Emirates policy for a wrong name on a ticket will cost more than £900

Puffer45

My daughter has booked two tickets to return from Bali on August 21. Unfortunately her phone has auto filled her first name in duplicate for her boyfriends name. The ticket is booked through Trip.com and the flight is on Emirates. Emirates have told us to speak with Trip.com but Trip.com have said that when asked Emirates will not allow it. Ultimately it comes down to the fact that there is a more than three letter change in the first name. They have said that our only option is to cancel but the penalty for cancelling is in excess of £500/ticket and the tickets have gone up to £1200 from 800. Add to that the flight has now seemingly sold out. We are being forced to cancel a ticket we don't want to cancel and will either incur excessive and unnecessary costs or result in my daughters boyfriend having no way home. Can anyone help or suggest anything. She worked for six months to afford this trip and now its money that we simply don't have for something that was an inadvertent mistake. Any suggestions?

jon81uk

Should be able to do a name change if misspelt for a £20 fee according to their website.
Booking with Emirates | Frequently Asked Questions | Help | Emirates

Your issue is it isn't a misspelling, its a name change and they don't allow transfer of tickets to another person.

Also having booked via an agent rather than direct it will make it harder if you do try and ask for goodwill as it is a genuine mistake.

If it was booked direct I would be showing them that two tickets under the same name is useless and trying to ask from that angle. But the online agent will add more difficulty.

daveyjp

Is not Emirates policy, its Trip.com policy, an agent based in Singapore so not straightforwards.

SiliconChip

jon81uk said:

If it was booked direct I would be showing them that two tickets under the same name is useless and trying to ask from that angle. But the online agent will add more difficulty.

The tickets aren't under the same name, the boyfriends ticket has the daughter's first name and his last name. If it had been travel from the UK and enough time in advance he could have considered a name change by deed poll and obtaining a new passport in that name, which would cost a lot less (he'd probably have to pay again to change it back afterwards) but that isn't really feasible in the circumstances. Perhaps investigate whether there are any other cheaper routes for him to get back home separately from her.

jon81uk

SiliconChip said:

jon81uk said:

If it was booked direct I would be showing them that two tickets under the same name is useless and trying to ask from that angle. But the online agent will add more difficulty.

The tickets aren't under the same name, the boyfriends ticket has the daughter's first name and his last name. If it had been travel from the UK and enough time in advance he could have considered a name change by deed poll and obtaining a new passport in that name, which would cost a lot less (he'd probably have to pay again to change it back afterwards) but that isn't really feasible in the circumstances. Perhaps investigate whether there are any other cheaper routes for him to get back home separately from her.

Ah, I mis-understood and thought both names had changed. Yes two tickets with unique names isn't going to get changed.

Although I think if booked directly with the airline, or with a proper travel agent you might have had more chance of an actual human being able to look at it and work out what the problem is.

Westin

What a mess.  Booking with an overseas based online ticket seller and booking incorrect names.

Did your daughter notice this error immediately after the booking was made, or sometime after?  If the former perhaps another pleading type call to MyTrip and Emirates to see if they will take pity.  You are really down to goodwill - Trip.com to do extra work for free when they are probably under resourced and Emirates to waiver a ticketing policy.

I hope your have told your daughter not to relay on a mobile phone screen to book complete and costly items, and to disable auto-fill.

comeandgo

Westin said:

I hope your have told your daughter not to relay on a mobile phone screen to book complete and costly items, and to disable auto-fill.

And to book a flight directly with the airline not use an online agency.

mattyprice4004

Unfortunately this is just going to be a very expensive lesson in checking the data being input is correct. 
It doesn't matter why the name is wrong - it's wrong, and the airline / agent will charge for sorting it out. 

Puffer45

mattyprice4004 said:

Unfortunately this is just going to be a very expensive lesson in checking the data being input is correct. 
It doesn't matter why the name is wrong - it's wrong, and the airline / agent will charge for sorting it out. 

 But the issue is that they won't charge for sorting it out. Its a hard fast cancel your ticket. If I could pay £50 I would.

Puffer45

Westin said:

What a mess.  Booking with an overseas based online ticket seller and booking incorrect names.

Did your daughter notice this error immediately after the booking was made, or sometime after?  If the former perhaps another pleading type call to MyTrip and Emirates to see if they will take pity.  You are really down to goodwill - Trip.com to do extra work for free when they are probably under resourced and Emirates to waiver a ticketing policy.

I hope your have told your daughter not to relay on a mobile phone screen to book complete and costly items, and to disable auto-fill.

She noticed after about three days. All efforts to progress this run aground as its just against their policy. But my view is that they have the wrong policy. Other airlines allow changes and so should Emirates. I made mistakes at 19 worse that auto fill! Its just mean spirited to ask for what amount to £1000 to stay on the flight they are already booked on. A cursory look at their names and passports would make it abundantly clear that this is not a changing passengers situation.

Puffer45

daveyjp said:

Is not Emirates policy, its Trip.com policy, an agent based in Singapore so not straightforwards.

  Emirates have certainly made it clear to me it is their policy.