Ticket spelling error with Orbitz

Old Mar 12th, 2013, 06:21 PM
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Ticket spelling error with Orbitz

Has anyone had the hassle of a misspelled name on a ticket - and tried to change it?
I purchased tickets thru Orbitz for a trip to Europe and found a letter had been deleted from my last name - not only could Orbitz NOT change the spelling, but I was charged 350 per ticket to cancel them, so watch those spellings carefully!!
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Old Mar 13th, 2013, 06:05 AM
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If all had gone well, how much would you have saved booking through Orbitz instead of dealing directly with the airline? I once had to change a flight with Delta because I failed to check the train connections to a conference I was attending. It cost me $150 to rebook two tickets, but, like you, I learned a lesson.

Maybe I am being overly cautious, but things like this are why I try to avoild third parties, whether for airlines, hotels or rental cars, Anytime you bring a third-party into a transaction, you increase the chances of something going wrong, and then being stuck with a either a ruined trip or a big charge when you try to fix it. Not to mention the buck-passing. And I have found it is easier to get the airline on the phone than to get through to, in my case, Expedia.
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Old Mar 13th, 2013, 12:09 PM
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Hi

My name is Jeanna, and I am part of the Orbitz Customer Relations Team. We want to learn more about your experience so that we can address the issue. Please email us at [email protected] and enter my name in the subject line, so that I can investigate further.

Thank you for your patience, and I look forward to hearing back from you.

Sincerely,

Jeanna
Orbitz Customer Relations
Chicago, IL
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Old Mar 13th, 2013, 12:18 PM
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To clarify, in the last sentence of my previous reply, I was referring to another experience, when my wife had to change a return ticket to a later date. She had booked it through Expedia and had a hard time getting through to make the change. There was a cost involved, but I don't recall the amount. Anyway, we no longer bother with these sites.
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Old Mar 14th, 2013, 02:25 PM
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I should clarify - I did send ll info to Jeanna above and she said what Orbitz had sad - that is, they could NOT help. They claim the problem lies with Air Canada, who ould not change the spelling - but the bottom lline is: I made reservation with Orbtz for flights and found tht my last name was mispelled (by 1 letter omitted), and no one could correct it, so I had to cancel the tickets, costing $700 - a VERY COSTLY learning experience. Be careful when using a erd party - and BE SURE your names are spelled correctly!!!!
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Old Mar 14th, 2013, 07:13 PM
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Could you tell us exactly who it was that said you would have to cancel the tickets?

Very often a one character error can be easily handled by a notation in the record.
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Old Mar 15th, 2013, 01:12 AM
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Exactly my question too. 1 character is not normally a reason to cancel and rebook tickets. There is a leeway of about 2-3 characters as far as I know. It's the airline's discretion though.

In any case if you had misspelt your name on an airline's website you would face the same difficulties. The implication here is that it is something to do with booking with a 3rd party, but it's something to do with mistyping your name. If you use a site regularly, you can create an account or profile and store your name which might help cut down typing it in everytime and risking the mistyping (as long as you type it correctly in the profile of course).
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Old Mar 15th, 2013, 10:44 AM
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Orbitz (repeatedly by phone and email), Air Canada by phone, and Swiss Air by phone -- all customer service repeatedly said the spelling error wasnot acceptable. I agonized over this - not really believing a single letter would make any difference; in the end, I decided that with 3 different airlines, 5 airports and 5 countries involved, I couldn't take the risk - at the least I would have had an ulcer worrying! so, after 8 phone calls (incl 2 hour of hold time) to Orbitz, 7 emails, and a letter, plus phone calls to Air Canada and Swiss, I threw in the towel and gave up to save myself the ulcer - it was costly and I am certainly going to 2nd guess my giving in for a while, but hopefullly no ulcers!
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Old Nov 15th, 2016, 04:42 PM
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I have a similar problem with Orbitz, my journey is split between two airlines on an international journey through Boston. One of my middle name is misspelt and it looks like it is impossible to get it changed . I have been talking to Orbitz people but they probably have no link with these airlines . The very last suggestion from their supervisor was to buy another ticket and throw this ticket ($1200 worth) away. What insensitivity . I am just wondering why is it so difficult to get this done through Orbitz. May be we should never buy tickets through third parties.
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Old Nov 15th, 2016, 05:14 PM
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Middle names are not usually a problem. Never take the word of the first person you talk to. Insist on talking to a superior. There are usually reasonable ways to make corrections. I did this with BA when I gave my son's nickname rather than full name. It was not a problem and I wasn't charged.
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Old Nov 17th, 2016, 06:30 AM
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Something is not ring true in this story. I have a last name with two consecutive letters - aa - in the middle. The name is frequently spelled with one letter when I don't personally make the reservation. Never been a problem because everything else checks. Also, never use a middle name on tickets. Just one less thing to mess up. But both passport and driver license has middle names. It has never been questioned by either the TSA or the airlines. There are two different acceptable spellings of my wife's first name and again that hasn't been a problem. Mistakes happen. Cannot see how one letter would make a difference.
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Old Nov 18th, 2016, 01:31 AM
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Buying through third parties is never a good idea imo.

However one letter misspelt in the middle name ?

We Europeans never use middle names. The problems we had is that on my wife passport her names are all written and strangely aligned so that her third name may look like her first.
That third name is also the first name of our daughter. So we sometimes spend 25 seconds explaining.

You have 0.00001 percent chance to have a problem. So come early - in case you have that problem I boarding you'll have time to get a manager.

You think there are never mistakes with names ? My name is always truncated because if us too long ... Nobody cares.
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Old Nov 19th, 2016, 03:46 AM
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I wrote to Orbitz Customer services to get this one letter mistake corrected. But they also repeated the same mantra that it does not mater with middle name errors. It seems they dont want to take the trouble of calling the concerned airlines to get the matter fixed. Will never buy anything from them.
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Old Nov 19th, 2016, 08:00 AM
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If there is a spelling mistake and the booking was made yourself online, there is only one person responsible for that error. If you've been told that the 1 letter error in a middle name does not matter, why continue complaining? It is not a matter of not taking the trouble to change it, it is simply not necessary to do so. Why spend time correcting something not important? Why do you think booking direct would have given a different result to this non issue?
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