Why is it so hard to change the name on a plane ticket?

Q I need your advice on a flight I bought through an online travel agent. It’s regarding a name change on a ticket. My mum can no longer travel due to a serious family illness so someone else is coming instead. I’m hitting brick walls – please help!

Emily H

A I am sorry to hear about the family illness and the impact on your travel plans. My heart sank when I read the words “online travel agent” and “change” in the same sentence. There is sometimes merit in booking a flight with an online agent, because weirdly, airlines often sell more cheaply through these intermediaries than they do direct. But as soon as any change is involved – on the part of the airline or the customer – the presence of an online middleman can make things much more complicated. In my experience, they will generally insist that all bookings are irrevocable and/or demand outlandishly high fees for making quick amends.

I must also point out that changing a name on a ticket is always difficult and expensive. I believe you would be best served by cancelling your mother’s flight and rebooking for the new member of the party. The best way to avoid a large loss on cancellation is to claim for the cancelled flight on travel insurance. That suggestion assumes your mother had taken out cover that applies to the particular circumstances that led to the cancellation, but I appreciate she may not have the right – or any – insurance.

The next step, had you booked direct with the airline, would be to contact the customer services department to discuss whether they will allow cancellation for a voucher in these difficult circumstances. Many will make compassionate exceptions for direct customers, but sadly the airline is likely to point out that your contract is with the online travel agent – which, in your case is failing to respond.

The final option, if the person replacing your mother is female, is for her to obtain a new passport in your mother’s name. This is relatively straightforward and is likely to cost around £100 – much less than the fees you could be charged for “cancel and rebook”.

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Q We travelled with American Airlines from London Heathrow to Dallas and onwards to Puerto Vallarta in Mexico for a holiday. Our return flight was this route in reverse, but on checking in online, the flight from Dallas to Heathrow showed as cancelled. I contacted my travel agent, who confirmed this and rebooked for the following day. We had to stay at our hotel at a cost of £480. When we eventually got to Heathrow we had to pay an extra £30 for parking.

I have tried to claim through American Airlines without any response, and my travel insurer says I must prove that the airline has turned me down before they get involved. What should I do?

Amanda P

A Your claim rests squarely with American Airlines. I am concerned you have not had any response from the airline – and I suggest your travel agent should pursue this. I was surprised your agent rebooked you on a different day; in your position I would have asked for a re-routeing, perhaps via a hub such as Miami, on the original date of travel.

Your agent should, at a minimum, be able to establish the cause of the cancellation: if it was American Airlines’ fault, such as a plane “going tech”, then the airline would normally cover necessary accommodation. But you may not be able to recover the cost of your hotel as you stayed an extra day in Puerto Vallarta rather than getting as far as Dallas for the overnight. Again, your travel agent should be lobbying on your behalf.

The dismal experience continued, and you then had to pay extra for airport parking. While the parking company is entitled to charge this, good ones in my experience generally waive additional charges if you can demonstrate that the flight was disrupted. It is worth asking your agent to try to obtain the £30, too (and probably worth avoiding that parking service in future).

If all of this draws a blank, the very least your agent can do is write a letter confirming you are out of pocket. Present that to the travel insurer. If your claim is turned down after that, contact the Financial Ombudsman Service, which can adjudicate on travel insurance claims. Finally, because the cancellation involved a US airline flying from outside the UK/EU, no cash compensation is payable.

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Q I read your reply on Sunday, where you advised someone to obtain a passport in another woman’s name, so they could travel on flights originally booked for her but which could not be used. You were surely wrong with this advice, as when I was in the travel business for 20 years, this would have been highly illegal. Please advise if the law or rules have changed?

Edward D

A I don’t believe the law has changed, and I have been giving the same advice for many years. The specific circumstances are when a passenger has an expensive ticket which they can’t use but someone else of the same gender can – or when there is a spelling error that the airline (or, more often, an online travel agent) refuses to change. The aim is to avoid losing many hundreds of pounds by aligning the name on a passport with that on the ticket. The procedure is slightly bureaucratically tedious but perfectly legal: I change my name to (say) yours by deed poll; the government explains online that this is an easy process. I then apply for a passport in the new name, as His Majesty’s Passport Office says I must: "You’ll need to get a new passport to travel abroad or prove your identity if you change … your name.”

I fly on your ticket, which hopefully is first class, and return happily. The only question then is: do I spend the rest of the life of the passport with your name, remembering to book tickets accordingly, or do I revert to my original name and get another passport? Probably I would do the latter, making the total spend around £165, though if my original passport had only a couple of years to run I would have needed a new one quite soon anyway.

I defer to a lawyer on whether an airline could take civil action by saying they sold the ticket to you, not me, and that I shouldn’t have used it. But I don’t believe that would ever happen.

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