Passenger reveals she was charged $2,300 for using her nickname when booking a flight

A frequent flyer has questioned whether she was overpaid after shelling out more than $2,300 after using her nickname to book a flight.

An unnamed husband took to Reddit to reveal that his wife tends to use her nickname Cathy, and booked the flight using this name.

However, because her full name, Catherine, is on her passport, the couple ran into trouble while traveling.

He revealed that his wife had to spend a whopping $2,389 to change the name on her ticket.

In a thread titled, Deltathe lovebirds begged people online for advice, as he claimed the airline initially tried to charge them $18,000 to change the name on his wife’s ticket.

A frequent flyer wondered if she was overcharged after being paid more than $2,300 after using her nickname to book a flight (stock image)

The post was titled: ‘Should it have been that expensive?’

The passenger explained: ‘We flew internationally for the first time. My husband has a name with a commonly used diminutive form. We use ‘Cathy’ for ‘Catherine’ as an example.

‘Cathy’ is the name she uses on all her identifying information, including her driver’s license. It was also the name she flew and appears on her Delta Skymiles account.

“When we made our plans to fly, she had to get a passport, and her birth certificate says her name is ‘Catherine.’ So the passport is in that name.’

However, when she booked her ticket, the information on her Delta account was auto-populated and the name on her boarding pass was Cathy.

‘When we made our plane reservations, the information from her Skymiles account was automatically filled in and the tickets were issued for ‘Cathy.’

“When we went to do the part of the international pre-check-in (I don’t know what the actual name is) where you have to enter your passport details, hers was flagged because the first names were different,” he revealed.

After contacting the airline, the woman was told she had to purchase a new flight.

An unnamed husband took to Reddit to reveal that his wife tends to use her nickname Cathy and booked the flight with this name

The Reddit user added: ‘When we called they told us they had to cancel our tickets and rebook with the correct name at the current price (which by the way would have cost $18,000 more than we paid – we were flying Delta One – it was a retirement trip we had been saving for for years).

“After we escalated to a supervisor (because our trip wouldn’t have happened if they needed $18,000), they said they could change the name but there would still be a fee – $2,389.32.

‘We didn’t see that we had any choice, so we paid the fee and the tickets, with exactly the same confirmation number, were now in the correct name.’

Although the issue was finally resolved, the couple revealed they were shocked to discover they may have been overcharged.

At the end of the post, the passenger said: ‘While we were at the airport we had a chance to talk to the representative at the Delta One check-in counter and when we shared the story she frowned and said she wasn’t . Sounds good and suggested we look into that when we got back. You are all the Delta experts. Is it reasonable to change a name?

“Did they really do us a good job by not charging us $18,000 for new tickets? Should I just blame it on our naivety/stupidity in not making sure the passport and Skymiles name match?

“Or would there be a way to dispute this charge, either through our Delta brand Platinum AMex, where we charged it, or by appealing to Delta directly?”

People on the internet flooded the comments section and shared their thoughts, with many of them revealing that the same ticket correction had been done for free

People on the internet flooded the comments section and shared their thoughts, with many of them revealing that the same ticket correction had been done for free.

One person said: ‘Fix your driver’s license. I cannot emphasize this enough. I’ve experienced this. The state will allow it. Your incorrect name becomes a legal alias and they update your license with your real name.”

Another user commented: ‘I had to do this last summer and it was completely free. No idea why it would cost so much. Agent took care of it in five minutes on the Platinum line.”

Someone else wrote: ‘My ex-husband had a similar situation: he had to cancel and rebook a new ticket. Luckily it was caught about six weeks before an international trip and cost about $600 to fix (flights to Mexico from the southern US).”

“It sounds like you’ve been scammed. Earlier this year, my wife became a U.S. citizen and changed her last name to my last name. Her US passport was issued with her new surname, but her maiden name is still on her EU passport. When we flew back and forth to the EU with Delta in the summer, I booked the tickets in her maiden name (EU passport) and we flew there without any problems. Upon returning to the US, a problem at check-in at the airport was that the name on the ticket did not match her US passport. The ticket agent called and had the ticket reissued within 20 minutes to match her US passport, and there were no further problems.”

DailyMail.com has contacted Delta for comment.