£130 to correct my name on flight ticket!

mistafeesh

I've been saving up for ages to get to a warm place for a few weeks this winter, which is quite tricky with disability benefits! But the heat will make a huge difference to my health.


I only just managed to afford the ticket price, and did everything I could to get the lowest price. I booked a ticket last night through skyscanner with a company called flysharp.com



I am 99.9% sure I put everything correct on the form - I checked and double checked before hitting any buttons - but when the confirmation came up, suddenly my first name was spelled wrong. The last letter was changed to the last letter of my surname. I called them up this morning and they're telling me it's £130 to correct. Can they do that?


I actually think it's a system fault - the same thing happened before to a friend so I've messaged them to see if it's the same company. I know the apostrophe in my surname often confuses systems! Either that or it's a scam... Yay.

agrinnall

This is why you should only book flights directly with the airline. It might look a little more expensive but you are much less likely to have this sort of problem.


Have you actually checked with the airline whether they can make the name change? Often they won't, but you never know.



Never heard of the company, but whether it's a scam or a system error you might still have to pay if you want to go on your holiday.

jpsartre

Which airline? Some allow you to cancel free of charge within 24 hours although the fact that you went through a 3rd party may complicate things. In the future, book your flights direct from the airline.

Alan_Bowen

Fly sharp is one of the many trading names of Southall Travel, one of the largest agents in the UK. Their own booking conditions say the fee to change anything is £150 which would negate any saving you might have made. However, if you make a booking online you become your own travel agent, I would never put an apostrophe in the name at all, it is almost certainly that which has caused the problem.

The only way to avoid the fee is to call the airline, if you get a sympathetic agent they might help, but the usual reply is to go back the agent. They probably only made £20 profit on the first sale, it is people making mistakes who make the profit which keeps fares down for everyone else. Sorry!

mistafeesh

It's gulf air. Going through the airlines seemed a lot more expensive, and I didn't think until now that I could have checked once I'd found the bargain flight whether it was the same price with those dates on their site... But I don't think it would have been.

Westin

Is your name particularly long?

Some reservation systems have a limit on the number of characters they can accept. Just wondering if your first and last names have exceeded the character count by 1 and the system has truncated your first name. For example with an 22 character limit Jennifer Littlehoundstom might become Ms. Littlehoundstom/Jennife on an airline system.

Flysharp should be your point of contact to confirm/correct but I fear you are about to experience the down side of dealing with these cheap online ticket sellers. Most have very lacking customer service and back office support. With a cheap ticket they simply can not afford Bells & Whistles service. Likely to be an offshore call handler and possibly long waits to connect to anyone.

Do not mention "name change" just talk about a spelling correction. A name change may be seen as a passenger replacement.

Good luck.

Voyager2002

mistafeesh wrote: »

I've been saving up for ages to get to a warm place for a few weeks this winter, which is quite tricky with disability benefits! But the heat will make a huge difference to my health.


I only just managed to afford the ticket price, and did everything I could to get the lowest price. I booked a ticket last night through skyscanner with a company called flysharp.com



I am 99.9% sure I put everything correct on the form - I checked and double checked before hitting any buttons - but when the confirmation came up, suddenly my first name was spelled wrong. The last letter was changed to the last letter of my surname. I called them up this morning and they're telling me it's £130 to correct. Can they do that?


I actually think it's a system fault - the same thing happened before to a friend so I've messaged them to see if it's the same company. I know the apostrophe in my surname often confuses systems! Either that or it's a scam... Yay.

In your situation I would say 100% rather than 99.9% sure, and contact my card issuer for help -- as well as the airline!

mistafeesh

Nope it's not especially long - it's 6 letters. My middle name is only 5 letters long too, and my surname is 6 plus an apostrophe, but cheap/lazy web developers don't always apostrophe-proof their code.


They did it for £30 after I emailed them! It's always worth pestering these people!

TELLIT01

https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/flysharp.com makes interesting reading. Average 2 star rating.

trina100

Can I Ask how you got around getting the fee down to £30? I’m having the same issue with them at the moment however they want £90 from me for swapping two letters around. 

photome

trina100 said:

Can I Ask how you got around getting the fee down to £30? I’m having the same issue with them at the moment however they want £90 from me for swapping two letters around. 

Prob not going to get an answer, the OP hasnt logged in since Dec 18