E-ticket nightmare! Advice?

Lou3000

We planned to fly to Australia at the end of September and my husband booked our tickets with an on-line travel agent at the beginning of August. We received the e-tickets on 9th Sept. It was only on Sunday, when he tried to access details of our booking on the emirates website that he realised that one of the names on the e-ticket was incorrect (they had missed off his surname).

He phoned the travel agent first thing yesterday who said that he would try and sort it and get back to us. To cut a long story short, my husband phoned them again today and they said that, unlike any other airline, you can't just change the name on a ticket (with a charge like 25 quid) you have to cancel the ticket completely, buy another at 'today's' prices and a refund on the original ticket will eventually be given.

The travel agent said my husband must have made a typing error when booking but the booking form on emirates website is very clear and it would be impossible to make a typo, you clearly type your first name and surname etc in separate boxes. Unfortunately, he didn't think to take a screenprint. We have no proof the error wasn't ours.

All this was told to him this afternoon, and meantime, they asked my husband to send them details of our passports so that the name details would be correct when they checked. They also said they'd wait till 5.45 to see what he wanted to do. My husband thought they meant he had until 5.45 today because they closed at 5.30, or else to phone tomorrow.

Anyway, by the time he collected me from work and we got back home it was nearly 5.30 and we decided to phone emirates first to see what they said - there's no way we can afford to buy another couple of tickets without a refund first!

Emirates checked the details and said the ticket had already been cancelled!

We are furious! They only needed to cancel one ticket. Now, some how we are going to have to find the money for another two plus the cancellation charge on top of that!

I'm just about to go over to emirates website to check what a ticket would cost us now (having booked over a month ago, the price has probably gone way up).

We've been saving 2 years for this trip to Australia to see our son - now it looks like everything is ruined.

delwynshd

What travel agent is it

Dave_Z

Lou3000 wrote: »

unlike any other airline, you can't just change the name on a ticket (with a charge like 25 quid) you have to cancel the ticket completely, buy another at 'today's' prices

Many of the cheap tickets on most airlines these days wouldn't allow any name change at all. It's not just Emirates.

Surely you had some type of confirmation at the time you made the booking which stated passenger names, flight details, etc? It also seems like a very long time was taken to issue the tickets. Did you pay on credit card?

Lou3000

We booked online on 3 August then my husband spoke on the phone to the travel agent the next day. We got an email confirmation on 30 Aug but it gave no name details just a booking ref and a link to follow to enter Advanced Passenger information. So, it was only when we got the e-ticket we found the name was incorrect.

We thought it was a long time for the tickets to be issued as well, so phoned them a couple of weeks ago to find out when the tickets would be issued and they said the ticket would be issued week beginning 5 September. We got them on the 9th.

We paid by Credit Card - which is another reason why we wonder how the name could be wrong - my husband's surname is on his credit card!

This is just a shambles.

It just seems so wrong they can cancel both tickets until they heard from us. If we'd had proper email confirmation with the names in that, it would have given us a chance to spot it and correct it before e-ticket was issued.

Heliflyguy

I am sorry for your situation and have no idea of what you can do now the booking has been cancelled apart from rebook.

As far as I know for a booking to finalise a passenger name must have two parts i.e smith/a - smith/andrew - smith/amr etc, so there must have been 2 parts even if incorrect although whether the airline could change this is another matter also once booked you may still have had a problem correcting the name even if discovered the next day but you might have been able to have rebooked at the same price (probably with penalties)

Your booking however could have been split then your husbands cancelled and rebooked with additional costs leaving your booking intact unless the price you got was for 2 passengers travelling (companion ticket) but I have not seen many deals around like this myself.

I never understand why there can be such a delay issuing a ticket once booked, with payment and all the bits the agent needs to put in, which only takes minutes the ticket can then be issued.

HXDave

when you say they missed off his surname, what name was actually there in place of his surname?

also cannot understand how the agent can cancel the ticket without written authorisation from yourself.

as far as the refund process goes, the procedure described to you is the correct procedure for all 'scheduled' airlines who operate through what is known as the 'BSP' system.

which agency / flight company did you book this through, and did you not get a confirmation screen or e-mail once booked with the details on?