What to know about little-known rules the airlines have

Thanks, Mardee.

My thanks as well for the interesting gifted article. Also interesting is that 2 of the "cases" he presents with wrong names were people who booked thru a travel agent (American Express) instead of directly with the airline.

I'm guessing that all of the regular forum members understand the rule about not missing a leg of a flight but that one is probably fairly obscure to those who have not hung out on a travel forum, hahaha!

Pam, I'm sure they do. But you know it made a lot of sense what the article suggested about how airlines should really just have a little pop-up message that says, "Hey, you're not on your flight. Are you planning to take another flight? Or did you want to cancel this one?" Give them an option so that they don't lose the next leg.

But of course then they wouldn't get to charge a new passenger for that seat. It's all about money. Ugh.

Oh yes, I agree, the pop up would be really useful! And why NOT notify someone??

I had a corollary to the wrong name issue. I put in the wrong gender. I didn't notice it until the next day. Fortunately I had booked direct with the airline and called them. The agent laughed and said yeah, that would have been a problem with TSA and corrected it. It may have helped that at the time I think I still had status with that airline, or at least was a mileage member so they probably had a record of my travels and could confirm the correct gender.

The name thing can get complicated. We are dealing with that right now as my husband is the "II" which often messes with the airline websites. He is booked on Alaska to go to Iceland, but his return is on Icelandair.. The two systems are not all that compatible. On the Alaska site, his name is correct, but when the Icelandair system takes it, it left off his first name and it shows the last name and II as the first name, together and then the last name alone without the II. After several phone calls, we still do not have it sorted out, although in one area of Icelandair they do have it correct. So this week will entail more calls. I was told that only a supervisor will be able to sort it out. I found this out while trying to book his seat on Icelandair. At least we found out now and not when he is trying to fly home.

Trotter, I'm glad you fixed that. I remember the first time I flew KLM and they took my middle name and added it to my first name with no space. This worried me a bit until I came here and was reassured that it wasn't a problem. But it's still always nerve-wracking.

And mikliz97, yikes! I'm so so sorry to hear about that. I don't know why they don't make it easier for people!

My first and last names are often misspelled; sometimes both at the same time, but luckily never yet on a flight booking. It's something I've gotten used to checking. Most recently, a hospital in London that I had to visit a couple of weeks ago spelled both my names wrong and got the two digit number of my home address wrong. That one was important to check in case an insurance claim was required. I'm so used to confirming that my name has been spelled correctly that I even check when I scan my passport into the app when I check in to my flights. I even check that the passport numbers match.

We’ve been reading about situations which may affect your travel A few more are

Having 6 months left on your passport after your return date.
Having 2 side-by-side empty passport pages.
If you bend your passport to say, put in a back pocket, it could break or damage the chip. The ‘antenna’ is located in the back of the passport. This can cause your information to not pop up on the check in computer causing you to be turned away.

Barbara:
I have not heard of a problem about having two blank passport pages together?
Can you explain?

If you're travelling somewhere that requires a visa (even visa on arrival) they often require you to have two blank pages next to each other for the visa and entry and exit stamps so they can all be on the same page.

If the computer chip is broken on your passport, the airline will not turn you away because they can't read the computer chip. My previous passport had this problem. What they do is supply your passport number to the government and then check your passport when you check in or board to make sure you have one that is valid and is yours.

When you arrive in a country and go through immigration, you will not be turned away if the chip is damaged. There are ways for them to read your passport via the barcode. As I said, I had a damaged passport for two years and never had a problem entering anywhere. I just couldn't use any electronic gates. (I even asked if I should get a new passport and they said I could wait until it expired.)

As for name issues, I found a way to lessen the possibilities of problems. Regardless of the airline you are flying, or how often you fly, join the airline's frequent flyer program. It's free. You will enter all of your vital information into your "profile." Then when you want to buy a ticket, log in with your FF number or emal--depending on which you use for log in--and your information should automatically be added to your reservation. You'll also get emails with flight deals. (This can be turned off if you don't want it.)

Be aware, for some non-US airlines, adding the middle name sometimes confuses their system as middle names are not that common. As long as your first and last name show, and your date of birth is correct, you shouldn't have a problem. Delta shows my first and middle name as one long name.

S J - what Cat VH wrote
Frank II - with regard to the broken computer chip - airlines could turn you away, or in the time it takes to verify you, you could possible miss your flight. Just saying, if your passport is damaged, get a new one. Why make more problems for yourself.

Like most other airlines, American takes no responsibility for “items you carry on the plane.” ... NYT article

You would be surprised by how many people kept their cash in their carry-on bag; at least in some part of Asia. Over the years I'd read quite a few incidents of money stolen from overhead bin bags during mid-flight .... while cabin lights were off and many were soundly asleep. I always put them in my crossbody sling bag or in my jacket's inner pocket.

Another rule that Delta sometime will enforce (probably depends on the route):
Delta agent requires the physical card you used to book the ticket to issue the boarding pass.