“The woman seemed mad that we had made the reservation through Travelocity”

It’s a common problem with an uncommon resolution. Stephen Andrews accidentally typed his name as “Stehen” when he booked a package tour through Travelocity, and he thought a quick call to the airline might fix the problem. Unfortunately, it wasn’t.

“The woman seemed mad that we had made the reservation through Travelocity and was adamant that neither she or anyone else at her call center could change the spelling of my name,” he says. “She said that Travelocity had to fix it.”

Whoa. Why would Hawaiian be mad that anyone booked through a travel agency? (There are many possible answers, but I’ll save that for another post entitled “Travel agents versus airlines: The untold story.”)

Until then, let’s just say the Hawaiian employee should have kept her opinion to herself. How the airline feels about online travel agencies is no concern of their customers.

A solution to his his ticket typo? That concerns anyone reading this site.

Andrews picks up the story:

I called Travelocity and spoke to one of their über-helpful Indians, who said that Hawaiian wouldn’t allow any changes. He did offer to transfer me to the department of cancellations so we could cancel the trip and rebook (with no price guarantee).

I declined.

Remembering your advice that one e-mail is worth 1,000 phone calls, I e-mailed Hawaiian. It has been over 24 hours and not a peep from Hawaiian. I just e-mailed Travelocity, but I expect a canned “pack sand, it’s Hawaiian’s problem” from them.

Any suggestions?

In a situation like this, a quick call to the airline should have fixed the problem. Some carriers have an informal policy that they’ll fix a ticket if it’s off by a letter, but if Hawaiian has such a policy, it doesn’t disclose it. Its name requirements match those of TSA’s new Secure Flight initiative.

Hawaiian would have known that this was an obvious slip of the finger, rather than attempt to transfer the ticket to another passenger.

But let’s stick with the slip of the finger. Certainly, Andrews’ problem underscores the importance of typing your name very carefully.

Andrews emailed some of the executives contacts on the new On Your Side wiki, and that worked.

Hawaiian finally called and told me they would issue a new ticket with my correct name on it. They made sure to let me know that they didn’t have to and that they were going out of my way to do so, but they did it.

The trip to Hawaii was great (we got home last week) and I felt much better not having to worry about some overzealous TSA agent denying me boarding because of an obvious typographical error.

I once had a US Customs and Immigration officer chew me out for putting “US” instead of “USA” as my country of residence on my declaration form, so I know those boneheads are out there.

Thanks again for your great column.

And thanks for reading. I’m glad Hawaiian helped “Stehen” get the right ticket. It should have done that the first time — not because it had to, but because it’s the right thing to do.

(Photo: Simon ds/Flickr Creative Commons)

  • Pauline Frommer

    Nice piece. Hopefully, if the new rules from the DOT pass, allowing people to change air reservations within 24 hours with no penalties, stupid hassles like this one will become a thing of the past!

  • http://waynedayton.tripod.com Wayne Dayton

    Just goes to show you that the arrogance and contempt which the airline industry shows its customers (except at times when they run crying like diapered babies to government, to the media, etc., to shed tears over how badly done to they are by landing fees, fuel costs, unions, volcanoes, et al), is not confined to the largest carriers but has been successfully ingrained into the smaller firms thanks to the lessons taught by ATA and IATA.

    Hopefully, if they ever apply for landing rights in Canada, our Prime Minister, “Stehen” Harper, will tell them to stay home and choke on their poi.

  • http://praguepartmentsonline.com Martin Smith

    See your typo – “A solution to his his ticket typo?” Happens happens to the best of us. This whole issue is too stupid for words. Someone needs to challenge both the government and the airlines on the legality of this issue. There are plenty of ways to harass travelers without improving security without resorting to this method.

  • Nancy

    This doesn’t make sense to me because once, while making reservations for 4 members of my faminly on Hawaiian Airlines, my virtual credit card program on my computer changed all the names to my own. I didn’t notice until after I hit that “buy” button. I immediately called Hawaiian Airlines. the customer service rep that I talked to laughed, noted that it was obvious that I couldn’t use all four tickets on the same flight by myself, and changed the names for me, no problem. Maybe because I am a frequent flyer with HA? Maybe I just, by chance, I got a more human customer service rep?

  • Joe

    Wow! I thought Hawaiian was one of the better ones! That is a shame and as other readers have commented, its time the arrogant airline fools get off their high horse. We are all human and we all make mistakes, especially the airlines. Its no wonder that folks get pretty upset at airline personnel and when I read stories like this one I do not feel sorry for airline workers who get chewed out by irate customers. What goes around comes around!!

  • Don Filiault

    I agree with everything that the previous posters said, but I also believe that it isn’t just a problem with Hawaiian Airlines and Travelocity. Probably the best approach, all things being equal (especially price) is to book with the travel company (Delta, United, Continental, Globus, CIE, Trafalgar, etc.) because when you do this, the travel company has fewer places to hide. If you book with an intermediary like Orbitz, Travelocity, Expedia, etc. be ready for the finger pointing game if your plans change. Count on the travel company to refer you back to the intermediary if you have a problem, regardless of the severity of the problem. I had a problem last year when I had to cancel a trip seven hours before the trip was to start because of a sudden family illness. Even then, when I called the airline, they referred me back to my travel agent. In addition to this, you have to be sure of the actions that you have to take with your travel insurance company to ensure that nothing you do interferes with the “fine print”. You can often save a lot of money by booking your airline travel, hotels, and cruises or land tours separately, but be cognizant of the fact that you’ll have to file a mountain of paperwork if you have to cancell within the penalty period.

  • Carver

    @Nancy

    One hates to stereotype, but perhaps you received a US based agent. My experience has been that employees in different countries have different perspectives on interpreting rules. Americans have a much more “spirit of the law mentality” whereas in other countries, its much more legalistic.

  • Dang

    Airlines in USA stick to the rules of typo because they want squeeze some money out of your pocket.
    My sister and her husband had made a reservation for a OneWorld Round the World reservation with British Airways/Qantas/JAL/Cathay Pacific/American Airlines… The BA reservation agent have made a typo error on the husband name and the tickets are issued. BA apologied for the error and put a NOTATION to the reservation. They traveled RTW from January 2010 to April 2010 from Switzerland to India, Vietnam, HongKong, Australia, Japan, Honolulu HI, Phoenix AZ, London and Switzerland without a glitch or hassle. It was a wonderful trip.
    Only in the US, people made a fuss about typo error on Airlines Tickets.

  • Brian

    “I called Travelocity and spoke to one of their über-helpful Indians”

    Really? Really? Sarcasm laced with racism. What does the ethnicity of their telephone agents have to do with the story?

    I had to stop reading, these kind of comments are such a turn off.

  • http://www.linkedin.com/in/MHMTravel Mary Helen Maupin, Life CTC

    It is a standard practice in the airline industry that an error in the name has to be changed by the agent/agency holding the original booking. That has been the “rule” ever since I started in travel and tourism 26 years ago. Whoever makes the original booking holds the “rights” to it for purposes of receiving commission which is how every agency and vendor makes money in travel. For example, if I make a booking on Hawaiian and another agency calls to make a change, that is not allowed. The airline/vendor honors the original booking firm. Therefore, I support Hawaiian’s original decision on this matter. They were honoring Travelocity and their booking.

  • Chicky

    Aye, yi, yi. Why do these companies have to make the simplest issues a PROBLEM? Once Stephen was connected to a customer service agent, this should have been a three-minute phone call.
    Agent: Yes, Mr. Andrews. I can take care of that for you right away. Let me pull up that screen. (one-minute pause). There you are. To confirm, the name on your reservation reads “S-T-E-P-H-E-N A-N-D-R-E-W-S. Is that correct?”
    Stephen: That is correct. Thank you for taking care of this for me.
    Agent: You’re welcome. Is there anything else I can help you with today?
    Stephen: No, that’s all I needed.
    Agent: Very good. Have a nice day and thank you for choosing Hawaiian Airlines.

    Can anyone tell me WHAT IS SO DIFFICULT ABOUT THIS? Why is it such a hassle to do anything? He wasn’t changing his reservations — just a misspelled name. This is, bar none, one of the most ridiculous “rules” the airlines have come up with. It’s ludicrous in the extreme. Changing a name takes less than a minute. Certainly less time than it takes the airline to “deal” with it when a customer starts stirring it up, like Stephen did. They spent far more time trying to dodge the issue than to just be nice about it and CHANGE THE @#$%%#$ NAME! When are they going to realize this rule costs them time and money, to say nothing of goodwill?
    I swear, the bean counters and mucky-mucks at the airlines are completely out of touch with anything resembling reality. But I guess that’s just re-stating the painfully obvious.

  • Barry

    Not to perpetuate the debate, but with regard to the ethnicity issue, (“I called Travelocity and spoke to one of their über-helpful Indians”), I think the issue is not one of racism per-say.

    When you call an airline, let’s say Hawaiian, it would be expected that the representative would be in close proximity to the airlines headquarters or one of its operating bases. The idea that they could walk out their door and be a plane within a reasonable amount of time. This idea means that they feel like they are part of the “Hawaiian Team” and get pride in the airline’s day to day activities. The folks in the customer base are their neighbors. It would make no difference if the individual agent is brown, yellow, purple, or green, it’s their proximity to the airline’s customer base.

    When a call is outsourced (perhaps to India), the employee likely feels much less of a connection to the day to day operations of the airline. They likely have never even seen a Hawaiian plane. The callers are “strangers” and they don’t necessarily feel that same need to ensure satisfaction. To them, Hawaiian is probably just the same as United or American or Delta or … They may even be answer calls for all four. They just follow rules and answer the phones. Without that familiarity with the individual airline by being in relative proximity to the operations, the attitude changes. It’s not an issue of racism, but an issue of proximity.

  • Jeanne in NE

    @Brian: I didn’t get racism out of the comment. I can’t think of *anyone* that hasn’t called a company operating in the United States and found themselves speaking to an overseas call center. I also can’t think of anyone who hasn’t experienced frustration with the scripted responses given by these operatives. The comment, to me, was two-word shorthand for my previous two sentences. I read it, smiled as I shared the OP’s sense of frustration, and moved on reading the article. Chill.

  • Carver

    @Barry/Brian

    Its not a racial issue or even a proximity issue, its really a cultural issue. I live in Silicon Valley and I represent several high tech companies. My clients routinely outsource tech work to India, Egypt, and several Eastern European countries. Ultimately, what we have discovered is that different cultures have different norms. Its not a matter of one being right or wrong, but when dealing with people from different cultures, you have to have an appreciation of cultural norms.

  • Holocron

    You know, if you just had to enter in some official ID number, then all the correct information could be referenced and entered. Typos solved.

    Granted, I’m sure there may be a privacy objection from some.

  • Ed

    What’s so sad is that there is a distinct dearth of airlines that service the Hawaiian islands. And to have one of the premier airlines on the islands behave like this is untenable! I mean, if *THEY* are behaving like a bunch of poopy heads, you don’t really have too many alternatives! I can only hope that this was a fluke and not the norm.
    Ed

  • Arizona Road Warrior

    @ Stephen Andrews – “I called Travelocity and spoke to one of their über-helpful Indians,..”
    - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -
    You are part of the problem because you don’t want to spend more money for your travel expenditures. If you want to speak with an actual employee of the travel provider that is located in the USA instead of an employee of a third-party contractor that is located in India, Philippines, etc. then expect to pay more for your travel.

    I did a very quick Google search and found that a person working in a call center in the Philippines makes $ 350 USD to $ 400 USD a month and it is between $ 300 USD to $ 400 USD a month in India.

  • Arizona Road Warrior

    My issues with companies outsourcing their help desk\customer service\etc. to India, Philippines, etc. are the following:

    1. These individuals in the call centers are not employees of United Airlines, etc. They are employees of a company that has been contracted by UA or etc. to answer the phones. They are not empowered to bend the rules, do an one-time favor and etc. They are given a script and they basically are reading from the script.

    2. Many of these individuals in these call centers have not traveled on the planes of the airline that they are answering the phones for, have not went through US airport security, etc; therefore, they don’t have a clue.

    3. Some have poor English speaking skills and it is very hard to understand them.

    4. Different cultures have different norms. It seems to me that these individuals in these call centers in India, Philippines, etc. have not been exposed, trained, etc. to the norms of the countries (i.e. USA) that they are taking phone calls from.

  • Arizona Road Warrior

    One solution to prevent typos is to fill out a profile with the airline or online travel agency so you don’t have to type your name when making your reservation.

  • Carver

    @Arizona

    A few thoughts.

    1. I don’t think the fact that these call center folks are not airline employees is terribly relevant. That can happen in the States just as easily as in a foreign country.

    2. I think that really depends on the country.

    3. Call center folks from India tend to have impeccable if highly accented English

    4. Agreed. And I really think that’s the main problem. A combination of lack of understanding of US culture combined with a script reading mentality is really frustrating.

    Curiously, what some companies are doing is routing elite customers and angry customers to US based call centers and sending more routine queries to international centers. It will be interesting to see if this is a happy medium.

  • Jeanne in NE

    @Arizona Road Warrior: Your second post (3:07 p.m. today) was very on-target. However, your first post was less practical. Example: we bought a lawn tractor at Sears in Omaha, NE in 2002. A US Company, not the cheapest, but had great reviews in Consumer Reports and fit our needs. In 2005, Sears outsourced all their service center appointments overseas. So, if there was a problem with the tractor, instead of talking with a local person or someone in Atlanta who could help me locate a part on a diagram (e.g.), I got to talk with someone who had no idea in the world what I was talking about. This year, I gave up, sold the tractor and bought another from the local John Deere implement dealer. The price at John Deere wasn’t any different than it was at Sears for the comparable make and model of tractor.

    You’re an intelligent person and can readily see my point. Travelocity is ostensibly based in Texas. Or at least someone in Texas is raking in all the money saved by outsourcing to the cheap labor overseas, just as Sears is doing.

  • Bill

    It is absurd that something like this is even a subject of discussion. Of course it is easy to change e-tickets in this day and age.

  • Steve

    “If you want to speak with an actual employee of the travel provider that is located in the USA instead of an employee of a third-party contractor that is located in India, Philippines, etc. then expect to pay more for your travel.” Arizona Road Warrior, do you mind telling me what airline I could fly (at any price) to be able to speak to an actual U.S. employee when I call customer service? :) Off the top of my head, the only one that comes to mind – ironically – is Southwest. I believe all of their customer service is still located in the U.S. (though I’m not 100% sure on that).

    Brian, I don’t think one has to be racist to dread calling an overseas call center. I don’t even think it’s technically a problem of ethnicity, but one of nationality and language. The vast majority of overseas call center reps I’ve spoken to have extremely thick accents that make them very hard to understand. That’s certainly not their fault, but it makes communication especially hard. Additionally, there are the problems that Barry outlined: they’re low-paid call center workers who generally answer phones for a variety of companies, meaning that they’re not really invested in resolving customer service issues (and who could blame them, given their position?) Plus they aren’t empowered to do very much and probably can’t even find someone else at their physical location who is (again, not their fault, just a fact).

  • Meredith Putvin

    While this does not excuse rudeness, there is a reason why rank and file call center agents run into this situations. This is based on experience with booking these type of wholesale rates for NYC hotels. It is not that the call center agent does not want to help, it is that they (more often than not) are locked out of the reservation. Certain rates booked through Wholesalers like Travelocity, Expedia, etc (And they are wholesalers) are only bookable through the main system for the property. A Call Center agent has no access to the rate. They can only view the reservation, but are not able to open the reservation to make changes. They could only make a note in the system.

    As a former support desk associate, I would have to take and troubleshoot these calls. Nine times out of ten I had to shoot an e-mail to the property directly and hope the reservation manager would be able to handle the situation.

    Now this maybe be true for Airlines, but this was my experience in hotels.

  • hmmm

    I laughed at the uber helpful Indian comment. It’s so true. Though perhaps he should have just put uber helpful foreign call center person. I’ll bet the conversation went something like this:
    “Hello, Mr. Stephen. How can I help you?

    OP: “I mistyped my name on my airline ticket an need to fix the spelling”

    long pause

    “OK Stephen, I can help you with that. It is no problem.”
    pause, sounds of typing

    “OK No problem. What you need to do is cancel the booking and rebook with the correct name.”

    OP: “I simply need the name changed, I do not want to cancel my booking”

    “OK, It is not a problem. I can help you fix the problem. We cannot change the name on the ticket so all that you will need to do is to cancel the original reservation and simply rebook using your correct name.”

    OP: “Will I be guaranteed of my original price?”

    “OK, You are asking if the price can be guaranteed and we cannot do that. It is not a problem though, we can fix that. All that you need to do is cancel the booking and rebook using your correct name. Would you like me to transfer you to the cancellation department now? I will be happy to help you with that.”

    It seems that call center people are trained to say, “it is not a problem, I can help with that” every 10 seconds no matter the conversation. I thought Stephen’s comment was very funny and didn’t think he meant any offense.

  • Nina Snyder

    I just had the same problem of a misspelled name (by one letter of my husband’s) when I purchased tickets through the Southwest Aitline web site. I immediatly recocgnized my error and called the airline. Expecting to hear a tyraid of angry words I was surprised that the agent, with a very nice attitude, corrected the error right there and e-mailed a new ticket. That’s the sort of thing that makes Southwest such a great, friendly airline (where THEY truly ‘fly the friendly skies”) and why we try to fly with them every chance we get.

  • expatinasia

    “I called Travelocity and spoke to one of their über-helpful Indians…”

    Sarcasm and racism in a single post, this guy is an idiot.

  • Joe Farrell

    Every single airline has the ability to enter the TSA ‘ Safe Flight’ information before you print a boarding pass – how hard is it to simply log on to the airline web site to print the boarding pass and fix the information?

  • Mallory

    The same thing happened with my boyfriend with Hawaiian airlines and they changed the name no problem. Of course, we had booked direct but I have always found Hawaiian to be nothing short of polite and helpful. They too have recently gone offshore with their CS reps, but I think they are still better than most.

  • http://www.captivecenter.org/ Captive Center Outsourcing

    These are the price to pay for cost-cutting in the struggling economic crisis today. Though, fairly, not all outsourcing representatives are that bad.

  • http://www.honeymoonsareforever.com Rosemary Danielsen

    I recently booked a client on Hawaiian, then sent the email invoice to the client advising that any changes were due within 24 hours. Lo and behold, the client called with a name issue, which needed to be addressed. I called Hawaiian within the 24 hour period, was helped in an efficient manner by a cheerful and non-Indian sounding woman. The name was fixed, and I was on my way. However, since I was the real-live travel agent, not an online call center like Travelocity, this may have been why I received great service. Who knows, but neither I nor my client have any complaints.

  • Jean Christophe Baptiste

    This may be a bit late to reply, but I thought I’d just inform you as to what happens… I work at a call center in LA for an international airline.

    First off, when we receive a call to change a name, the airline can only do so IF the reservation was originally created by us.  If it were created by Travelocity, Orbitz, Expedia, you will have to go back to them as they have “control” of the ticket, in essence.  Now here’s a particularity in this system – since many airlines do not change names due to safety/security reasons, Travelocity (or whomever you booked with) has to cancel the reservation, even if it’s ticketed, and rebook under the same class of service, and we’ll issue what’s called a “wavier” (to change the name on the reservation without fees).  However, if this class of service is no longer available, and is rebooked and ticketed with the correct name, which is often times done/overlooked, the airline will issue what’s called a “Debit Memo” to the agency, usually the same as a date change penalty per your tickets.  And any agency you talk to hates debit memos.  It’s like receiving an F on your math exam. 

    Now having said that, I understand that passengers don’t care how the process works, and they’re probably already stressed out as it is, but the only way this can happen is if the original creator of the tickets initiates the change, first. 

    At which point Travelocity will call the airline, often times in heavily accented English (Philippines or India) to the point where it’s incomprehensible, and will ask you something but for all you know, they could be asking for a seat assignment or a kosher meal….  which is why I can understand why the Hawaiian Airlines agent may have been upset.  She was probably thinking, “God damn not another Travelocity one…”

    That and airlines always need/want your money.  Many times they’ll take your money but will NEVER refund anything.  Which is totally unfair, in my opinion.  Imagine how I feel everytime I save enough to travel (which is never) and then get slapped with a fee of some nonsensical crap and I work in the industry… 

    Airlines make the majority of profits, NOT from tickets or airfares, but through change fees and penalties.  

    Anyways, if airlines don’t follow the policies and procedures set forth by both the TSA and FAA, we get slapped with fines.  Which is why, anytime you make a reservation, you want to make sure that EVERYTHING is correct before purchasing because, once we’ve got your money, it’s gone.  Unless you purchased trip insurance or a refundable/changeable ticket.  Which are usually hidden because we want your money from change fees :)