Airlines make it difficult to change the name on a ticket because they don’t want you selling your ticket.
- People might buy cheap fares far in advance (like they’re a leisure traveler) and sell last minute (for emergency or business travelers usually asked to pay more).
- The airline needs to enforce their fare gating in order to price discriminate, charging some people more than others. If ticket sales between passengers were permitted, it’s the passengers rather than airlines who might capture the difference in revenue between cheap and expensive tickets.
- So it was mighty convenient when the government started enforcing ID requirements for security – mandating that a traveler’s ID match the ticket is necessary to prevent one person traveling on a ticket issued to someone else and that’s crucial to the the whole price discrimination system. (The government didn’t impose an airline ID requirement until 1996 as a way of looking like they were ‘doing something’ after the TWA flight 800 accident that some at the time thought might have been terrorism-related.)
However there are times you need to fix the name on a ticket, and times you need to change the name on a ticket altogether. Here’s the latest guidance from American Airlines on how to make this happen.
Basically they will agree to name changes as long as travel is entirely on their own flights, that they have sold directly, and where you can convince them it’s still you… and not a ticket being sold.
The process is automated in the reservations system overlay, as described in a recent internal web reference for employees:
You might get married, change the name on your passport, but realize you already had booked tickets that need to change. Your name might not match your ID, because you’re booked based on your middle name or what you’re called rather than the name on your ID (maybe someone else did this for you). These things can be fixed but it’s far simpler when there’s only one airline on a ticket.
Thanks for the link to the 8 year old discussion. Too bad people aren’t asking why an internal passport is required for fast travel in the U.S. But then fear makes logical thought go away. So does one’s rights.
I’ve never tried this, but it seems like you could travel on someone else’s domestic ticket by buying a refundable ticket for any flight under your own name to get through security and then refunding it, then boarding and flying the other passenger’s ticket with their boarding pass.
@corey that’s a very plausible scenario. But not sure why one would fly with someone elses BP and not their own. Especially if they are trying to fly internationally then there will be a passport check to make sure the name aligns with the BP. For domestic travel, probably not much so.
My wife recently changed her passport to reflect my last name (rather than her maiden name). I foolishly didn’t realize this was about to occur when I booked unicorn availability on Qantas in business class for this fall, so I booked using her maiden name. After reading the horror stories on FlyerTalk and various blogs, I was convinced there was a 50/50 shot than any change would throw the entire trip into jeopardy. Given lack of other options (after all, she no longer has a legal document with her maiden name), I phoned AA (Australia office) to inquire about the change. They said it needed to be sent to their “back end team” for processing. After 4-5 days of following up (mostly because of my own impatience), the name change was actually completed (after day 3 of my following up, they said they were elevating it to “urgent” status with Qantas). Was very happy AA was able to come through!
I’ve never heard of American Airlines.
What about minor changes to other information, like birth date?