I purchasted two "discount" airline tickets for a flight back to the
US.  At the time I reserved the tickets my wife's passport had her
maiden name on it, so that's the name that got used.  Well, you
probably know where this is going.  Her passport expired during the
interim and the new passport has her new surname on it.  I went and
purchased the tickets without double checking this detail . . . my
very, bad and expensive mistake.

Now I am holding a ticket for the seat next to me for a non existent
human being, as far as both the travel agency and the airline are
concerned.  I have been told that I will need to purchase a completely
new ticket, but the real kick in the nuts is that they say I might not
get her on the same flight because all the seats are taken!  Also, I
will have to pay a surcharge because it is now less than 10 days to
departure.

I am not denying that I made the mistake.  But what a goddamn racket
this is where I've got to purchase an entirely new ticket for the exact
same person.  I understand that they don't want people to be changing
names on tickets to reassign them to different people (well, even then,
I'm still not 100% convinced this should not be allowed either, but
that's a different story), however this was an honest mistake and now
I'm paying quite heavily for it.

Sorry for the rant, but just a reminder to anyone so they don't make
the same mistake.  I also wanted to know if anyone else has had this
issue.

Regards,

MB