Martin Lewis urges holidaying Brits to check EHIC before travel

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Phillippa and her husband had paid for a skiing trip to Switzerland via Club Med. However, when booking Phillippa’s husband mistakenly put her name down as Pippa on the form for the flights.

Most airlines require the name on a plane ticket to reasonably match the name on a traveller’s passport.

Some carriers will correct a name on a ticket for free, such as Virgin Atlantic. Others, such as Ryanair, will only charge a fee if more than a few letters of the name are wrong.

Phillippa and her husband were flying with British Airways, which does not charge to amend the names on tickets.

BA says: “Most spelling mistakes in the name of a traveller can be easily corrected over the phone, when all of the flights on their ticket are operated by British Airways.”

However, travellers who have booked tickets through an agent are asked to contact them instead about the change.

Phillippa told the Telegraph that when they contacted Club Med, the company told them that it would cost around £400 to correct the error.

She said that BA confirmed that they could correct the mistake for free, but Club Med “refused to do so”.

Phillippa added: “I refused to pay this and bought a ticket in the correct name at a much cheaper price.”

Since then, she said that the travel company had sent an invoice for £987 to reissue the ticket and other travel documents “without my permission”.

Gill Charlton, the Telegraph’s travel expert, explained that Phillippa had been unable to get through to Club Med before Christmas, before eventually receiving a response through an online complaints service.

It said that the fee would be waived if she had bought her own replacement ticket – which she had done.

However, in early January – just three weeks before Phillippa and her husband were due to jet off to Zurich – she received another invoice for £987.

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Mr Charlton said: “Both of us tried to raise it with Club Med, without success.

“Finally, I was contacted by the company’s publicist. After looking into Pippa’s case, she said Club Med had told her the charge was justified.

“To avoid the holiday being cancelled, Pippa paid the invoice and I vowed to fight on with her case.

“Meanwhile, Pippa arrived at Heathrow to check in for her flight and found that her ticket could not be activated. She had to fly on the ticket she had bought herself.”

According to Mr Charlton, BA had “no record” of being contacted by Club Med over the issue.

Club Med had claimed to him that it considered the change would require a new ticket to be issued, but BA said this was incorrect.

As Club Med had not, in fact, issued a new ticket, it was forced to give the fee back and, after initially refusing, agreed to pay all of Phillippa’s costs.

Club Med was contacted for comment.

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