (Mr/Mrs/Mstr at the end). I assumed it was just a language or system error/issue and ignored it.

Unfortunately the booking was cancelled before flying so can't say if it would have caused any issues.

 

[jpp42]

I had this when I booked tickets through Asia Miles for 3 people, all had it (Mr/Mrs/Mstr at the end). I assumed it was just a language or system error/issue and ignored it.

I used to have this regularly on AA flights - it seems to be some quirk of the ancient and rickety GDS's that underpin legacy airlines' reservation systems. The good news is that I think any immigration and security checking systems are also programmed to be "aware" of this siuation and can ignore it, as well as other cases like multiple given names being run together . For example, lastname/johnpaul where my first/middle names are "John Paul."

 

[clifford]

I used to have this regularly on AA flights - it seems to be some quirk of the ancient and rickety GDS's that underpin legacy airlines' reservation systems. The good news is that I think any immigration and security checking systems are also programmed to be "aware" of this siuation and can ignore it, as well as other cases like multiple given names being run together . For example, lastname/johnpaul where my first/middle names are "John Paul."

Well, ignoring is fine, but what if a finicky TG check in agent at CPH denies you boarding for your trip to MEL?

It might leave you a little nonplussed...

 

[boko56]

Yep.happened to.me in the US I have an apostrophe in my surname
Qantas database does not have apostrophes in it. I My passport has the proper spelling of my name
I spent an hour trying to explain to the passport control guy why there was a discrepancy. He wasn't for allowing me in. Hence my concern with this mismatch.

 

[VeeVeeTop]

Any updates/success on getting it corrected? We've had a similar issue with a misspelled surname (think 'Thompson' spelt as 'Thomdson'). I picked it up before we paid for tickets and they were having trouble processing payment, so I was told they'd take payment and could do a name correction after...

Plot twist, 2 months later and they have taken to ignoring me. Customer Care won't respond and I've spoken to 3 supervisors who have promised to make an exception and give me a callback, but it never happens. I don't have status so I keep getting the Manila contact centre who just mute the line when I ask for a supervisor/to escalate

 

[Mwenenzi]

VeeVeeTop welcome to AFF

Any updates/success on getting it corrected? We've had a similar issue with a misspelled surname (think 'Thompson' spelt as 'Thomdson'). I picked it up before we paid for tickets and they were having trouble processing payment, so I was told they'd take payment and could do a name correction after...

Plot twist, 2 months later and they have taken to ignoring me. Customer Care won't respond and I've spoken to 3 supervisors who have promised to make an exception and give me a callback, but it never happens. I don't have status so I keep getting the Manila contact centre who just mute the line when I ask for a supervisor/to escalate

Domestic or international?
Airline?
Check in agents at time can correct minor spelling errors. Or just ignore them.

Commercial web sites , so may not true~accurate

Changing the name on your flight booking: Why airlines charge so much for changes

Made a mistake when you typed your name into an online flight booking? Not uncommon. Can it be changed? It'll cost you.

www.traveller.com.au

Name Changes on Flight Tickets | Alternative Airlines

Find out how to request a name change on your flight ticket with Alternative Airlines

www.alternativeairlines.com

Examples
QF web site-->https://www.qantas.com/agencyconnec...-refunds/name-correction-and-name-change.html
MH web site-->FAQ

 

[VeeVeeTop]

VeeVeeTop welcome to AFF


Domestic or international?
Airline?
Check in agents at time can correct minor spelling errors. Or just ignore them.

Commercial web sites , so may not true~accurate

Changing the name on your flight booking: Why airlines charge so much for changes

Made a mistake when you typed your name into an online flight booking? Not uncommon. Can it be changed? It'll cost you.

www.traveller.com.au

Name Changes on Flight Tickets | Alternative Airlines

Find out how to request a name change on your flight ticket with Alternative Airlines

www.alternativeairlines.com

Examples
QF web site-->https://www.qantas.com/agencyconnec...-refunds/name-correction-and-name-change.html
MH web site-->FAQ

Sorry, I was very vague. It's a RTW - Cathay, Finnair and BA. All points and business class, so I'm sure I have less than a snowball's chance of getting it fixed over the phone... But I'm still hoping someone has some kind of miracle hack

 

[boko56]

Any updates/success on getting it corrected? We've had a similar issue with a misspelled surname (think 'Thompson' spelt as 'Thomdson'). I picked it up before we paid for tickets and they were having trouble processing payment, so I was told they'd take payment and could do a name correction after...

Plot twist, 2 months later and they have taken to ignoring me. Customer Care won't respond and I've spoken to 3 supervisors who have promised to make an exception and give me a callback, but it never happens. I don't have status so I keep getting the Manila contact centre who just mute the line when I ask for a supervisor/to escalate

Sorry to tell you it got worse, I lost the first leg of the flight from Perth to Kuala Lumpur twice. Only reason I knew was I had checked the booking. I got it back after numerous calls to the FF centre. I had logged a complaint with the Airline Customer Advocate in October and finally heard from them in January. Unfortunately I had cancelled the reward booking a few days before. None of the agents I spoke to in the offshore centres (believe me it ran into the 20's) had the knowledge or ability to fix this. I have 3 different customer care care numbers but the people charged to fix them are in the same offshore call centres There seems to be no escalation process for them to use when issues are outside their experience. Its like the definition of madness. End result is I spent over $14k booking one way business flights to the UK. I am still trying to get my fees and points they charged for agents booking the trip which, they ticketed wrongly. If I had got to someone who knew the reward booking processes for reticketing flights with one world partners it would have been resolved.. A costly lesson. I'm now looking at how I run down my points with Qantas and booking with Star Alliance airlines.

I looked at the previous link to correcting a name,this looks like an internal Qantas instruction, good luck getting someone with the skill to do that. I haven't

Can you cancel yourself and re book ?

 

[boko56]

Try e-mailing this group [email protected]

 

[yaziyo]

Sigh, I've had the same issue with a Qantas phone rewards booking. The booking is a simple 1 way flight from AYT-AMM (Antalya, Turkey to Amman, Jordan) on RJ, which had to be booked online due to Qantas website not knowing the AYT flight code.

Of the 4 passengers on the booking, 3 had a typo in the names. Great quality in the Qantas call centres.

Every time I've tried to call about this, nobody can actually do anything. Two agents lied and told me that they'd made the changes and it will come through in 24 to 48 hours, whereas one, after a very long hold period, finally told me that due to a system limitation they can't update partner airline tickets. I'm actually inclined to believe that last one as otherwise surely someone by now would have solved the OP's problem or my own.

Each name only has 1 character wrong. I don't want to cancel and rebook the flights as I'm worried they won't reappear in the reward inventory, and at this stage I'm thinking the best option is just to chance it at the airport. The typos aren't too dissimilar to the "Thomdson" example someone shared above.

 

[boko56]

Try sending a msg to the link below seems like some, not all on this site have had some contact with the Hobart team to resolve their issue. [email protected]

 

[aikman]

‘Zero empathy’: Qantas refunds customer forced to pay $1900 for spelling mistake

Not a reward flight but customer makes a spelling mistake and had to pay $1900 to correct it. Customer goes to the media and Qantas responds by providing a refund.

 

[bullerdude]

‘Zero empathy’: Qantas refunds customer forced to pay $1900 for spelling mistake

Not a reward flight but customer makes a spelling mistake and had to pay $1900 to correct it. Customer goes to the media and Qantas responds by providing a refund.

It is 2024... you would think the technology would allow moving beyond archaic ticketing rules and support name corrections at no cost regardless of which airline/partner is part of of the itinerary.