Would the same name, different person 'trick' actually work with international travel?
A Canadian man is making headlines for offering his ex-girlfriend's RTW ticket.
Original reddit post: Are you named Elizabeth Gallagher (and Canadian)? Want a free plane ticket around the world?
The condition is your name has to be 'Elizabeth Gallagher' and Canadian - so that you can take his ex's ticket, since transferring airline tickets to different names is almost impossible.
My question is - aren't there more ID blockers than this? Date of birth, Passport numbers, etc? Thinking about it, passport numbers can be 'updated', but does date of birth not get checked at all? Would the second Elizabeth not be travelling under false pretenses?
Best Answer
It appears that yes, it would work. Or at least it worked in this particular scenario.
Jordan Axani and Elizabeth Gallagher return from round the world trip
His call was answered and another Elizabeth Gallagher agreed to go on the "once-in-a-lifetime" trip, meeting him for the first time in the departure lounge on December 21.
Now the pair are back, but anyone who was hoping for an ever sweeter ending to the tale will be disappointed – they have insisted that there was no romance.
Elizabeth 'Quinn' Gallagher, 23, had a long-term boyfriend before she left to explore cities such as New York, Paris and Hong Kong with Mr Axani, and apparently they are still together.
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Can you fly with a different name?
As long as it's still going to be you traveling, airlines have policies in place to correct any errors.What happens if you forget to put your middle name on airline ticket?
Even though your boarding pass may not match your government-issued ID (i.e. your middle name is not on it), if your passenger information is correct, there will not be a problem. Bottom Line: Even if you forget to put your middle name in when booking your ticket, chances are there will be no issues when flying.How can I change my flight name wrong?
Currently, the tickets are non-transferable, hence, name changes on a confirmed reservation are not permissible. You will need to cancel your ticket and book a new ticket with the new passenger's name.Can I change the person on a plane ticket?
A transferable airline ticket is a ticket that can be transferred from one person to another person after the reservation is made. It means, airline allows changing the name of the traveler on the ticket. Most of the airlines do not offer transferable tickets.Michael Mcintyre - People with the same names
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Answer 2
Date and place of birth are commonly used for this purpose in other contexts (although even that is not always enough) but it comes down to what the airline in question required.
Very often, nothing else than the name and credit card number are required (and can therefore ultimately be matched with the booking). Even the nationality is not always required. But in some cases, the airline would have more information (it would depend on the airline but possibly also on the destination, in relation with APIS).
Personally, I don't recall ever providing my place of birth or passport number to an airline at booking time but I never used a round-the-world ticket.
No matter how they enforce it, I expect that all airlines have conditions of carriage that say something like “Tickets are not transferable” or “We will only carry you if you are the passenger named on the ticket”, i.e. they refer to a person, not to a name. Consequently, even if you share so many details with the original passenger that it's not possible to distinguish both of you in practice, you would technically be violating this aspect of the contract by using a ticket that was not intended for you in the first place (you, in fact, don't have a contract and never had one with the airline).
Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
Images: Andrea Piacquadio, Andrea Piacquadio, Andrea Piacquadio, Andrea Piacquadio