Another Topic Around Booking Tickets Under Married Name But Passport Is Under Maiden Name

[Alekezam 161]

So I realize this topic has been tossed around numerous times but the variations in how it has been asked vary greatly. 

 

So here is the scenario I am faced with. 

 

I know and always book my wife's ticket under her maiden name since that is what her current passport indicates. However, I must have lapsed this time around and accidentally booked her ticket under our married name......and did not realize until now. I'm not looking for someone to tell me that you always need to book tickets using the name that matches the passport, what I am looking for are actual experiences. 

 

I have called United (whom we booked our flights with) and because they booking involves another airline other than United, they cannot change the last name as they do not have the ability to modify portions of the booking that are operated by other airlines. Note, this was all done on a single booking with no separate tickets. The agent indicated that if the entire travel was operated under United flights then they could change the last name. What she said was that in situations like this, which she mentioned happens a lot, their standard protocol is to place a note/marker within their booking system which will alert all airlines stating that the person traveling on this ticket will be using a passport under a different last name but is indeed one in the same individual who booked the ticket under a different last name (In this case our married name). The agent assured me that we would not run into any issues. After I got off the call I started speculating all sorts of scenarios in which this could go wrong (the engineer in me)....especially during transit. What if security, whom are not associated with the airline give us issues during transit....if there is a required security check (this isn't always the case). 

 

I ended up calling United again for a 2nd and 3rd time just to be sure and each time it was the same explanation without hesitation. 

 

So I am beginning to think that this does indeed happen more often than not and that there are people who go ahead and go through with it but fail to report back their experiences. The majority of the advice I've seen on here seem to be the standard definitive, "no, you can't, period, have the airline change the ticket or buy another one or else you're screwed" without any actual real life accounts but rather only based on what they've all researched on google......similar to what I've done. 

 

So is there anyone out there that has actually traveled faced with the same circumstances we are under that can share their experience? Oh, and before I forget, this is for International Travel not Domestic. 

 

If no one steps up then I suppose we'll just go ahead and be the guinea pigs and will report back later once our trip is complete. 

[Crazy Cat 41,857]

Please come back and let us know what happens. 

[JeanneAdil 6,505]

she should take copy of marriage license to verify the other last name

 

BTW 2 separate tickets???

happened to a Moroccan 

they had tickets to change planes in Paris (pick up new ticket)

Air France would not let them board as they did not have a French Visa (and this is different than transiting 

[Alekezam 161]

31 minutes ago, JeanneAdil said:

she should take copy of marriage license to verify the other last name

 

BTW 2 separate tickets???

happened to a Moroccan 

they had tickets to change planes in Paris (pick up new ticket)

Air France would not let them board as they did not have a French Visa (and this is different than transiting 

I stated that we booked the entire trip under one booking so there are no separate tickets involved.

 

I made sure to point that out because I knew if I did not then that was something a lot of people were going to start asking....

40 minutes ago, Crazy Cat said:

Please come back and let us know what happens. 

Will do!

 

But I'm still hoping, either way, that some brave soul will be willing to share their experience as well.

[Mike E 11,739]

Success stories:

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/awardtravel/comments/cjj1r3/comment/evkl91p/

 

 

 

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/18678658-post25.html

 

 

Edited October 12, 2022 by Mike E

[Alekezam 161]

40 minutes ago, Mike E said:

Success stories:

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/awardtravel/comments/cjj1r3/comment/evkl91p/

 

 

 

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/18678658-post25.html

 

 

Awesome! Thanks for the links. 

 

We'll definitely report back once we've completed our trip.

 

We leave 2 weeks from today. 

 

I'm surprised there are not more experiences out there but I suppose that's probably because they are few as many people who make the mistake get fear mongered into thinking they have no other options other than to pay huge fees to either get their name changed or cancel and re-book .

 

 

[stacyt 209]

I've had this happen but it was one airline (Delta) and they change the name with no issues. Have you tried contacting the other airline? Maybe they'd be able to help.

[Alekezam 161]

20 hours ago, stacyt said:

I've had this happen but it was one airline (Delta) and they change the name with no issues. Have you tried contacting the other airline? Maybe they'd be able to help.

We booked our tickets through United and I've already called them 3 times to see how, if any different, each response would be. All of them gave me the exact same response. 

 

They can only change the name if the entire journey was operated by United but a portion of the trip is under a different airline (still under Star Alliance) so they cannot change the name for security reasons. I understand the reasons and it makes sense so we are just going to go ahead and cross our fingers and hope we don't run into any major issues. United has inputted that my wife's passport name (Maiden) and ticket holder name (Married) is the same person into their system which alerts the other airlines. They said this is standard procedure and that they do it all the time and we should not have any problems. 

 

We did not try contacting the other airline. I guess the reason I did not is because I'm pretty sure they will say the same thing. I think the only way it will work is if we got both airlines on the phone at the same time to coordinate, which would be tough task to coordinate and even then I don't think they'd go for it because there is no real way for either of them to prove to the other that they are indeed that airline. I don't think airlines have access to each others information so the verification part is going to always be a problem, hence, the security measures of not wanting to change names unless it's with only their airline. 

 

We are bringing our marriage certificate for verification purposes as well as all of the other necessary documents (green card, State ID, etc.)

 

We leave next Wednesday, I'll be sure to update everyone on here of how it goes. We don't mind being the guinea pigs for this experiment. 

Edited October 19, 2022 by Alekezam
Additional Information

[Alekezam 161]

In Croatia now. 
 

So we just decided to go with the flow to see what would happen under our circumstances. Arrived at Bush International in Houston and as expected when checking my wife in the kiosk prompted us to speak with a United rep in order to continue the process. It obviously picked up on the fact that my wife’s passport name (maiden) was different than the name that the ticket was booked under (married). 
 

An agent came over and immediately recognized the issue and wasn’t sure what to do initially. She mentioned that the customer should typically get this resolved over the phone with United prior to the flight. I told her I did try but was told on multiple tries that all they could do was put a note in the system stating that the person with the passport is indeed the same person that booked the ticket. She understood my explanation and decided to reach out to one of her supervisors, whom, ended up being no help. All the supervisor did was direct me to continue the checkin process using the kiosk and left. I tried again and the system again prompted us to speak to a United Rep in order to continue. The original United rep were talking to was definitely sympathizing with us and said that there indeed was a note in the system about our situation but said that we may still run into issues with security as they aren’t actually tied to United’s system and as far as they are concerned my wife would be a red flag since the name on her passport doesn’t match with her ticket. I then said we’ll here in Houston we can simply use her State ID to get thru TSA since they don’t care whether you use an Texas ID or a passport. The United rep agreed but said that during our transit in Amsterdam we may have an issue with security there. I figured yeah but we would at least already be in Europe and we could would need to hopefully get by using our marriage certificate along with other forms of ID for proof. 
 

After several minutes of contemplation the United agent said well maybe I can change the name in our system to see what happens but there is no guarantee that the entire booking would reflect it since a portion of the booking wasn’t operated by United. Again, after several minutes of contemplation we ultimately decided to try the name change. She proceeded and printed out all the boarding passes all the way to Split, Croatia and surprisingly, all the boarding passes had my wife’s Maiden name. 
 

In the end we made it all the way thru without a hitch. So, apparently, the Check In Agents do have the ability to change your name on a ticket. The agent we dealt with was super helpful and we can’t thank her enough for what she did but To be honest, I don’t think she even realized she was able to do so. Now she knows, but I’d venture to say most agents do not know or are trained to either not allow it or deliberately not given that information.

 

We video documented our journey so feel free to check it out if you have time or are in the same situation!
 

Link below: