The traveler who is the subject of this post, usually calls or emails me for most trips. But, he did it on his ow this time — it was a simple weekend roundtrip from California to Las Vegas.
He had also wanted to try Virgin America, and the airline heavily advertises booking at Virginamerica.com for lower fares and change fees. So, back in March he quickly booked discount tickets for a June trip for himself and his wife.
Alas, and he acknowledges this, the whole process was so easy and casual that he ended up typing his name as Larry, which he goes by with everyone, and not his legal name of Lazar. (It’s a European name.)
When he was checking in the night before it occurred to him that maybe he should have used the legal name to avoid TSA problems, so he called Virgin to ask what to do about it.
Now, name issues, as much as travel agents try to avoid them, happen more than we would like. But for domestic trips such mistakes are usually easier to fix, especially if it’s a first name.
Some airlines even allow agents just to document the record with the correct name, if the names are similar or if it’s just a misspelling.
So when I heard the beginning of the story, I figured, no problem — I thought wrong.
The traveler was relatively quickly connected to a supervisor, who told him that it would be no problem if he faxed in an official photo ID. Which he did.
Then the real fun started. He was then told that he also needed to fax in an official photo ID with the incorrect name.
As he explained, there is no official photo ID with the incorrect name, because it’s not his legal name. This was the whole reason for the phone call.
No dice.
Now, this client is known professionally and personally as Larry, but something like a Facebook page or a Google.com reference or even a business card apparently wasn’t good enough.
He was told this was “policy,” required “to confirm that I am now who I was.”
I’ll use his words for the rest of the story:
I pleaded (to a supervisor and their supervisor) that this should be obvious from the fact that my reservation and my request bore identical last name, address, and date of birth. No luck, policy was policy, and I was forced to cancel my incorrect reservation and purchase a new one, which included a cancellation charge and makeup to the current fare, a total of $275 more.
So the name issue, where TSA MIGHT have given him a pass, more than doubled the price of the ticket.
I understand, as always, that airlines are in business to make money. But this was a pretty clear-cut and small mistake. (The Virgin America policy with the two IDs I can only assume is for when people get married and divorced. Because how can you have an official ID in a name that doesn’t exist?)
Curiously enough, I have another client who is legally “Penelope” and used to go by “Penny” on air tickets, even after 9/11, until she had a hassle with one agent at the airport. Yet another client, “Christina”, has all her tickets and mileage information under “Christy,” and she says she has never even been slowed down by it.
In any case, my client wrote Virgin America to complain, and received a polite brush off letter saying basically had he corrected the name within 24 hours of booking they would have done it for nothing. However, since he had waited longer than that, these were the procedures.
The final paragraph from Virgin America stated “Please understand that our goal is to be an airline you love, and we take all of your comments and concerns to heart. Thank you for taking the time to write us, and we look forward to flying with you again.”
As airline problems go, this could have been worse and the passenger involved admits he made the initial mistake himself.
On the other hand, it wouldn’t have taken Virgin America much to solve the problem for a lot less hassle and money. And they would have ended up a lot closer to their goal of being “an airline you love.” Not to mention getting him more likely to fly with them again.
Janice Hough is a California-based travel agent a travel blogger and a part-time comedy writer. A frequent flier herself, she’s been doing battle with airlines, hotels, and other travel companies for over three decades. Besides writing for Travelers United, Janice has a humor blog at Leftcoastsportsbabe.com (Warning, the political and sports humor therein does not represent the views of anyone but herself.)
