Just traveled internationally on AP....my experience

[Mark&Took 1]

My wife and I just returned from our first return trip to Thailand since her arrival last year. She has a EAD/AP combo card with her married last name on it and her Thai passport with her maiden (former) last name on it. She also had a state drivers license from our home state.

I had read it is no problem they will know we got married etc. and that I wouldn't need to take our marriage certificate with us. However, I thought it would be better to have more....not less documentation and planned to take it. But, that plan was foiled by my rush to leave.....oops! I had just returned from business trip the day before we left. I had a list of things to take but overlooked the marriage cert. in my rush to unpack and repack.

We got to the airport (Washington, Dulles) a few hours before our flight for check in and the airline agent immediately wanted to see a marriage cert. We had driven to DC from our home 4 hours away.....so we couldn't easily return home to get it. I was worried we would miss the flight while trying to get a fax copy either from our local gov't office or a relative going to our house.

The airline (Emirates), and probably most other airlines, were concerned about her ticket issued in her married name but the passport being her maiden name.....even with the combo EAD/AP card. They weren't worried about Customs and Immigration. They were worried that TSA wouldn't let her through security. I travel by air a lot and don't hold the TSA agents in very high regard. I knew if we wouldn't have much chance of explaining our way past them even though another gov't agency gave us the 'ok'. Maybe.....just maybe we could get a customs officer to come upstairs and explain things for us but let's be real......relying on a gov't worker to help you in a time crunch situation isn't good.

The TSA agent looked at my documents, only gave a my wife's a quick glance and let us through. I figured that was the hard part and we left the country. Foreign countries generally aren't as tough as the U.S. I figured if they saw an official looking card like the EAD/AP we would be ok......but they all wanted to see a passport....even for domestic in country flights. Showing her Thai I.D. card wouldn't help either....that's also in her maiden name.

I knew we could return with the card but the simple fact that we had tickets with her married name and her passport with her maiden name made every flight we took longer to check in as we had to explain and calls had to be made as we waited. We took 6 flights during our travel and every time we needed extra time at check in.

My recommendation to you, even though we were able to make our flights, is save the hassle and take your marriage certificate with you when traveling on the EAD/AP card. We now have her green card. We plan to either take our marriage cert next time or get her a Thai passport in her married name.....not sure which yet. That's my experience.

Good luck to all,

Mark&Took

[Inky 1,110]

Airline tickets are always supposed to be booked in the name on the passport not the EAD/AP card. Thats why you had the problems. Book the tickets in the name on the passport and they will only ask to see the marriage cert when you enter back to the USA using the EAD/AP card.

[CC90 90]

This is not as much of a legal/immigration issue as it is the airlines making sure that another person isn't trying to use the ticket. As others have said, book the ticket in the name on the passport. No problems there.

[newacct 688]

The airline (Emirates), and probably most other airlines, were concerned about her ticket issued in her married name but the passport being her maiden name.....even with the combo EAD/AP card. They weren't worried about Customs and Immigration. They were worried that TSA wouldn't let her through security.

I don't understand why the airline would be concerned about TSA at all. If you can't get through TSA, then you would have to come back and cancel or rebook your ticket. The airline should be more than happy to be able to charge you fees and give your seat away to someone else.

[Mark&Took 1]

Airline tickets are always supposed to be booked in the name on the passport not the EAD/AP card. Thats why you had the problems. Book the tickets in the name on the passport and they will only ask to see the marriage cert when you enter back to the USA using the EAD/AP card.

Actually I don't recommend this. Having gotten married and legally changed her name if we use the name on an old passport that could create problems as that is not her legal name anymore. I think we will just carry the marriage cert. next time. Anyway, it all worked out. Im just trying to help others with our story.

[Dave&Roza 748]

Actually I don't recommend this. Having gotten married and legally changed her name if we use the name on an old passport that could create problems as that is not her legal name anymore. I think we will just carry the marriage cert. next time. Anyway, it all worked out. Im just trying to help others with our story.

You can do as you wish, but the travel documents MUST match the government issued ID used for travel. For international travel that is the passport. So her tickets are supposed to match her passport. The fact that they let you travel with the ticket as issued tells me you got lucky and had resonable people that could see she was the same person. BTW, she now has two legal names, the name in her passport and the name on her EAD/AP card. That is typically why in the will's of women there is a place where the person's legal name is listed along with all other variations with the also know as (AKA). So your wife would have as an example First name, Middle Name, Married name; AKA First name, Middle name, Maiden name. There would be others if she used other variations. If you insist on using her married name, I would highly recommend you get her passport name changed to match her legal name then.

Dave

[CC90 90]

Actually I don't recommend this. Having gotten married and legally changed her name if we use the name on an old passport that could create problems as that is not her legal name anymore. I think we will just carry the marriage cert. next time. Anyway, it all worked out. Im just trying to help others with our story.

What her "legal name" is at any given time in a given place is relative. Many countries won't let someone change their name on the passport because names aren't change during marriage in some cultures.

The fact that her name may be different in one place doesn't make her passport invalid, old, or wrong. She just simply has two names.

You're looking at this with a very narrow scope.

[Juan y Sandra 0]

thank you very much, it never hurts to hear new experience so we will be ready ..