Are you falling victim to exorbitant airline name change fees?

Next time you book a flight you might want to double or even triple check that all your personal info is correct. Carriers policies’ on name changes for tickets can be very strict and can lead to very costly fees to change them.

In the past, minor errors could be corrected (although not always very easily) but the industry standard has been that major alterations require a fee or even an entirely new ticket (big bucks for the airlines!).

 Earlier this year, a new rule was passed by the U.S. Transportation Department that allows customers to cancel their airline reservation within 24 hours of making it. This rule has allowed for most ticketing errors to be fixed and has taken away a big revenue source from the airlines.

However, outside of that 24 hour span, airline rules on changes are still vague and/or restrictive. Some airlines say no name changes are permitted while others advise travelers to go to the ticket counter at the airport to try to have their ticket changed. Allegiant is the only domestic airline that clearly allows for name changes, albeit for a $50 fee.

A simple way to make sure you do not encounter this problem is to use a U.S. travel agency like POTHOS. We do not outsource our call centers to foreign countries. This provides our customers with a much better communication platform. We also email drafts to catch any misspellings or other errors. Lastly, we can provide far better service than online ticketing agencies, where it might be very difficult to contact an agent to help with any issues.

Regardless of how your airline tickets are booked, you should always verify that all of your info is correct on your ticket. If you don’t, there is a good chance the airlines will be profiting on this mistake.