[Anonymous]

[see2016]

My wife booked a flight on Hong Kong Airlines flight HX284 flight from Hong Kong to Taipei through Orbitz.com. She had provided her family name, first name & middle name while booking at Orbitz.com, but Orbitz.com sent only her first & family name to the airline. She was denied checking in & had to pay a penalty of HKD300 to have her middle name included.
Is this fair?

[GivingupBA]

Sorry to hear about that. I suppose the airline’s action was fair, but I also think that Orbitz owe you HKD300. And if that was me, I would ask them for it.

[AMcWhirter]

I wonder in which country you booked the flight ?

Orbitz is a US site, aimed at US consumers. I wonder why Orbitz was used rather than hongkongairlines.com ?

Surely the email confirmation would have displayed the passenger name as booked by Orbitz.

Had Orbitz been made aware of its error promptly then I would have thought the necessary correction would have been made.

[mkcol74]

Why did the airline require the middle name?

I’ve travelled on a variety of airlines & not supplied my middle name/initial (which is in my passport) and not had any issue.

[TheRealBabushka]

If it is an oriental name (is that the PC terms these days? It keeps changing…) then the first and middle names are in fact the “first name”.

When I travel via Singapore and have failed to include my middle name in the reservation, the check in agents normally write it in the boarding pass, so that agents within the terminal won’t get a hissy fit.

[see2016]

HI! Success!
Orbitz.com has agreed to refund $38 which works out to be HKD300!
Thanks, everybody!

[AMcWhirter]

see2016 –
Glad to hear it’s all sorted. But you did not explain why Orbitz was used for the booking rather than HK Airlines. Are you based in the US ?
I am sure if you had used the latter this mistake would not have been made.

[see2016]

Yes, I’live in the US.
I’ve always used Orbitz for many years & have never encountered this problem with all the other airline.
This is not an issue of money, but the insults thrown at us at the check-in counter. The counter clerk kept repeating,” It’s not our problem. Pay up or go away. Want to fly or not? If not happy, contact your travel agents.”
We are near seventies & were subjected to this kind of verbal abuse for the first time in our lives!
I’ve complaint to CAD.HK which is directing the complain to HK Airlines.
Waiting ti hear an apology from HK Airlines.

[AMcWhirter]

see2016 – Thanks for the swift reply.

I can understand now why you used Orbitz. But here in the UK we would view Orbitz more suitable for N American domestic flights rather than for an international sector such as the one you booked.

That’s the impression one would get when visiting its home page. It refers solely to trips/packages within N America or to Hawaii or Mexico.

In future, for a one-off sector like HKG-TPE I would suggest booking direct with the carrier’s own website.

It is true that in the past, some Asian carriers didn’t have very good websites but today it’s all changed.

[Author]

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