Why are ‘name change fees’ on airline tickets sky high?

I booked a holiday with jet 2 last month, I was unable to complete the booking online so I booked over the phone. The lady took our details and completed the booking. when I recieved confirmation I notice that she had put two l’s in a first name in which their should be one. I called up and they said fine, and amended the name. I then checked the amended confirmation and noticed that she had put my son as a miss! again I called and they said fine. It was only today I went on jet2.com to book in online and it states that there is 2 amendment fees of £65 each. Am I right in thinking this is their mistake not mine. Thinking about it now she never actually double checked spellings of the names with me and I dont recall if she asked the *** of the children, although I would imagine the name jordan lewis would give away his gender? I am going to ring them tomorrow but any advice would be great. I also realised that she never asked for middle names but now dont dare ring to add them incase I get further charges!!

Hayes and Jarvis wished to charge me £490 to amend three alphabetical mistakes! These were largely errors by our travel agent. E.G. Ann put down as Anne etc. H and J said it was a charge being made by Virgin Atlantic and they stated that they made no charges. Travel Agent delayed in making change and held us to ransom and would not release tickets until we paid up. This was for a party of 52 people who had booked and paid almost a year in advance! Eventually they reduced the fee to £190 and this had to be paid before I got the tickets.

Advised by ABTA to fight the charge when we returned and have been doing this ever since – this was not our fault and we have stated we are prepared to pay a small admin fee – not £190. The saga goes on. I would add that another of the group noted a small error as she checked in and this was done at Virgin desk free of charge!! So just who pocketed the £190!!

BMI baby charged me £165 to change a mistake of Mr Robin B to Mr Robin Bacon – this is on an UK flight and the process took 5 minutes! I was particularly annoyed as the they accept that it is a genuine mistake by taking in to account that you are the payee of the original fare. It may well be legal but it is not fair, just or proportionate to the error.

Clearly the travel Industry is keen to replace estate agents and banks at the top of the “least popular ” tree.

My friend has booked us and three others on a trip to Prague in late November this year. When she booked it she gave my middle name as that’s what I’m known as and never use my first name, even my parents never used it (silly sods why call me that then?). Jet2 now say they want £70 to change it, I have said to the agent it is not a change merely an addition and it was a genuine mistake but they won’t budge. Feel like telling them to stick it.

Booked flights on 11th August 2011 for holiday in July 2012. Within seconds clocked I had one of the first names wrong. Contacted Jet2 immediately who want £82 to change the name or £40 to cancel the booking – I know which I will be going for! They will have done nothing with the booking as it is nearly a full year away so it seems outrageous that they get away with this – so much for good customers service!!

Yep,
Just been charged £50 by Thomson Fly /TUI to change my wife’s name which had a straightforward typo. Over a month to go to we fly.
Very annoyed having spent >£5k with TUI this year so far. Guess who won’t be spending with them next year! So much for customer service. Their loss.

booked a holiday online for the algarve in may for me my husband and two grandchildren one and four years old, the four year old changed her mind so we opted to take the other grandchild who is three. The name change will cost £140. Phoned monarch airlines so they could try and justify the amount , you guessed no comment, i thought we were flying economy not first class.

I made mistake by forgetting putting my surname for my daughter when I booking and normally we only use my husband surname in daily life so forget there is my surname on passport. I think you will be lucky if the airline allowed you to change the name. I had a bad experience yesterday and I booked ticket through the travel agent leaving London to Beijing and there is two flight involved, Lufthansa and
British Midland: Lufthansa is ok with name changing but British Midland has the policy which does not allow name change. I would like to pay the fee to change the name and does not matter how much charge but there is no possible. At end Lufthansa is unwilling to change the name as another airline cannot do it so I have to cancel all ticket and rebook again and it cost me so much and I do not understand why British Midland does not allowed to change name as another airlines and they just simple told me that cancel it and rebook again and for the refund the money, the problems is after 24 hours and you can only get the small amount back- and I hope British Midland one day can change the policy and I feel I was punished by my small error by the most unhelpful and stupid policy. I hope one day British Midland can change the policy and allow people make mistake and not heavy punish them.

Hello, I booked two flights to St Lucia a couple of months ago and put in my husbands christian name instead of Nicholas my son’s name( we always travel as a family and so used to putting us first I didn’t think). Ive just gone on the site to add the passport info etc to see the mistake I made, so I haven’t added anything yet. I called BA and they said that I have to cancel that flight and buy another one..loosing the majority of the money..So unfair. I have travelled so many years with them and of course have managed not to make a mistake until now. I thought at worse it would be a fee of some sort to adjust the name..but now stung for almost the entire ticket. Does anyone have any suggestions ? or have I just got to loose 100’s of pounds ? Thank you arlette

Thomas Crook are attempting to charge me £300 to change two letters (wrong way round)
We noticed this spelling mistake 9 months ago and asked them to correct it, we were told that there may be a small fee and if so they would send out an invoice which we have never received.
Went to collect the tickets today and when we enquired about the name change we were told they knew nothing about it and we would have to pay the fee, we have also been told that if we do not pay it today it goes up by 75% tomorrow.
Funny thing is they were adamant that they keep a record of all calls until we managed to prove that we called them on that date 9 months previous (phone bill)
We’ve pretty much been told by the miserable faced store manager that if we don’t pay it we’re not going on holiday.

I’m due to fly out to Thailand on the 9th of June 2012, I’ve just noticed today 5/6/12 that i have used my abbreviated version of my full name i.e My full name on my passport is Christopher instead I’ve got Chris on my e-ticket as I’m so use to using the shorter version to my full name, an error on my part and would quiet happily pay and admin fee however that might not be the case with Thai airways/Thompson worldwide.
Spoke to Thompson today it appears i may not be able to change my name and that i would have to purchase a whole new flight ticket possibly a £1000 🙁 just because i’ve used the short version of my name! i will be stunned if that’s my only option as there’s no real justification for purchasing another ticket just for my name! i will find out tomorrow as its bank holiday today they were unable to contact their representatives at Heathrow airport !!!!!

I’m due to fly out to Thailand on the 9th of June 2012, I’ve just noticed today 5/6/12 that i have used my abbreviated version of my full name i.e My full name on my passport is Christopher instead I’ve got Chris on my e-ticket as I’m so use to using the shorter version to my full name, an error on my part and would quiet happily pay and admin fee however that might not be the case with Thai airways/Thompson worldwide. Spoke to Thompson today it appears i may not be able to change my name and that i would have to purchase a whole new flight ticket possibly a £1000 🙁 just because i’ve used the short version of my name! i will be stunned if that’s my only option as there’s no real justification for purchasing another ticket just for my name! i will find out tomorrow as its bank holiday today they were unable to contact their representatives at Heathrow airport !!!!!

I have just changed a spelling typo with Jet2 (one letter was written incorrectly). I contacted Jet2 within 17 hours of booking and the change was free of charge. I was told that it was free of charge as it was just a spelling error, although perhaps after more time they would have been less happy to do so. I have to say that I am very relieved, and see this as a positive and sensible move – I would not have been happy to get charged to change a “B” to an “N”!

Unfortunately, when booking online with Virgin Atlantic I did not input my full first name but an abbreviated, more common version. As this was not the same as that in my passport I fell foul of the £30 charge. Virgin refused to waive the fee or credit it towards a future booking, insisting that they would stand by any mistake they made and I needed to do the same. Here’s the irony…that same night we attempted to do our online check-in with Virgin but the system failed. Despite several calls it was the same in the morning, forcing us to check-in at the airport with two unhappy young children. A couple of emails later and Virgin make a cursory apology for the online check-in failure but that’s the extent of it. Why couldn’t I have just “apologized”, saving my £30?! Double standards are alive and well with Virgin Atlantic.