Middle name shown on passport but not flight tickets

[LondonAussie]

I've deleted my middle name/initial from my Qantas profile and the problem goes away.

Better experience than a friend of mine who flew QF to HKG a few weeks. ago. She was silly enough to put her married name on the booking but omitted to change her passport.

Qantas check in staff licked their lips and made her purchase a new ticket (you can imagine how much that might have cost). Interesting that a couple of months prior to that the same thing happened with a Scoot flight to SIN (some people can be slow learners) and the kind Scoot supervisor fixed it up for her at no charge.

Make what you will of that.

I think it's unfair to call her a slow learner as she would have been reassured by the experience with Scoot that it wasn't actually a problem and something minor that could be fixed at check-in with little fuss and at no additional cost.

 

[AIRwin]

Thanks AIRwin, that seems very similar to my situation! Did you check in at a Qantas desk or LATAM?

I checked in with LATAM at the airport but both call centres pointed to each other to correct my name so I ended up just leaving it as is

 

[kangarooflyer88]

Better experience than a friend of mine who flew QF to HKG a few weeks. ago. She was silly enough to put her married name on the booking but omitted to change her passport.

Qantas check in staff licked their lips and made her purchase a new ticket (you can imagine how much that might have cost). Interesting that a couple of months prior to that the same thing happened with a Scoot flight to SIN (some people can be slow learners) and the kind Scoot supervisor fixed it up for her at no charge.

Qantas staff are completely wrong there. When you purchase a ticket from Qantas you are simply reserving a seat for a flight. In no way is it tied to a specific traveller and certainly not a name. Put differently, the lady bought a bundle of rights which she could exercise as she wishes, or alternatively transfer those rights to someone else.

Joking aside, travel is not for the faint of heart. There's a lot of things you need to keep track of, a lot of things that to you or I seem obvious but not to the casual traveller. For instance, a lot of people think that they can travel on their passport until the expiry date listed. That's clearly not the case as some countries won't let you enter if you have fewer than 6 months remaining on your passport. Similarly, people may think that the name on the booking doesn't need to exactly match the name on the passport (i.e. omitting their middle name).

If there is some fault, the Scoot supervisor should have stressed to the traveller in no uncertain terms that they need to update their passport and that failure to do so will result in them being denied boarding in the future. But as you pointed out, they ignored this warning. I would also be curious if carrying a marriage certificate would have rectified the issue (I would presume not).

Why people don't care for their passports is beyond me. Maybe it is the perceived hassle of renewing passports or the cost (i.e. where else would you pay $400 to renew a 10 year passport?). Perhaps they simply forgot about it. Regardless of the reason, they eventually learn the lesson the hard way when they try to travel with a document that is as valuable as a $1 Australian note.

-RooFlyer88

 

[the_fig_man]

I just booked a flight to London through my QFF profile. It only shows one of my middle names and it's an initial only. See below.

QFF/e-ticket: John A Smith
Passport: John Apple Carrot Smith

Will this be an issue?

 

[flyingfan]

I just booked a flight to London through my QFF profile. It only shows one of my middle names and it's an initial only. See below.

QFF/e-ticket: John A Smith
Passport: John Apple Carrot Smith

Will this be an issue?

No it won't.

 

[CaptJCool]

I notice on the international bookings
QF pick up your FF profile information and pre-populate the PAX name as

“John C Smith”

However, it does allow you to modify the middle initial to a full name during the booking process so that it can be

“identical as what’s on the passport”