'They exploit fear': Redditor's cautionary tale on how one-letter typo on ticket nearly ruined their trip

A Reddit user claimed how a simple typo in a ₹1.10 lakh Air India ticket nearly turned their dream vacation into a financial disaster, alleging the airline used fear to push rebooking at exorbitant rates.

The author stated, “We had booked our tickets to South Korea months in advance—₹1.10L spent, all set to go. Then, disaster struck.” A single extra “e” in the wife’s name—“Preeeti” instead of “Preeti”—triggered a spiraling panic the day before departure.

“Panic strikes and we make desperate calls to MakeMyTrip. They tried, but the airline’s office was closed,” the user recalled. “We tried contacting Air India directly. And their reply was utterly useless and added fuel to the panic fire.”

According to the post, Air India’s only advice was to cancel and rebook—at business class rates due to lack of economy seats—pushing the new fare to a shocking ₹2.75 lakh after cancellation fees. “Again we were so stressed that our amazing dream trip was on the verge of getting cancelled.”

After scouring Reddit, the user found a policy allowing name corrections if done more than 24 hours in advance. But when contacted again, “They denied their own rules,” and left a note saying it “WON’T WORK FOR INTERNATIONAL FLIGHTS.”

Despite two sleepless nights and a dozen frantic calls, the couple proceeded to the airport early. “The CISF officer let us through even after noticing the typo,” they said. At the check-in counter: “No questions. No issues. The agent printed the corrected boarding pass. Just like that.”

Ironically, their flight had “more than 15-20 seats… even the seat next to us was empty.” The return journey had another hiccup—a boarding pass with the wrong name—but staff at Incheon Airport shrugged it off: “One-letter typo is okay.”

The couple thus, managed to fly in and out of the nation without any major troubles or without losing huge sums of money.  

However, the Redditor wasn’t alone. Other users shared similar horror stories—from gender errors to birth date mix-ups—highlighting how airline policies and third-party bookings often leave passengers stranded.

One user shared, "Similar incident happened with me as well, booked jaipur - bali (airasia) through Cleartrip and date of birth was wrong, ie we were 4 people and everyone's date of birth was wrong (Cleartrips mistake) , Cleartrip customer support was on call with us for more than 30 minutes and we got issued boarding pass after talking with airasia airport manager.(Air asia counter denied boarding pass until their manager approved)."

Another user advice, "Couple of tips that have saved me in the past: Always book directly from Airline. They are more willing to help you if you book directly with them. Second, for international trips, always follow maker checker method. One person books, before making payment, the another person checks. Also, you can make unlimited changes within 24 hours of booking the ticket, not 24 hours before the flight