He <i>might</i> be OK. But there are definitely no guarantees. Do you feel lucky?? And can you afford to pay full walk up fare to get him on the plane if things fall apart??

The only way to ensure things work out is to pay the change fee. Only you can decide whether to do so . . . . . .

(BTW - even IF he gets on the flight out, there is no guarantee he will get on the return flight)

EXACTLY! But, it's not my money or my husband. And I certainly not stupid enough to gamble with the TSA.

The TSA already indicated that the differing names were no problem, as my husband's driver's license will suffice--and that has his middle name with his first initial.

I'm going to call AA and talk to a supervisor.

As has been pointed out you have 2 major problems: A) gettng past TSA Security and b) Getting the airline to issue your husband's boarding pass. The latter is going to be more difficult since the ticket name doesn't match his passport which the airline will definitely have to check BEFORE the boarding pass can be issued.

Now, if you don't get the name matter resolved NOW there are only 2 possible results: A) Nobody will question the different names or 2) He'll be denied boarding. It makes no difference whether the &quot;odds&quot; are in your favor or against you or what others on a travel think MIGHT happen. What matters is what actually happens the day you travel and what you plan to do or how you and/or your husband will react if your husband is denied boarding. Since you already know there is a problem do whatever you have to do to get it resolved now.

I jut spoke with a supervisor at AA, and he said that the ticket agent will make the name change at the time we check in. That will be before we clear security; so by then we will have the ticket with the correct name on it. Phew.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

My situation is similar to yours. I use my middle name and that is the
name on frequent traveler accounts.
In order to get credit for international flights, I was told the name on ticket must match name
on FF account. My passport reads
xxxx yyyyy zzzz/ ff account is: yyyyy zzzz. I had
no worries showing my drivers's
license which is yyyyy zzzz and
passport at check in. Glad it's all
worked out for you.

I'll let you know when we get back!

I noticed this because a friend had trouble boarding an international flight just within the last month -- without revealing her name, the problem was the equivalent of someone whose legal name (on her passport) is Christina, who has always gone by Tina, and whose tickets are always in the name of Tina. Even though the name she uses is a shortened version of her formal, full first name, she was not able to board without paying to have her ticket reissued.

I was worried on our recent trip to Scotland because Delta misspelled one of my sons' names on our tickets. My husband tried to correct it as soon as we noticed it only to be told by Delta that it did not matter. We did not have any problems, but you can be sure that I will be spelling and re-spelling and asking people to repeat spellings back to me before I buy any tickets over the phone in the future. (Usually I buy them online and so at least the names are spelled correctly.)

Is this more of an issue when it involves a nickname/shortened version of a given name?

As I've said, my tickets (and those of my sons) always have our middle names on them because those are the names we use daily. No nicknames (we use the full names normally). And we have never had a problem.

It's to do with shortened versions of names / use of nicknames, middle names instead of first name, incomplete or mispelt names and international travel. It can be caused by people not realizing when they complete an online profile that the name entered is the that ends up on an eticket.

Also there is an assumption that if you depart from a country with incorrect names you can also arrive and get out of the arrival country without a problem. It is a matter of chance whether the errors are noticed or not, hence the different experiences.

In my case, we had to change from going by middle &amp; last name to first middle and last name for any US trips, since middle and last would not be accepted from travel from the UK to US.

I just don't know. We have never had a problem and have never even been questioned. Occasionally the passport control people will call my sons by their first names, but they are used to that and respond accordingly.

I have more concerns about my kids' passport photos no longer &quot;resembling&quot; them due to puberty changes!!! My younger son is still okay, but my older son looks like a different person! Our 7 years overseas adventure (and endless travel) is complete now, but I will work on getting a new passport for him sometime soon (even tho he still has 2 years on it).

Unfortunately, we're dealing with human unpredictability here. My friend has traveled for years with the name on her passport being a lengthier version of the name on her tickets, and it was never an issue before. So I don't doubt that many of us have traveled successfully with a ticket showing our middle names, but I wouldn't count on it always working.

I have had a similar issue with names. I have always used a shortened version of my first name for everything. All my credit cards, bank accounts, frequent flyer accounts, etc. use this shortened name. I always purchased tickets using this name. The only 2 things that have my &quot;real&quot; name were my driver's license and passport. All was fine with travel - all I had to do was give a quick explanation of the name mis-match - until 9/11. With heightend security, I increasingly ran into trouble with getting through security. I have often been pulled for &quot;special screening&quot;. The last time, I almost didn't make it on the plane. It was after this that I made the somewhat drastic decision to legally change my name to the shorter version (that everyone knew me by anyway) and was then able to change my license and passport so now everything &quot;matches&quot;. I know this is a step that most people might not want to do, but it worked for me. And, to the OP - I'd pay the change fee...not worth missing the flight and I know this can happen!
Good luck!

Hyphenating my last name when I got married was the stupidest thing I ever did. What a PITA with everything from airline travel to buying a house. Wish i never did it.

My husband had no problem with the mis-matched passport and tickets, perhaps because both his given names were on both documents--just not in the same order.