Virgin Atlantic - £30 for a name change!!!

Moonchild

paxo2k wrote: »

Secondly Moonchild are you able to explain the process? As I'd like to know exactly what they do, surely the systems aren't so inflexible that it takes a lot of processing time. And whether they have to justify themselves or not I don't know, but if it was a financial services company they would have to justify such charges if required.

Lets work backwards. How many human minutes do you think it would take to justify a £30 charge for an error you made? Admittedly it would be nice to be free, but we all know that people have to be paid to fix your errors.

They don't have to justify themselves, they can charge as much as they want, and i've heard of many airlines charging a lot more than you think.

Unfortunately the technology that airline booking systems use is quite inflexible and time consuming. It's basically 1970's technology with a few knobs on. It's not your fault, but it's the way it is.

stoneman

paxo2k wrote: »

The only reason I'm so worried about changing it is because I'm flying to America, where I know they're pretty paranoid about things and I don't wish to spend the first 6 hours of my holiday explaining why it says Dan on the ticket and Daniel on my passport.

I have never once been asked to show my ticket to an immigration officer

sturll

stoneman wrote: »

I have never once been asked to show my ticket to an immigration officer

Then you have never flown out of the USA then.

pennylane99

I have just booked a Virgin flight through their website, and it says..

For security reasons it is absolutely essential that the name on your booking, ticket and passport are exactly the same.

If they are not you will be unable to board the flight. Please enter all passenger names exactly as they appear in the passports. This rule also applies to marriage or maiden names.

If a mistake has been made you can amend the name to reflect the correct spelling in the passport, up to 2 hours before the flight is due to depart. However you cannot transfer the ticket to another person. To amend the name on your ticket please contact your travel agent or our contact centre.

There will be a charge of £30 to amend each name

ceebeeby

sturll wrote: »

Then you have never flown out of the USA then.

... I have .... and never had to show my TICKET at immigration. I've had to show visa / passport, but never my ticket

pennylane99

ceebeeby wrote: »

... I have .... and never had to show my TICKET at immigration. I've had to show visa / passport, but never my ticket

do they not check your passport and ticket before you go through the security scanners

ceebeeby

Yes, but that's at the start of your journey - the security part, not at the immigration bit on the other side. In fact, I think you have to hand your ticket in when you board the plane, and you're just left with the stub telling you where your seat is ....

In fact, now I'm thinking even more, some airlines just do surname / first initial on the tickets but not all, so don't take this as gospel.

sturll

Well i have to say 5 times this year and every time they have.

In fact, the TSA guy even stamps your ticket.

It goes something along the lines of:

Queue, then TSA guy checks your ticket and passport and stamps the ticket and then directs you to a lane for security. Your ticket is again checked upon boarding.

So how you have managed to bypass that ill never know.