Ticketing Mistake with United
 

I just noticed a mistake on my ticket. Here's the back story. I was in Salt Lake for the Thanksgiving weekend. Yesterday I flew from Salt Lake to Denver. From Denver I was supposed to go to Fargo, ND. The flight to Fargo was cancelled due to bad weather.

Each passenger went through customer service and got put on a new flight. My flight is tommorrow afternoon. I was given a ticket for a standby flight this morning but couldn't get onto it because it was full. So I left the airport and went to another hotel. When I got to the hotel I noticed that on the ticket for my flight tomorrow has the wrong name.

The name listed on the ticket is a male's name and I am female. United keeps giving me the run around and I don't know what to do. Advice?

If it's close to your name and an obvious mistake, I wouldn't worry. If it's really off, get to the airport early. Can you print a boarding pass online?

No, the name is nothing similar. The name on the ticket is Garrett. My name is Kristen. I called United, they don't even have me on a flight tomorrow. They said that I flew out of Kansas this morning! But that was Garret's flight. I've never even been to Kansas before!

catbert, that's an excellent idea. I was going to suggest that Kristen keep calling til she gets a customer service person who understands the problem (some are waaaay better than others!), but standing in front of them would be infinitely more convincing. If you're just hanging out at the airport hotel today, you could go now and get it off your mind.

Assuming you're at an airport hotel I'd take a shuttle back to the airport and get to the United customer service desk. They can't dispose of you so easily if you're standing in front of them.

I think I would call and ask to speak to a supervisor at this point

Tulea..This is something that will most definitely have to be resolved at the airport.Save everything United has given you.Go early and have all the details clearly in your mind.Be firm,calm, and I am sure things will work out.In these situations, involving severe weather, added to the Thanksgiving traffic, airlines are just as eager to solve any type of situation as you are.Best of Luck!

Tell them to go check their computers and they might find that this Garrett guy has checked in at some other airport in some other city, and that it would be impossible for him to be in two cities at the same time, and that he was never booked for your flight. Maybe he has a similar ff mileage number that got transposed with yours? I never worked as a ticket agent so I don't know what kind of info their computers show.

Well, after an hour I finally got things straightened out. They kept wanting to tell me that I flew out of Kansas this morning. Luckily I had my hotel bill from the Mariott to show that I was there last night/this morning and that couldn't be right. It took a lot of phone calls and discussion but I finally have a flight out tomorrow.

However, I am doubtful that I will get home. All flights in/out of Fargo are cancelled tonight. I fly out at 10 tomorrow morning and if the weather keeps up I'll be stuck here longer! That'll be a 3rd night at at a hotel!

Tulea-it looks like the snow will be letting up in Fargo by tomorrow morning, although it will still be windy. I'm sure the flights will be backed up though, with all the cancellations, so you might not get out 'til later in the day.

I think what probably happened here is that the gate/counter agents were working ahead and simply handed his to you and yours to him.
As crazy as this sounds it could happen at any airport on any given day.
It is very common for agts to print up documents for stand by or reaccomodated passengers prior to actually seeing the person.
Next time you are at the the airport listen right before the flight departs. Odds are you will hear the agt call names to come back to the gate. These people are in the process of being confirmed and at this point the boarding pass is already printed.

This is actually a valuable lesson to all:

Have a quick look to make sure you have your boarding pass, especially if you are connecting down the line.

Along the same lines, occasionally the counter agent will put the wrong tag on luggage because 2 passengers place their luggage on the scale at the same time. You know... there is the space that you set your luggage to be tagged? Haven't you ever set your bag next to someone elses? I have and I have seen countless others do it, sometimes at the request of the agent.

Anyway, glad to see you will be getting home soon!!!!

~Laura