09 January 2024 , 12:17
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A couple had to fork out an extra £2,500 for plane tickets after the husband used his wife's nickname.
Australians Phil and Kate had booked tickets with Student Universe in July last year, which included flying to Melbourne with Virgin, then onto London via Doha on Qatar Airways.
All seemed in order until the pair released that there was a factual issue with their tickets, they told Nine. The issue? The name on the woman's passport was Katherine, but her husband had entered her ticket details as Kate.
They claim that Virgin told them they'd need to change the booking with Student Universe, and then the latter told them they'd need to cancel their tickets for a partial refund, and rebook. When they came to buy the new tickets, they discovered the price had gone up by £2,473.
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Most airlines will let you change booking errors free of charge on the same day - but after that you may incur a fee (Getty Images/iStockphoto)While most airlines allow customers to change the name on their ticket for no extra charge on the same day as their booking, it is up to the discretion of third-party websites to implement the rules as they see fit.
"If you do seek out the cheapest airfares there is a ramification that you have very little room to move - if there is a mistake you are going to have to pay," travel expert Quentin Long from Australian Traveller said.
A spokesperson for Student Universe told the Mirror: "As an agent, we are obligated to adhere to the change and cancellation policies as set by the airlines. In this instance, name changes were not permitted, meaning the only option was to cancel and rebook the ticket. As we were only made aware by the customer of their error within three hours of the flight departure, this led to further airline imposed charges which could have been avoided by the acting earlier.
"We advise all customers that they should carefully review and advise us immediately of any errors in names and in most cases where an error is flagged on the same day as the booking is made, the customer would incur no penalties to cancel and rebook in line with standard airline policy."
Getting details wrong on a plane ticket can be a costly business. At the end of 2022 a family told the Mirror how they were £10,000 out of pocket after being blocked from boarding a flight because their names were the wrong way round.
Tina Cribb and her relatives insist the clerical error was not made by them and that they had no way of knowing about the gaff until they collected their tickets at Manchester Airport. Tears were spilled by the nine-person party, who had booked their flights via Trip.com, as an Aer Lingus worker blocked them from the flight to Orlando, Tina claims. The Cribbs bought a new set of tickets for the following day in a bid to salvage the holiday, but now they're thousands of pounds out of pocket.