HELP wrong name - RYANAIR ticket

Sandals

I booked a Ryanair ticket for my friend

His full passport name is Eoin Desmond O'Neil

But the name i entered and that on his ticket says Eoin O'Neill

(notice Neil is spelled wrong as well as the omission of his middle name)

Do you think this will be a big problem?

kittenz

i am not too sure how much of a difference it will make. But you can change it, happened to my mate a few weeks ago, she was booking flights for a group and put the wrong name in, she rang up ryanair, and they changed the name for her... Only drawback was it cost her €10 to change it! Pack of thieves!!!! :mad:

missmatty

Don't think the middle name matters, i've booked alot of tickets last few yrs never used mine or ppl i book for's middle names. I don't think the misspelling matters either, if anyone asks your mate he can just say a friend booked it. I'm sure it happens all the time, i've often booked for mates or them for me!

Eoin

Sandals wrote:

I booked a Ryanair ticket for my friend

His full passport name is Eoin Desmond O'Neil

But the name i entered and that on his ticket says Eoin O'Neill

(notice Neil is spelled wrong as well as the omission of his middle name)

Do you think this will be a big problem?

I'd be inclined to try and change it. The middle name shouldn't matter, but the mis-spelt surname sounds like the kind of thing Ryanair are known to throw the toys out of the pram about.

Miss Fluff

eoin_s wrote:

I'd be inclined to try and change it. The middle name shouldn't matter, but the mis-spelt surname sounds like the kind of thing Ryanair are known to throw the toys out of the pram about.

LOL, completely agree.
Better to err on the side of caution methinks. I bought a ticket to France from a friend last year and they charged me a tenner as far as I recall so I'd advise phoning them and making sure.

BuffyBot

I recommend calling them: 0818 30 30 30

Lisapeep

Middle name won't matter. In fact most people these days don't even put their middle name on their passports anymore!

tech

you should be on this, this happened me before didnt make any odds

Snickers Man

Do let us know how you get on.

Forewarned is forearmed when dealing with these guys.

Though it now costs €65 (each way) to change a name on a Ryanair ticket.

TheMonster

Snickers Man wrote:

Do let us know how you get on.

Forewarned is forearmed when dealing with these guys.

Though it now costs €65 (each way) to change a name on a Ryanair ticket.

happened to me - only noticed when queueing up - said nothing and got away with it - similar problem 1 letter missing - depnds on whether its noticable really and how awake the person is as have heard of others who have had to pay.

Sandals

Snickers Man wrote:

Do let us know how you get on.

Forewarned is forearmed when dealing with these guys.

Though it now costs €65 (each way) to change a name on a Ryanair ticket.

Dear God that is an absolute joke, I clearly can not afford to pay that for it, so will hopefully just try and get away with it!

BuffyBot

so will hopefully just try and get away with it!

Great plan. Did you ring them and ask?

conor_mc

Something similar happened when I booked tickets for myself and the girlfriend once, accidentally put her down as a Mr instead of a Ms.

Wasn't a problem anyway once we cut her hair really short and stuck on the fake moustache......

Snickers Man

Sandals wrote:

Dear God that is an absolute joke, I clearly can not afford to pay that for it, so will hopefully just try and get away with it!

Seriously. Let us know how you get on. Whether from telephoning them or just brazening your way through.

I have heard horror stories but am well aware of the 'urban myth' phenomenon.

I know somebody who is booking tickets for a group of people to an event in England and she is paranoid about getting the spelling right. Especially for names like Ciaran, Kieran, Kyran.

It's best not to take chances with Ryanair. They work on the principle that if you screw up, they're entitled to screw you.

lazygit

if the name is spelt wrong, you will not get on the flight, they wont care about the middle name, but i can 100% guarntee that if the check the passport and see the last name is spelt different your off the flight.. how do i know? it happned to me.

MiniD

This happened me in February travelling to London, like Snickers mentioned above they were looking for €65 to change the name. As this cost more than the actual flight we decided not to travel and use another airline but left the booking intact so they could not sell our seat at a higher price at the last minute.
€65 seems a total rip off for what would probably take 30 seconds for someone to change on the system.

lynchie

I would't worry about the middle name. I've booked people before mispelling their names.. actually one friend of mine, showed up at the airport with his passport in Irish after me booking him using his english name and got away with it.

Tip is, make sure you are one of the first to check in. If its near hte 40 min mark when they close checkin, and people are on standby to purchase a seat, then make no mistake, they will use any little typo to prevent you travelling so they can sell your seat at crazy prices..

Snickers Man

MiniD wrote:

€65 seems a total rip off for what would probably take 30 seconds for someone to change on the system.

I wonder why they do such a thing.

Perhaps it's that they don't want third parties block-booking cheap flights and then offering deals on them at an inflated price. Or at least a price inflated from the 0.01c at which Ryanair originally offer them.

But if that is the case, why are they so punctilious about slight variations in the spelling of names?

I don't think thrid parties block bookeing certain tickets is the same thing as ticket touting, in which third parties offer tickets to concerts/football matches etc at prices way over the asking price. After all, if they try to offer ridiculously high prices on certain routes then they will simply price themselves out of the market and drive traffic to competitors, in which case they will be left holding worthless tickets.

I suspect the 65 euro name change fee is five parts 'wanting to make cheap flights available directly to our customers' and 95 parts Ryanair's customer culture which is 'screw the customer if they screw up'.

arac

happened to me in the last week..I was booking flights for my family and mispelt the surname morrissey in one of the names, putting in one s instead of two..rang them up and they changed it, no charge..
in saying that I was charged 6 months ago when a similar thing happen, think it was about €10..
better off to change it rather than risk it for a buiscuit, its no big deal..but it could be a big deal if they wont let your friend on the flight because the name on his passport doesn't match the ticket!:eek:

Snickers Man

So sometimes it's free of charge, sometimes it's a tenner and sometimes it's 65 yo yo.

Confused?

I am.

MarkK

I think there is a rule, somthing like up to two letters out is ok, but more than that it is a chargable name change.

logonapr

I fly Ryanair most weeks and would be amazed, based on my experience, if they will bother about one letter missing.
I know one hears bad stories about them but I've generally found them to be OK .

Our man in Havana

How do they deal with hyphenated surnames? I use the name say "byrne-smith" but the passport office won't allow you put the hyphen on the passport instead they put the surname down as "byrne smith" with a space instead of the hyphen.

The question is would ryanair go mad if you put in the hyphen?

moshpit77

my tuppence worth...

last October went to the airport with a mate whose name on his passport said Bernard but had been booked by a friend of his as 'Ben' which is what he is known as

The girl at check in said she couldn't let him check in but if he went over to the desk they'd change it for him for free. When he went over the girl there wanted to charge him €65. He got the check in girl to go over and have a chat with the other girl and then she agreed to do it for free.

It seems to be a rule that's open to interpretation. Depends on whether you get a friendly staff member or not.

Snickers Man

logonapr wrote:

I fly Ryanair most weeks and would be amazed, based on my experience, if they will bother about one letter missing.
I know one hears bad stories about them but I've generally found them to be OK .

They're fine as long as you adhere to the letter of your agreement with them and don't screw up. If you screw up, you get screwed. The notion that 'the customer is always right' is not in their company handbook.

It's a bit like swimming with sharks. You'll be fine as long as you don't provoke them. So no raw cuts letting blood into the water or you're din dins. It's just that newcomers to the airline often expect that they will be treated in the same way as they are by other airlines and get shocked when they find that's not the case.

Like this 65 yo yo charge for changing a name on a ticket.

Like I said before, forewarned is forearmed.

Snickers Man

BuffyBot wrote:

Great plan. Did you ring them and ask?

You're having a laugh aren't you?

A group of us are trying to go to an event in England next week. One has had to pull out so we are trying to replace him with another person.

Only problem is: Ryanair don't seem to want to answer the phone. A colleague has twice held for20 minutes without managing to speak to anyone.

Like I say the company motto is: when you screw up---you get screwed.

blorg

As mentioned before, the €65 charge is meant to prevent people buying the tickets cheap and then touting them. So it is meant to be for a genuine name change, e.g. transfer of the ticket to a different person. AFAIK they will generally be OK with single letters missing/hyphens and other variations although I am sure there are a few horror stories, there always is with Ryanair. I have called them and got the time of a flight changed before, for free; called them minutes after the booking as I had made a typo. They have also let me on a flight when I arrived five minutes before the departure time (note: that was a while ago and I don't think I'd get away with it now.) I think it does depend on who you get.

Dellas

GOLDEN RULES

Check , double check and triple check all names against the passport names before you click the final OK button !!!!!

You only get one chance so dont get distracted and dont guess whats on someones passport its not worth the extra hassle. If your booking for mates get them to check their passports.

If for any reason you do see a one letter mistake just play cool and dont let on unless the check in agent asks. When you hand in passport just be nice and say something to distract his or her attention like are the flights running ok today or even the weathers not bad for the time of year ....anything that will distract them but do it without getting nervous or obvious....

parsi

or whistle inanely whilst looking around....

Cheng

I recently booked with ryanair for 6 people. 1 name - Kimberley Watts. Her middle name is Kursty. I accidently put Kimberley Kursty as her full name. Will i need to pay £70 to change her last name back to Watts?

Mountjoy Mugger

If you haven't put down her surname, then yes.

BuffyBot

Cheng wrote:

I recently booked with ryanair for 6 people. 1 name - Kimberley Watts. Her middle name is Kursty. I accidently put Kimberley Kursty as her full name. Will i need to pay £70 to change her last name back to Watts?

Possibly. Unless you can convince someone in Ryanair that it was a genuine mistake. The phone numbers are on their website.

helsbels

Believe it or not you are lucky to be able to change a name at all these days.The middle name doesn't matter at all but the spelling of the surname does although as another frequent Ryanair flyer I'm not even sure they would notice.
Ryanair are actually more flexible than most on this. Most of the scheduled airlines will not allow any name changes other than the 2 letter thing that someone else mentioned. In this instance I would chance your arm at check in and not say anything but be prepared that they may send you over to the ticket desk and charge you the fee to change it.

joebre

Can somebody explain the 2 letter rule to me, please.
Booked a Ryanair flight yesterday and I mis-spelled my own first name, putting down JOESPH rather than JOSEPH. Very slight difference ?
What do you think ?

embraer170

I wouldn't worry.

blorg

joebre wrote:

Can somebody explain the 2 letter rule to me, please.
Booked a Ryanair flight yesterday and I mis-spelled my own first name, putting down JOESPH rather than JOSEPH. Very slight difference ?
What do you think ?

If I were you I'd change your name by deed poll and start getting used to being called Joesph for the rest of your life.

maebee

We were taking a group of 20 lads on a rugby trip to France last year and thought we had all the passports in order. Turns out that one lad, who everybody knew as "John Smith" (reared by his grand-parents, the Smiths) was in fact "John Murphy" (the name on his passport). The error was only spotted at the airport on departure and Ryanair charged the "cheapest" Shannon - Beauvais flight on the day.....€410. Lesson learned. NEVER accept it when lads say they have an up-to-date passport. Check them thoroughly. Ultimately the fault lay with us, the organisers. Red faces all round !