Travel agency screw up: Name discrepancy looks to thwart Swede’s trip to the U.S.

Here’s the rare case of an airline getting the back of one of its customers.

A Swedish woman who recently booked a round-trip ticket to visit her boyfriend in the States through a UK travel outfit called Gold Medal Travel is being told she’s going to need to pony up another $200 because the agency botched her name on the tickets. Gold Medal says the woman’s last name appears twice on the tickets and that this won’t fly with the carriers involved, namely KLM and Northwest. Gold Medal says the woman needs to pay for the change or forfeit her trip. The agency also says the airlines involved are the ones that require the high fee for name changes on tickets.

That seems like news to Northwest.

The woman’s boyfriend contacted Northwest and was told the ticket as it reads now wouldn’t be a problem and that she should not have to fork over so much for a simple name change. KLM has yet to be consulted, it seems, but I’m guessing it will conclude the same thing.

Seems likely the travel agency is trying to squeeze a little bit more out of this particular package. But then again, the name discrepancy might matter.

I have a Czech friend who once had some trouble in the U.S. because of a slight discrepancy with her last name. The last names of Czech women often end in ‘ova’, though my friend goes by a westernized version of her last name that drops this suffix (she grew up in Canada). So her printed ticket sometimes does not match the name on her Czech passport.

I wonder if Gadling’s dear own Iva, also a Czech native, has any trouble with this, since she too goes by two last names (her last name is Skochova in Czech, though I don’t know if that is how it is printed on her Czech passport).

Right now it appears the couple in question are weighing their options, including logging official complaints with travel boards in their respective countries. Whether Gold Medal Travel will come around remains to be seen.