Accents in names for online forms

So just a vent here, spend the entire day dealing with this issue.

So I booked an international flight to Canada with a stopover in New York. Used an online company which I have used for over 15 years (not always online but regardless).

Got my ticket, got my Confirmation Itinerary, e-ticket back in July, everything looked cool.

Went to American Airlines website today to do my online check-in, and I couldn't log in, soon after a bunch of phone calls and waiting for their US offices to open, I found out that their data had a 'u' missing from my last name, I needed to contact Booking Company to change that. Had to wait for their offices to open.

So apparently it seems that my 'ü' (as per my Passport, Confirmation,Itinerary, e-ticket) didn't get transferred properly through the magic of computers and was thus omitted. (it also magically disapeared when I tried to log onto American Airlines website).

I was told that I would have to pay almost 200$ to change the name on the ticket last minute, not even my mistake.

Anger, rage, arrrg!

Eitherway, word of warning to those with Exotic names who need to use e-forms of non-exotic places.

As well as a note to all you IT people, I didn't really think this should be an issue with technology today, but apparently some characters don't transfer through the digital world too easily.

Rant over.

Reminds me of this post .

Who was the online company?

I sympathise.

Does the ticket have the u rather than the ü? If so, can you just ignore all this and claim that the computer ate the umlaut, and it's nothing to do with you?

I had far simpler hassle (?!?) when I used to live in France - the bureaucracy was always telling me that my name (Irish origin) was in fact Scottish, and I was mis-spelling it...

Even the commonly-found hyphen screws up flight reservation computers -- and there's one of those on every keyboard, everywhere!

Would it make a difference, as c123 said? I had a US Green Card for 10 years that had my name misspelt on it. I had a U where no U should be! I enquired about it when I first received it and was told I could have it corrected for a fee, even though it wasn't my fault. So I left it and never had a problem with US Immigration pre, peri and post 9/11. I know it's not the same as a passport, but for US Immigration it's just as important.

I named my daughter "Iñtërnâtiônàlizætiøn" she's not going to be going anywhere until she is old enough to change her name by deed poll.

Travelcuts---usually my first stop for deals, and I've booked through them many times.....but with my Canadian passport, and I am thinking it might have been American Airline's issue

Interestingly, growing up in Canada, we dropped the umlaut and just left the u alone (no following e). So my Canadian passport just has a u. But registered in CH, is the ü or ue. I'm actually guessing it was American Airlines who had the issue, as if I tried to log in, the error comes up for no record, but the ü is replaced with a "%_" or something like that. So it was most likely when they got the electronic transfer of the info, it was just omitted. Of course they totally blamed the booking company for sending improper data.

On the AA file (and successful login) the u was omitted entirely

What happens if you put 'ue' or 'ae' instead of the Umlaut?

As in Mueller or

Stoeckly

etc?

It is not really surprising that the umlaut was not accepted:

- it is not in the English alphabet

- flight reservation computer systems are often old and don't recognize special characters

- The flight may have departed from "Zurich"

this is true, but personally I think this is a fairly simple computing concept that should be considered and dealt with. On the international scale (especially for an international travel company), this is something extremely important.

Especially when they are so adamant on making sure the info you give in is IDENTICAL to the information on your passport

You know, this brings an idea to mind...

[](http://xkcd.com/327/)

Oh, and Bon voyage.

Be careful also when buying tickets from scandinavian.net they have a tendency to abbreviate long names at their own liking :-(

thanks a ton! Will try and enjoy myself--as long as this little issue doesn't cause anymore problems

I don't know what you're on about buddy. We all know your name is Bill Smith. Now stop showing off about syntax errors ......