Incorrect Name Spelling Costed a Couple Fees to Cancel Airline Tickets
As the title states, a couple was charged fees to cancel airline tickets after discovering that their names were misspelled. Apparently they argued with customers service over the phone for several hours and still had no luck. They were stuck with a $150 fee to correct the typos on their airline tickets.
Eventually CBC reached out to the company, FlightHub, and found out that the couple was later refunded. I think that it was a nice gesture on FlightHub’s part, but the fee was still charged initially, even though FlightHub said that the agent was probably “new”.
I think it is clear that customers should be more cautious about the spelling of their own name and companies can be a little less strict on their policy. Though I am slightly on the fence about it, because companies do want to prevent abuse, but at the same time, should they punish honest mistakes?
What are your thoughts? Should we pay a fee for spelling mistakes on our names?
“Costed”?
I disagree with you Matthew. No traveller should be on the hook for changes to anything (name spelling, passport number, anything) until the vendor / agnet has provided the booking data in a written form. Why anyone would ever book anything by speaking to another person over the phone is beyond me, but if spomeone insists on doing this foolish thing, then they should examine the booking in a printed form and make corrections as necessary.
I would never make a travel booking verbally unless the vendor guaranteed me an hour to examine the booking in printed form (email, website, etc.) and make corrections at no charge.
Of course any traveller can avoid the misunderstandings that arise from misunderstandings, incorrect jargon, thick accents, bad VoIP lines, distracting background noise and other hazards of verbal conversations, by booking online and looking carefully at the screen throughout the process.
That’s what I mean. When they are honest mistakes I don’t think they should be charged either. I’m with you on that. The abuse can potentially if you book a ticket for yourself and let’s say you don’t want to fly anymore and you change the name to someone else in your household with a similar name. There are ways to abuse the system which is why I think the fee is in place.