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.