Error in the ticket: what to do and how to fix?
In a modern passenger transportation system, a ticket is a document confirming your right to travel or travel. The correctness of the data in the ticket is a very important detail when presenting it. Unfortunately, no one is immune to errors, and typos in such documents are not so rare.
What to do if the information about your identity in the ticket differs from the passport information?
Mistakes in tickets are very different. The method, speed, sometimes even the cost of fixing them depends on various factors, such as the specificity of the route (international or domestic), the carrier’s company and the individual rules established by this company for such situations.
Mistake in the train ticket
Do not rush to return your ticket and buy a new one (and there may not be a new one), it is worth analyzing what mistakes are allowed in the ticket. Are your inconsistencies among the permissible?
What mistakes are allowed?
In the latest edition of the Order of the Ministry of Transport of Russia (from 30). 11.2016) states that a passenger has the right to board a train with a ticket, the information in which has minor discrepancies with his passport data, namely “no more than one letter in the name and no more than one digit in the room”. That is, writing “Sidaries” instead of “Sidors” is a non-rough distortion. With this type of mistake, you'll get on the train.
Also, don’t worry if an error is made in optional data such as date and place of birth – these are optional. The "Rule of Acceptable Errors" applies only to suburban and long-distance routes. If your route is international (for example, CIS countries), then the ticket will have to be corrected, because there are no rules for possible errors for routes crossing the border.
What happens if the number of errors exceeds the number of acceptable ones?
Today, there is no need to hand over the old ticket with an error to the ticket office of the station and buy a new one. Ticket data can be easily changed in a special terminal. It is enough to ask the conductor of your train to help with the replacement of the document. The operation is not free - about two hundred rubles. After that, you can get a new ticket.
Mistake in the plane ticket
Mistakes in airline tickets, unlike railway tickets, are not so straightforward. On the one hand, the general rules of air transportation do not contain information on the number of possible inconsistencies in tickets. On the other hand, airlines have the right to set their own rules and requirements on this issue (Article 102).
What mistakes are allowed?
A very common practice of airlines is to resolve no more than three errors in the ticket. Some airlines do not strictly address inconsistencies that do not distort the sound and pronunciation of the passenger's name and surname: KLM, Lufthansa, Air France, EasyJet, Aeroflot and Austrian Airlines.
It is also not considered a big mistake to incorrectly indicate the gender and the method of treatment, when, for example, a miss or a mister is indicated instead of a miss. Similar requirements apply to Ryanair passenger tickets. A similar situation with data on the date and place of birth: their correctness is not a prerequisite.
What to do if errors are not allowed or their number exceeds the permissible value?
Most often, airlines do not make mistakes in specifying the flight and the date of departure. If there are inconsistencies at this point, it is necessary to contact the representatives of your airline as soon as possible. You may be asked to make a remark (correction) on the ticket, and often it is free. If you purchased a ticket online, you can make a remark on the website through which the purchase was made. The cost of the service is also set individually.
Among the airlines there are carriers with very strict rules that do not make mistakes in tickets. Among them, for example, UIA and Belavia. According to the requirements of the first, the passenger can reissue his ticket for a certain price, if the error in it does not violate the peculiarities of sound and transliteration. In Belavia, in the same case, you can only rent an old ticket and buy a new one.
In order to avoid unpleasant situations, it is recommended to contact the representatives of your airline in any case, even if the number of errors in the ticket does not exceed the permissible. This is especially true for those passengers whose routes are international, as the correctness of the ticket guarantees the absence of problems at customs.
Do not forget that in case of insoluble conflict, you can always refer to Part 2 of Article 3 of the Warsaw Convention, the content of which says that errors in tickets do not cancel the validity of the contract of carriage. This means that if your airline establishes the fact of the contract itself, your carrier will do everything possible to ensure that you depart on your flight, even if significant errors were found in the ticket.
Mistakes in tickets are unpleasant, but not so scary. Remember that before issuing a ticket, you need to check all the data several times. If you buy a ticket at the railway station / airport, specify the correctness of the information without departing from the ticket office, so that in case of found inconsistencies, make an act that the error was made due to the fault of the railway / air company.
If you buy a ticket online and enter the data manually, try to double-check all the numbers and letters of the mandatory information. These simple steps will not take much time, but will ensure you get rid of the unexpected situation of re-issuing a ticket.
Author of the text: Lilia Vasketsova
Photo: kids-in-trips, severpost, istockphoto