A married name, a singular headache

Question: My daughter and son-in-law will be traveling to South Africa to attend a cousin’s wedding. They’ve been carefully watching ticket prices online and recently found a fare on South African Airways. They phoned the airline to book the tickets.

The problem is that my daughter’s ticket is under her married name. My daughter has yet to secure a new passport and green card with her new name, and there isn’t enough time to get them before they leave.

An airline representative told my daughter that South African would issue a refund, minus a 25 percent administrative fee. But then she would have to buy a new, and probably more expensive, ticket. And there would be no guarantee she could get a seat on the same flight as her husband.

I do realize that this was a mistake of their own making, but the 25 percent fee works out to $400, which they can ill afford. Can you help? — Shaun Francis, Orlando

Answer: South African Airways was well within its rights to charge a 25 percent fee for a refund. In fact, some airlines won’t issue a refund of any kind when you buy a ticket under a wrong name. You’re just out of luck. At least the airline was offering some of your daughter’s money back.

But should it do more? I think South African might have considered listening to this young family’s story. They’re newlyweds with limited resources and in my correspondence with you, it turns out they did their best to fix this mistake immediately, including calling the airline only a few hours after the erroneous booking.

Your daughter isn’t the first newlywed who has done this. I’m not suggesting the airline should fix this free of charge. A mistake was made. But was it a $400 mistake?

There are easy ways to avoid the wrong-name error. Hiring a travel agent is the most obvious. Although an agent will charge a ticketing fee, you can also be sure that a competent travel professional will take the trouble to get your names right. They’re also well connected, so that if something does go wrong, they can usually negotiate a name change at little or no cost to you.

You can also conduct the transaction online instead of by phone when booking directly with an airline. That’s your next-safest option. Why? Because you’re given several opportunities to review your name, and most airlines also have warnings that the name on your passport has to match the name on your ticket. It’s less likely you would have made this error online.

By the way, this could have ended much worse. Your daughter could have tried to fly under her original ticket, using her marriage certificate as evidence that her name had been legally changed. That might have gotten her on the plane, but she also might not have been allowed back to the States. And that would have been a much bigger problem.

I contacted South African on your behalf, and it agreed to fix the ticket for a $50 fee.

  • Trish

    “South African Airways was well within its rights to charge a 25 percent fee for a refund.”

    I’m not sure I understand. I wish Mr. Elliott had better explained why the airlines are within their right to charge consumers such high penalty fees for mistakes that, in the end, South African Airways decided was really only worth $50.

    I’m not undermining the fact that the newlyweds made a rather ridiculous mistake, but my point is that changing a last name on the airlines’ system is, apparently, not that difficult. Other than the few minutes it would a representative to update the information, how is it worth 25% of any ticket?

    I guess I was just concerned with the lack of understanding toward low-income travelers. To recommend a travel agent completely misses the point that a lot of us do not have the financial means to afford those services. But then to agree that airlines have the right to take advantage of those millions of travelers who must, as a necessity, act as their own travel agent? That made it even worst.

    For a journalist who has written great pieces against elitist practices in the airlines industry, this response seemed slightly disconnected from us at the bottom of the financial spectrum.

  • laura

    Sorry, Trish, but Chris is right. When you buy a ticket, if you read all the disclosures, the airline has the right to charge certain fees. They might not be ‘fair’ but you’re agreeing to them when you make the purchase. And, again, this mistake was made by the traveler, one might say it’s an obvious one and an easy one to avoid. Most folks that have passports have it programmed into their brains that travel documents have to match the name on the passports.

    As far as a lack of understanding of ‘low-income’ travelers, sorry again, but you have to pay to play. The travel industry is, after all, based on profit at all levels. And Chris would be remiss not to mention that travel agents can save travellers hundreds of dollars. After all, everyone always assumes everything will be 100% perfect – which makes them think of funds spent for help as wasted, but the posts on this site alone prove that’s not always true. If YOU happen to be one of those writing for help, its worth noting that a call to a travel agent might have prevented that scenario.

  • Chrs in NC

    My wife and I have been married for over 1 year now and she hasn’t changed her name for this reason. We plan our travels months in advance. Every time she considers changing her name, we have booked another plane ticket for future travel. Granted that a marraige certificate and change of name documents should suffice, why chance it?

    The original and primary purpose of matching identification with ticket information is for security and to ensure proper identity. If its the same person travelling, why shouldn’t the passenger be able to “change” the name? Does anyone really believe that it costs $400 or even $50 in administrative fees to make the change?

    Using the same argument, should the airline deny boarding if Richard Smith bought the ticket, but someone put “Dick Smith” on the ticket? I believe that Chris has written on the Robert/Bob issue. Its not like the passenger was trying to pawn off the ticket or sell it to another passenger. Its the same person for Pete’s sake!

  • laura

    Hey, “Chrs in NC” -

    Of course it doesn’t cost the airline $400 or even $50 to make a name change, but then, you didn’t really think that beer you bought onboard cost them $8 either, did you?

  • Cindy

    Thanks for mentioning the travel agents-of course it is our JOB to know this and avoid this problem for the client. We charge ticketing fees yes, but (in our case anyway) we charge 35 bucks which is a far cry from being stuck with a non refundable ticket or a very hefty penalty to change something. There again, because it is our JOB the client hires us to be their advocate.

    By the way, in case the folks out there don’t know it, we charge ticketing fees because the airlines don’t pay our companies comission anymore.

  • Kelly

    I traveled to Mexico several times with the ticket issued in my married name while still having a passport with my maiden name. Why? Because my passport was good for another 3 years and I didn’t want to pay for a new one. I always had my marriage certificate with us but I think I was only asked for it once – including all ticket agents, TSA agents, and customs officers.

    I’m surprised the airlines didn’t offer that as an option. Maybe South African Airways doesn’t accept a marriage license as documentation or maybe they just really want to squeeze all the extra money they can out of every passenger.

  • James

    If you’re stupid, you pay. It’s that simple. And how much you earn should make no difference. Would you expect the airlines to treat a rich person flying coach differently from a poorer person? Perhaps give them first class food? Probably not…so why expect them to understand that this is a newlywed couple on a limited budget. Maybe they should have waited longer to get married until they could really afford it. This was not something caused by the airlines, so why should they have to change their policy to correct it? If you don’t like the policy, try to change it before you buy the ticket or encounter a problem. A friend of mine says “If it doesn’t cost you, you haven’t learned a lesson.” Words to live by…

    Further, of course it doesn’t cost $400 or $50 to change the ticket. And it doesn’t cost $8 for the beer they serve. But it also doesn’t cost $100 to make those sneakers you’re wearing or $250 for that iPod your listening to, but you’re not complaining about those. Stop your whining! If you don’t like the prices of things than either try to change them or don’t buy them. Nobody is forcing you to fly or buy sneakers, but if you choose to they come with a certain price tag. Sometimes that price includes change fees or someone stealing your iPod. You guys are beginning to sound like one of those athletes that is paid $10 million and complains they’re underpaid. You made the choice, you (should have) read the terms, and now you want to change them? Give me a break! The airlines are usually dead wrong on most things, but this time they are right on target. To paraphrase the Soup Nazi: “No refund for you!”

  • Carver Farrow

    The issue of whether the airline has the right to charge a fee is a red herring. The real question is business ethics. It is generally unethical to levy a charge that is wholly unrelated to the underlying service and which costs the business nothing. Change fees are one of those unethical charges. The business model of airlines is transportation. Changing a name in a reservation requires little effort and any fee associated should be minor best.

  • Laura

    I suspect that Kelly’s passport was not questioned in Mexico was partly due to the fact that Latin women do not change their names when they marry and continue to have their own last names for the rest of their lives. Sure, some of them do it, but it’s usually looked on as an “Americanized” custom.

  • Carl Wolf

    Reading this complaint, and many others, I find it absolutely hilarious that so many people don’t know their legal name. “I confused my married name with my maiden name”. “I forgot which name was my given name and which was my family name”. Perhaps an IQ test for online ticket purchases is in order.

  • Jo

    Through marriage I have also had a last name change. That change, however, is not reflected on my passport. I recently traveled internationally and was able to reenter because I had the original of my marriage license with me to show to the Immigration Officer. I was let through without any problems.
    All of this to say,generally, they will allow you to show proof of the name change.

  • Liz

    Here’s an easy solution: DON’T CHANGE YOUR NAME! There’s nothing wrong with the one you have. Why should you get screwed over in the act of throwing away your identity for no reason? If it were such a grand idea, believe me, men would do it too! There are a million reasons to keep the name you were born with, so this is a million and one.

  • http://www.all-about-guatemala.com/bc Benjamin Barnett

    It only takes a few weeks to get a new passport, and besides, don’t book your flight under a name that’s not on your passport!

    I think this is entirely the OP’s fault, though the change fee was a bit steep.

  • Steven

    My thought is that IF this couple lived in a major city, they MIGHT have been able to get an expedited passport for less than the $400. There are also services that can expedite passports for a fee. Certainly they didn’t book the ticket one day and decide to travel the next, did they?

    As it turns out, they were charged just $50 which is less than a new passport. But she’ll still need a new passport at some point.

    Just a thought.