A frequent flyer questioned whether she was overcharged after shelling out more than $2,300 after using her nickname to book a flight.
An unnamed man has on Reddit to reveal that his wife tends to go by her nickname, Cathy, and booked the flight under this name.
But because her full name, which is Catherine, is listed on her passport, the couple is having problems when you travel.
He revealed that his wife had to shell out a whopping $2,389 to change the name on her ticket.
In a thread titled, Deltabegged the lovebirds people on the web for advice as he claimed the airline initially tried to charge them $18,000 to switch the name on his wife’s card.
A frequent flyer questioned whether she was overcharged after forking over $2,300 after using her nickname to book a flight (stock photo)
The post was titled: ‘Should it have been so expensive?’
The passenger explained: ‘We were flying internationally for the first time. My spouse has a name that has a common diminutive form – we’ll use “Cathy” for “Catherine” as an example.
“Cathy” is the name she uses on all her identification, including her driver’s license and was also her flying name and is on her Delta Skymiles account.
‘When we made our plans to fly, she had to get a passport, and on her birth certificate her name is “Catherine.” So the passport is in that name.’
However, when she booked her ticket, the information on her Delta account was automatically filled in and the name on her boarding pass was Cathy.
‘When we made our flight bookings, the information from her Skymiles account was automatically filled in and the tickets were issued for “Cathy”.
“When we went to do the part of international pre-check-in (don’t know what the real name is) where you have to enter your passport information, hers was flagged because the first names were different,” he revealed.
After reaching out to the airline, the woman was told she had to buy a new flight.
An unnamed man took to Reddit to reveal that his wife tends to go by her nickname, Cathy, and booked the flight with this name
The Reddit user added: ‘When we called, they told us they would have to cancel our tickets and rebook them with the correct name at the current price (which, by the way, would cost $18,000 more than what we paid – we were flying Delta One – it was a retirement trip we had been saving for for years).
‘After escalating to a supervisor (because our trip wouldn’t have happened if they needed $18K) they said they could change the name but there would still be a fee to do so – $2,389.32.
“We didn’t see that we had any choice, so we paid the fee and the tickets, with the exact same confirmation number, now showed the correct name.”
Although the issue was eventually sorted, the couple revealed they were left shocked to discover they may have been overcharged.
At the end of the post, the passenger said: ‘When we were at the airport we had the chance to speak to the representative at the Delta One check-in desk and when we shared the story she frowned and said that didn’t sound right and suggested we check it out when we got back. You are all the Delta experts – is it reasonable to change a name?
‘Did they really do us a favor by not charging us $18,000 for new tickets? Should I just chalk it up to our naivety/stupidity for not checking that the passport and Skymiles name match?
“Or will there be a way to dispute this charge, either through our Delta-branded Platinum AMex, where we charged it, or appeal to Delta directly?”
People on the web flooded the comments section and shared their thoughts, with many of them revealing that they had the same ticket fixed for free
People on the web flooded the comments section and shared their thoughts, with many of them revealing that they had the same ticket fixed for free.
One person said: ‘Fix your driving licence. I cannot stress this enough. I went through this. The state will allow it. Your wrong name becomes a legal alias and they update your license with real name.’
Another user said: ‘I had to do this last summer and it was absolutely free. No idea why it would cost so much. Agent took care of it in five minutes on the Platinum line.’
Someone else wrote: ‘My ex had a similar situation – he had to cancel and rebook a new ticket. Luckily it caught about six weeks before an international trip and cost about $600 to repair (flights to Mexico from Southern US).’
‘Sounds like you’ve been scammed. My wife became an American citizen earlier this year and changed her last name to mine. Her US passport was issued with her new surname, but her maiden name is still on her EU passport. When we flew Delta roundtrip to the EU over the summer, I booked the tickets in her maiden name (EU passport) and we flew there no problem. On the return to the US there was a problem when we checked in at the airport that the ticket name did not match her US passport. The ticket agent called within 20 minutes and had the ticket reissued to match her US passport and there were no additional problems.’
A Delta spokesperson told DailyMail.com: ‘We invite the customer to contact us directly to share what they say happened so we can look into this further. Impact does not have change fees.’
