Would the same name, different person 'trick' actually work with international travel?
- By
- Aparna Patel
- |
- 20 Jul, 2023
- |
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.
It all depends on what was required when the ticket was purchased. Based on experience with US based carriers and a couple of Canadian regional carriers, secondary IDs such as passport number, DOB, etc are never required at the time of purchase, but are only required prior to departure. As such there would be no “incriminating” proof that the Elizabeth flying is not the Elizabeth for which the ticket was booked.
The credit card used to pay for the tickets could be verified by the airline prior to departure (the husband could visit an airline ticket office and show the card and booking number), so that would not be required at check in.
However, as the husband publicly announced the availability of the ticket, there is a good chance airline security personal may have gotten word about it and may add a note to the booking (how many RTW tixs in that name would be in their system) asking check in personal to perform additional checks, perhaps asking questions about where and when it was purchased, card used, etc.
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).
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Credit:stackoverflow.com‘
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