Not that my opinion counts for anything, but I have to give a shout out to Germanwings. They did Lance and I a tremendous favor this evening.
See, Lance's sister is coming to visit in 2 weeks. We're spending a week down at Garmisch, where we'll use that as a base for sightseeing in the Bavarian Alps, Austria, and Italy. Then we'll fly from Munich to Venice. Then from Venice back up here to NRW (Cologne-Bonn, to be specific). This involves a lot of airline bookings, train tickets, etc. etc.
(Apropos of nothing, but we'll finally be making our way to Munich just in time for Oktoberfest.)
Anyway, we have a Germanwings booking from Cologne to Munich. Then we fly TUIfly from Munich to Venice. Then TUIfly again from Venice to Cologne.
Lance made the bookings several weeks ago. Only now did he realize that he booked his sister's plane tickets under the shortened version of her name, rather than her full name.
Of course, this happens. It's a common mistake to make, and most airlines aren't very forgiving. If you call to change, they'll generally charge you a fee or penalty. Sometimes they'll even make you rebook the ticket and pay the full fare.
But we got lucky with Germanwings. They didn't charge us. Lance called them (at a UK phone number, so he could speak to an English-speaking operator), and not only did he immediately get a customer service rep., but he was done with the call in less than 5 minutes. It could not have been easier, and they could not have been more courteous.
TUIfly has been contacted (via email, as we're hoping to resolve this issue through that means). But we have yet to hear back from them. I'll let you know what happens with them.
For now, I only have good things to say about Germanwings.
Out of all the low-cost airlines I have flown, Germanwings, Air Berlin and Easy Jet have earned my enthusiastic endorsement.
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