Onward Ticket Name Correction: How to Fix a Wrong Name

Key Takeaways

The given name and surname on an onward ticket reservation must match the machine-readable zone (MRZ) of your passport.
Airlines do not allow a held reservation to be transferred to a different traveller; a name change on an unticketed hold requires creating a new reservation.
Because a held PNR cannot be edited in place once created in the GDS, replacing a misspelled name means placing a new onward ticket order (from £11) so a fresh standard validity window starts.
Long names truncated by airline GDS character limits and stripped hyphens or accents are normal system behaviour and are recognised by airline check-in desks.
If Reservation Points makes a transcription error against the name you typed on your order form, we replace the affected booking reference at our cost.

The name on your onward ticket has to match your passport. If it does not, ask ReservationPoints to correct it before you travel. Because the reservation is held but never ticketed, a correction is not an edit — it is a new booking, so the validity window starts again from the moment the corrected reservation is issued. Standard flight validity is standard schedule.

Does the name have to match my passport exactly?

Yes. The given name and the family name on the reservation should read the same as the machine-readable name on your passport.

Airlines are strict about one point in particular: a reservation belongs to the person named on it, and it cannot be handed to somebody else. Delta's published agency policy states that "The same passenger on the original reservation must be the traveler." JetBlue's is more direct still: "Name corrections are not allowed to substitute one customer for another." Both were read on 5 September 2026.

So a correction fixes a spelling. It does not move a booking to a different traveller, and no supplier can make it do so.

Carriers also cap how much they will correct. Delta limits changes to the family name to "a maximum of three characters", and JetBlue permits "Only one correction per customer". Those figures govern the airlines' own ticketed bookings rather than your reservation with us, but they are a fair guide to how little tolerance exists further down the line.

How do I get a name corrected?

Email support@reservationpoints.com with your booking reference and the name exactly as it appears in your passport. Do it as soon as you notice.

What happens next is where an onward ticket differs from a ticket you have paid for. Airline correction policies are written around reissuing a ticket — Delta's instruction is to "Reissue the ticket as an even exchange" — and reissuing presupposes that a ticket exists. An onward ticket from ReservationPoints is a real reservation held in an airline system that has deliberately not been ticketed. That is what an onward ticket is, and it is why the mechanics are different here.

With no ticket, there is nothing to reissue. The booking is made again with the correct name, which produces a new booking reference. If you would rather not wait on a correction, you can also simply order a new onward ticket from £11 and use that one instead.

The practical consequence is the part most people miss, and it is covered next.

How long does a correction take?

We do not publish a separate turnaround time for a correction, so we are not going to quote you one.

What we can tell you is what a new booking takes, because a correction produces one. Standard delivery is usually about 14 hours, Urgent 8 to 10 hours, and Super Fast 1 to 2 hours. Those are usual times rather than a slot we can guarantee.

The clock matters more than the wait. Flight validity is standard schedule as standard, extendable to seven days at checkout — and because a correction issues a fresh reservation, that window runs from the new booking, not from the original one. If you ordered on Monday and corrected the name on Wednesday, you are working from Wednesday's window.

That cuts both ways. A correction close to your travel date can be helpful, because it puts a longer remaining window on the document you will actually show. A correction long before you fly may leave you needing another one.

What happens if I travel with a mismatch?

At check-in, the agent compares the name on your passport with the name on the booking in front of them. A mismatch is visible immediately, and it is the agent's decision what to do about it.

We are not going to tell you how that conversation will go. It depends on the carrier, the route and the person at the desk, and nobody who tells you otherwise is being straight with you. What we will say plainly is this: do not plan around a mismatch going unnoticed. Get the name corrected instead. It is a short email, it costs you nothing to ask, and it removes the question entirely.

Before you travel, look your booking up on the airline's own site using the reference we send you, and read the name as it appears there. That is the name the agent will see.

External Reference Links (Independent — Not Affiliated with Any Government or Airline)

Reservation Points is an independent service and is not affiliated with any airline or government authority. For official government and carrier rules, consult these external public reference sites directly:

Frequently Asked Questions

Does the name on my onward ticket have to match my passport exactly?

Yes. Your first name and family name on the booking should match the machine-readable zone of your passport.

Why are spaces, hyphens, or accents missing on my airline PNR?

Airline reservation systems strip hyphens, spaces, and diacritical marks and concatenate titles in the PNR display (for example, MARIA-JOSE becomes MARIAJOSE). This is standard GDS formatting.

What happens if I entered the wrong passenger name on my reservation order?

Because an unticketed airline hold cannot be edited in place in the carrier’s GDS, a customer-entered name change requires ordering a new onward ticket (from £11).

What if my name is cut off at the end of the booking reference?

Airline reservation fields have fixed character limits. When a long given or middle name is truncated at the field boundary, check-in agents match the visible characters against your passport MRZ.