Names on international ticket
 

I booked a ticket from denver to frankfurt on island air under Lisa Danielle Wheaton (not my real name.
But my german passport says Danielle Lisa Wheaton. All my documents (greencard, driver license,ect)
say Lisa D Wheaton. I called the airline to change, but it would cost my almost $ Dollars. I am ok to travel. Any suggestions?
Thank you!X

Do you really mean Island Air - they only fly between the different Hawaiian islands? Perhaps you meant Icelandic Air?

Regardless of the airline, no one can give you a definitive answer because what will happen the day you fly is entirely up to how strict the agent who checks you in at the airport and the Immigration agent who processes you when you arrive in Frankfurt are the day you arrive.

If you don't make the change and you are denied boarding telling the agent the responders on the Fodor's Travel Forum said it would be OK won't amount to a hill of beans.

Technically the name on the ticket must match the name on the Passport and the only real way to be guarantee you won't have a problem is to have the airline correct your name and pay the change fee.

Did you book the ticket yourself? Are you the person who put the name in or did the airlines do it over the phone? If the airline did it then I would think you have some recourse. My son had a similar thing happen with one of his kids tickets. He fought with them and finally the corrected it at no charge. Keep making your way on the chain and pleading with them.

'Technically the name on the ticket must match the name on the Passport'

No

My name on my passport is John Johnny Jonathan Johnsonstonjohn.
My name on my tickets is invariably Johnstontonj Joh.

My name is simply too long so they truncate it on ticket and I never use my middle names - nobody does in Europe.

Yet my passport shows all my names, and my ID card shows my first name and initials of my middle names.

I cannot possibly imagine what kind of people would kick you out of a plane because of an inversion. You just say 'oh, really ? let me sse, oh, yeah, they inverted the names' in the unlikely event tha tsomebody checks.

That is what I would do, but I am not traveling so if you find THE guy who slept badly and got dumped by his wife the day before, maybe you'll have problems. (you can replace this sentence by a disclaimer in capital letter 'I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY ADVICE GIVEN HERE'

But frankly... just go a little bit before in case you find a lunatic and you have to call his/her boss.

As I understand it, your first hurdle will be getting a boarding pass, but even if the airline overlooks this issue, TSA in Denver may very well not. According to TSA's website, they will let minor name discrepancies go (middle initial versus full middle name for instance), but will be verifying in the very least that your first and last names match. If there is a discrepancy, they indicate that you may be subject to increased screening (and I assume, potentially being denied boarding).

I don't know how easy it is to talk to someone directly at TSA to verify whether you are likely to encounter any issues. But that's where I would start.

The best, though certainly not cheapest solution, is to have your ticket changed to match your Passport.

>>I cannot possibly imagine what kind of people would kick you out of a plane because of an inversion.<<

Names tend to be very important to TSA -- so your experience in Europe may not be relevant here.

But in any case >>But frankly... just go a little bit before in case you find a lunatic and you have to call his/her boss.<< Yes, arriving early would be a good idea.

However -- the only way to be certain you'll be OK is to have your ticked fixed/changed.

Janis, I happen to travel to US, China etc.
I never mention my middle name.

Whatello: One does not 'need' to mention their middle name. But IF their middle name is used <u>instead</u> of their first name like in the OP's case . . . it could be a (big) problem.