If you value your sanity, Don't EVER use Choice Air

[Presto2]

1 minute ago, waterbug123 said:

 

Whether or not you can choose seat in advance can vary by airline, routing, and ticket fare class.  You might book through Celebrity one time and be able to select them in advance, and then book again but end up with a different airline or a different type of routing, or a different ticket fare class and NOT be able to select them in advance. 

 

I know that in the past people booked to fly from Manchester to Rome with Celebrity and had to take 2 flights and change somewhere half way. Ridiculous.

We read about it on CC (thanks to someone else's warning) and told Celebrity that we would only book with them re transfers if we were guaranteed a direct flight. Then they gave us the flight, we paid for it there and then and we were given an ID code so that we could log on to Jet2's site and arrange in flight meals and seats with them. I think that they tend to use Jet2 now but who knows! If they have had people on 2 planes before someone could still end up with this arrangement.

[hiccups]

2 hours ago, Wine-O said:

 

Choice Air is also referred to as Sea2Air.  It's a Celebrity & Royal Caribbean travel agent.

 

I've heard both good & bad.  So far we've only had the good.  If you are booked thru them, you have to continuously check in on your flight/seat assignment as sometimes flight changes or aircraft frame change and you are not notified,  and you are randomly reassigned seats nowhere near where they were on the other flight and not together.

We used Choice Air for an upcoming Azamara cruise because business class was less than half the cost of booking directly with the airline.  I received one or two emails from Choice Air within a month of booking, letting me know of flight time changes that were literally five minutes.

I checked my flights at the beginning of May (we booked in December), and learned we had been taken off one of the flights and placed on another one that did not have business/first class.  We received no notification from Choice Air or the airline.  While this was only a connector flight (not the long haul flight back from Europe where business class really matters), I still wanted the seats we paid for, and the new flight had a connection time I wasn't comfortable with.  I called the airline directly and after 75 minutes on the phone, got them to change us back to a flight with a longer layover and domestic first class.

 

I checked our flights again last week, and found we'd been booted again!  Again, no notification from Choice Air or the airline, and it was a totally different flight number and departure time!  I called Choice Air, thinking it might go more quickly than if I called the airline, but it didn't.  In fact, the Choice Air agent didn't know that DOT rules state if you are given a downgrade from the category of cabin you've booked, you're entitled to a refund (thanks to the Cruise Air board for providing me with this information).  She also wasn't paying attention to the fact that the flight we'd been booted from was still available, and instead relied on the airline telling her we "weren't eligible" for that flight through our Choice Air booking.  I was on the phone for an hour, but eventually did get back on the flight we wanted.  I had to be way more forceful than I wanted to be with Choice Air.

Moral of the story is to keep checking your bookings, because you may not be notified if something changes.

Edited May 29, 2019 by hiccups

[cangelmd]

11 hours ago, JFontaine said:

Here’s my advice.  Do not draw attention to it at the airport.  Have a second form of identification ready to show, like a license.  If someone does notice it, keep calm and ask for a supervisor if they don’t wave you through.  I know you will have a sleepless night, but my name is regularly mangled (middle initial added to first name, I don’t have a middle name), and it’s never been questioned.  I think the rule is that three letters can be off.  Good luck to you. 

I have the same issue. I’m a frequent Delta flyer and they often set my ticket up with my middle name or initial, which is my maiden name, I also don’t have a given middle name, smooshed into my first name, which is an unusual name anyway. I’ve never had a TSA agent question it, even with only one form of ID.

In your case I would bring both passport and drivers license.

[JFontaine]

3 hours ago, rusticfurnituremaker said:

Leaving for the airport now.  Thanks for all the suggestions and best wishes.

amy

Amy - would love to hear that you are at the gate, and had no problem. 

 

I did some internet research about this, FlyerTalk is a great resource.  Apparently this is a common problem, especially with middle names.  Although it is raised frequently as an issue, nobody reported being denied boarding.  Some suspect that the airlines use the opportunity to generate change fees, but the common wisdom was not to pay a change fee in advance, just to show up at the airport and not bring it to anyone's attention. 

 

 Hope this all worked out for you. 

[rusticfurnituremaker]

2 minutes ago, JFontaine said:

Amy - would love to hear that you are at the gate, and had no problem. 

 

I did some internet research about this, FlyerTalk is a great resource.  Apparently this is a common problem, especially with middle names.  Although it is raised frequently as an issue, nobody reported being denied boarding.  Some suspect that the airlines use the opportunity to generate change fees, but the common wisdom was not to pay a change fee in advance, just to show up at the airport and not bring it to anyone's attention. 

 

 Hope this all worked out for you. 

Well, I am cleared through and waiting for my plane....and breathing a huge sigh of relief.  True, they didn’t care about the misspelling, despite what I was told by Choice Air and Delta.  Just happy it all worked out.

[Wine-O]

Just now, rusticfurnituremaker said:

Well, I am cleared through and waiting for my plane....and breathing a huge sigh of relief.  True, they didn’t care about the misspelling, despite what I was told by Choice Air and Delta.  Just happy it all worked out.

 

Great!  Have a nice cruise.

[ECCruise]

1 minute ago, rusticfurnituremaker said:

Well, I am cleared through and waiting for my plane....and breathing a huge sigh of relief.  True, they didn’t care about the misspelling, despite what I was told by Choice Air and Delta.  Just happy it all worked out.

Sorry about the agg you went through but you are on your way!  Safe flight and fun cruise!

[villauk]

2 hours ago, Presto2 said:

 

I know that in the past people booked to fly from Manchester to Rome with Celebrity and had to take 2 flights and change somewhere half way. Ridiculous.

We read about it on CC (thanks to someone else's warning) and told Celebrity that we would only book with them re transfers if we were guaranteed a direct flight. Then they gave us the flight, we paid for it there and then and we were given an ID code so that we could log on to Jet2's site and arrange in flight meals and seats with them. I think that they tend to use Jet2 now but who knows! If they have had people on 2 planes before someone could still end up with this arrangement.

 

 

It’s totally different in the U.K. and how they handle the flights. They do use low cost/budget carriers over here too, such as Jet2 and the now defunct Monarch Airlines. I’ve sat next to someone on a Monarch flight who booked through X and I booked independently (at a cheaper rate) on a flight to Europe. They can also, as you stated above, move you to connecting flights.

 

OP, glad to hear you got through security with no problems.

Edited May 29, 2019 by villauk

[mnocket]

I had a similar experience with Choice Air.  For me it was that they didn't include the Jr suffix on my last name (passport, cruise docs,  and all my ID has Jr).  Called CA and they told me my ticket was non-refundable and I would need to buy a new ticket - there was no way to change the name once the ticket was issued.  This was a Business Class ticket, so they were saying I should just eat the cost of the original ticket ($2,000+) and then shell out for a new ticket that now cost $800 more than the original.  Said there was nothing more they could do.

 

So I called FinnAir and they were great!  Rep talked to supervisor and they agreed to refund the cost of my original ticket even though it was non-refundable.  I then rebooked through CA and paid an additional $800 because their price had increased.  So in the end the mistake wound up costing me $800 and a lot of grief.

 

Subsequently on CC I was told that I could have flown on my original ticket with Jr omitted with no problem.  I've since heard this multiple places, so it seems that I wasted $800.  It sure would have been nice if CA told me this instead of telling me that my original ticket was no good.

[bEwAbG]

At one time airlines were being really strict about this but seemed to soften their stance because of the negative push-back.  If you notice an error on your original booking, call immediately to get it corrected.  In this person's case, I'd take the original booking confirmation so I could say "that's not what my booking confirmation says" if questioned at the ticket counter.  Security is not going to really care unless you show up with a ticket for "Smith" and your ID says you're "Watson."

 

OP - I'd write a complaint letter to Choice Air once your trip is finished.  Maybe they can use your issue for training purposes, if nothing else.  At the very least, you should have received notification that they processed a spelling change on your reservation.

 

[verizon]

17 hours ago, rusticfurnituremaker said:

After spending over 9 1/2 hours on the phone today with Choice Air, Delta, and my travel agent, I am ready to shoot myself!  My cruise is in two days, and our plane leaves tomorrow (for Venice) at noon.  I tried to print my boarding pass today and found out Choice Air misspelled my middle name by one letter.  No boarding pass, no valid ticket, nothing! I spent the whole day calling the airlines, my travel agent and Choice Air, all who could do nothing to change this error (which Choice Air made but won't admit to).  Choice Air offered me the option of purchasing two new tickets at today's price for a flight tomorrow ($6000 plus) but did nothing else.  They said they corrected the errors, but when checking with Delta, they did not.  They kept telling me that "they understand how I feel".  Bull!!!  I am supposed to leave tomorrow and drive two hours to the airport with no valid ticket (says Delta).  Choice Air insisted that my travel agent of MANY years called them and gave them a new spelling of my middle name.  Bull again.  Every document I have for the cruise and everything else spells my name correctly....except the airline tickets.  Finally, they changed my name back to the incorrect spelling and told me "no problem".  I guess TSA doesn't care if the names match.  They and Delta insist that I can check in with the incorrectly spelled name (they have records of my 17 phone calls and it will be "fine, and TSA doesn't worry about middle names) .  I have cruised many times and have always made all my own arrangements for air.  I made the mistake of using Choice Air this time.  NEVER AGAIN.  They accept no responsibility for their errors and do not try to correct their mistakes.  Use them and wish for the best, but plan on screw ups.  No sleep tonight and leaving REALLY early for the airport...need all the time just in case the reservation is still screwed up.  Wish me luck.
  

So was mine.Choice Air reservation put my middle initial together with my first.Glad Air Canada didn't find out and let me board.

When the time I made my reservation I already told them clearly there is an initial letter as my middle name and they just don't care.

[Anarinya]

Don’t worry. Airlines usually allow up to 3 characters difference towards the name in the passport, as long as other information (date of birth etc) matches, I wouldn’t lose sleep over this. 

My name contains a special character that doesn’t exist in English, so it gets misspelled often or international spelling doesn’t match the spelling in my passport. I’ve been asked several times but never refused from security.

[Covepointcruiser]

I have found that United often combines my first and middle names.   Of course my full middle name does not show.  Never had a problem at the airport.    If anyone is dissatisfied with Choice Air, book independently.    We booked independently with United in April for a trip in November.   There have already been three schedule changes.   So far the type of aircraft is the same but I won’t be surprised if that changes.    There have been an unusual number of changes this year because of the impact of grounding the 737 Max 9.

[hcat]

5 hours ago, rusticfurnituremaker said:

Well, I am cleared through and waiting for my plane....and breathing a huge sigh of relief.  True, they didn’t care about the misspelling, despite what I was told by Choice Air and Delta.  Just happy it all worked out.

Glad it worked out...

We try to limit middlemen but sometimes price dictates otherwise.

Hope you have a fabulous cruise!

[cangelmd]

5 hours ago, rusticfurnituremaker said:

Well, I am cleared through and waiting for my plane....and breathing a huge sigh of relief.  True, they didn’t care about the misspelling, despite what I was told by Choice Air and Delta.  Just happy it all worked out.

Glad to hear this! Have a wonderful trip

[waterbug123]

19 hours ago, mnocket said:

Subsequently on CC I was told that I could have flown on my original ticket with Jr omitted with no problem.  I've since heard this multiple places, so it seems that I wasted $800.  It sure would have been nice if CA told me this instead of telling me that my original ticket was no good.

 

They have to tell you what official policy is, which is that the name on your reservation and the name on your passport/ID must match exactly.  For liability reasons, they really can't say "oh it doesn't matter if it's off a little" because I'm sure someone at some time at some airport actually did get denied boarding by an overzealous agent.  CA doesn't want that on their shoulders so they have to quote official policy.  But as you've heard, the reality is that first middle names are often smooshed together in the airline record, or the rez is missing middle name or suffix entirely or whatever and it generally doesn't matter.  I'm sorry it cost you previously, but at least now you know.

[gold1953]

my story.. a few  years ago my husband noticed a letter missing from his middle name on his passport . We applied for Nexus and were told we needed to match the error and also on his next drivers license. Time to renew his Nexus and he corrected the spelling ( without consulting me) . New passport time so we had to correct that which means a new application and not a renewal. GOOD GRIEF!!  we also had 2 flights booked and had to get both tickets fixed. One ticket could be done at that moment and one 72 hours before the flight.   Oh Then he was sent to get his driver's license changed..     so ALWAYS CHECK SPELLING of every document and ticket at time of purchase!!!

[GerScot]

On 5/29/2019 at 12:46 PM, Presto2 said:

 

Oh, thanks for the heads up for that one. We have been able to book our seats and in-flight meals on-line directly with our airline so that should stay the same. Will keep checking though now just incase 🙂

If its Jet 2 no need to keep checking, they are excellent and in the very unlikely event of a change would inform you both by text and e mail.

[Presto2]

3 minutes ago, GerScot said:

If its Jet 2 no need to keep checking, they are excellent and in the very unlikely event of a change would inform you both by text and e mail.

 

Thanks, like I mentioned, we've already been on to their site and booked seats and meals with them. We will keep checking now and again though ;-)

[gatour]

Good to hear you had no issues.

 

My wife's first name has an apostrophe in it.  Most reservation systems don't allow to enter a name with an apostrophe in it.  So when I book her reservations I omit the apostrophe.  For me, on my passport it has my middle name with a space in it.  I hadn't noticed it until recently and have made numerous trips using the no space version. In either case we have had no issues during numerous trips.

[crazycatlady82]

My middle initial routinely gets smushed together with my first name and it’s fine. 

 

However, I’m going to ask you to please refrain from using the comment “I’m going to shoot myself.” I know you’re frustrated but to use that sentence very flippantly like that, it’s wrong. I work in mental health, and we take those things seriously. Next time, please comment about how you’re frustrated. Thank you. 

 

Enjky your cruise. 

[mnocket]

5 hours ago, waterbug123 said:

 

They have to tell you what official policy is, which is that the name on your reservation and the name on your passport/ID must match exactly.  For liability reasons, they really can't say "oh it doesn't matter if it's off a little" because I'm sure someone at some time at some airport actually did get denied boarding by an overzealous agent.  CA doesn't want that on their shoulders so they have to quote official policy.  But as you've heard, the reality is that first middle names are often smooshed together in the airline record, or the rez is missing middle name or suffix entirely or whatever and it generally doesn't matter.  I'm sorry it cost you previously, but at least now you know.

True, but I've been told that suffixes like Jr, Sr,  III, etc. aren't considered part of your "official" name.  Who knows?  Since Jr appears on my birth certificate, I use it on all my IDs.    It's a pain in the ass and I wish I could drop it, but on birth certificate.

[JackB60]

sorry to hear

[Highpeaklad]

On 5/29/2019 at 1:04 PM, Presto2 said:

 

I know that in the past people booked to fly from Manchester to Rome with Celebrity and had to take 2 flights and change somewhere half way. Ridiculous.

We read about it on CC (thanks to someone else's warning) and told Celebrity that we would only book with them re transfers if we were guaranteed a direct flight. Then they gave us the flight, we paid for it there and then and we were given an ID code so that we could log on to Jet2's site and arrange in flight meals and seats with them. I think that they tend to use Jet2 now but who knows! If they have had people on 2 planes before someone could still end up with this arrangement.

 

They are still using airlines with a change from the U.K.  We were booked on KLM changing in Amsterdam both ways. I was checking the price of our trip a few weeks later and they were offering Jet2 direct so I phoned up and they changed it for me. I haven’t got a usable code yet as I haven’t made my final payment so no booking seats yet. 

I periodically check the current price of the cruise and direct flights haven’t been offered since. 

[Cruise Raider]

On 5/29/2019 at 6:15 AM, hiccups said:

I checked my flights at the beginning of May (we booked in December), and learned we had been taken off one of the flights and placed on another one that did not have business/first class.  We received no notification from Choice Air or the airline.  While this was only a connector flight (not the long haul flight back from Europe where business class really matters), I still wanted the seats we paid for, and the new flight had a connection time I wasn't comfortable with.  I called the airline directly and after 75 minutes on the phone, got them to change us back to a flight with a longer layover and domestic first class.

 

I checked our flights again last week, and found we'd been booted again!  Again, no notification from Choice Air or the airline, and it was a totally different flight number and departure time!  I called Choice Air, thinking it might go more quickly than if I called the airline, but it didn't.  In fact, the Choice Air agent didn't know that DOT rules state if you are given a downgrade from the category of cabin you've booked, you're entitled to a refund (thanks to the Cruise Air board for providing me with this information).  She also wasn't paying attention to the fact that the flight we'd been booted from was still available, and instead relied on the airline telling her we "weren't eligible" for that flight through our Choice Air booking.  I was on the phone for an hour, but eventually did get back on the flight we wanted.  I had to be way more forceful than I wanted to be with Choice Air.

Moral of the story is to keep checking your bookings, because you may not be notified if something changes.

 

We had the same experience with using Choice Air in the past.  They kept changing our flight and booting us off the one we originally booked ... then, spent hours and hours getting it fixed only to be booted again.  We were traveling in a group and the last snafu is that they changed us all to a different flight except for me.   They put me on a completely different flight all by myself .. ugh!!   We had different departure times, connections, arrival times ... are you freakin' kidding me??  I had originally booked their Polaris service so it wasn't like they were moving my economy seats.  I think in all, I spent over 4 weekends fixing the mistakes they made and yes, nobody wanted to take responsibility ... Choice Air said it was United's fault, United said Choice Air made the change.   I was almost ready to cancel the whole thing ... it was so frustrating.  I finally got through to somebody with some authority at United and did a conference call with her and Choice Air, where they finally agreed to update their system so it didn't keep changing our flights.  Well, that did the trick but you know, I really needed a vacation before that was all over and done.  I booked with Choice Air as the air was covered under the insurance at no additional cost.  Well, like the OP ... the cost was my sanity and hours of frustration.  Thankfully, we had a wonderful cruise and actually had wonderful flights.