Fix a Misspelled Name: How to Change Name on Southwest Airlines Ticket

6 min readJun 2, 2021

On any airline, you have twenty-four hours to correct the error charge-free, whether you need to change a single letter or the entire name. For this reason, passengers should always review their confirmations immediately after purchasing.

If it’s been more than 24 hours, that’s when each airline’s specific ticket change policy comes into play. While Alaska and Delta charge $125 and $200 respectively for changes, other airlines, such as JetBlue and Southwest, allow at least one free correction. For the most part, no matter how good your reason may be to make a change, expect the airlines to apply all penalties, fees, and increased fares. When airlines say tickets are non-refundable and non-transferable, they mean it.

Reservations with Southwest Airlines provides an easy facility to booking flights online by its official website. However, after a booked flight, if the passenger needs any changes to their flight, then also they can easily manage their booking by going to its official southwest airlines manage booking section. Here, the passengers can do many changes to their current booked flight tickets, or even cancel their flight itself simply.

Southwest doesn’t change names on tickets, except in the case of marriage/last name change.

FYI: If you call Southwest Airlines Phone Number within 24 hours of booking a flight you can cancel that flight for a full refund, then rebook using the “correct” name. This works if you’ve just entered the name wrong, or need to change the name of the passenger flying.

In the case of a marriage name change, contact Customer Relations at 1–855–234–4654, and they will, upon supplying proof of old name/new name (old ID, new ID, and marriage license), update your Rapid Rewards account and change the name on an existing ticket.

If you’re told otherwise, hang up and call back. And remember to contact Southwest Customer Relations at 1–855–234–4654, not the “regular” number.

Steps to change the name of the passenger for a Southwest reservation

If you want to change the name of the passenger then you open the website of Southwest Airlines first and tap on the manage booking section.
Now under the manage booking section, click on the change reservations link. Now under the change reservations link, first of all, enter your booking number and last name to fetch all your flight details.
Once your flight details load, follow the online instructions to find if your airline allows making changes in the flight or not.
If yes, then tap to change the name and save the changes once all the steps are being completed.
You can also call on the helpline number and request the airline staff to change the name of the passenger.

Furthermore, you cannot change the name on the flight ticket, but, if you need to change other details of your booking such as date, time, cancellation of the flight, and many others. So, then you can go to the southwest airlines manage booking section and make the changes easily and quickly, as per your travel needs.

Easily Manage Booking of your Flight Ticket with Southwest Airlines:

For making changes to your Southwest Airlines flight tickets, you have to follow the steps given below:

· Go to the Southwest Airlines website. Then login into the account.
· Enter confirmation number, first and last name in the text field.
· Choose the “Flight” tab. Then tap on the “Manage Reservations” section.
· After then, a list of your booked reservations will show on the page.
· Here you can make any changes to your booked flight tickets, as per your travel requirements. The changes such as Cancel Flight, Date change on ticket, Edit Name, Contact Details, Add or Remove, and Add the passenger’s name
· If you want to change a flight, so then you have to tap on “Change Flight” and then tap on either the “Change reservation” or “Cancel reservation” button.
· Also, you can make other changes such as Add extra baggage allowance, Book Meals, Add Extra service, Upgrade seats to business class, or Seat changes, and many more.
In this manner, with southwest airlines manage the booking section, you can effortlessly change or manage your booked flight ticket itself within a few seconds.

Steps You Can Take to Avoid Any Issues

Try to remember to add your middle name to your reservation to match your government-issued photo ID.
If you forget, access your reservation on the airline’s website and update the passenger information for that ticket.
If you’re flying on more than one airline, access your reservation on each airline’s website and update your passenger information.
You can also set up a frequent flyer account with the airline and add your correct secure passenger information to your profile. When you book a ticket with
that airline in the future and add that frequent flyer number, the passenger information will be added automatically to your reservation.
If you currently have a frequent flyer account, make sure the information saved in your profile is correct.

Conclusion
First of all — Southwest does not hold seats or reservations; so not sure what you meant by that. You have to pay for them when you make them.
If you wait to get a cheaper seat, it may or may not happen. Going to Florida during Spring break, it’s a busy time and sure folks do cancel reservations, [just like you will have to do with your extra ticket] I am not sure how long that seat would last and if it even goes back to being the cheap seat it started out as.

I canceled 2 seats and then had to rebook them; the cost originally was $98 each; the second time they were $200. That’s just the way it goes. Suck it up to life’s experiences.

Why did you buy the 4th ticket in the first place if you didn’t need it?

Second — I have just had to go through several flight changes on Southwest as a result of my medical appointments being changed frequently. They do not charge any fee to cancel, rebook a ticket. When you cancel, you get a credit that is good for 1 year and can be applied towards another ticket. All you need to know is the confirmation number and the name that was on the credit card that was used to make the original purchase. The new ticket can even be made in someone else’s name.

That alone makes Southwest GREAT in my opinion.

The overall experience on the plane, the A/B/C thing notwithstanding adds to it. I have learned to check in online 24 hours in advance; be at the airport early enough to get through security and to the waiting area in plenty of time to get my choice of seats. All this causes less stress too.

Southwest Airlines Name Correction FAQs

How to change a name on Southwest ticket?

To be clear: Tickets are non-transferrable, and names cannot be changed except in the case of legal name changes, for example by marriage. In this case, the passenger will need to contact Customer Relations (not the reservation number) and provide her old and new ID. ( See the posts above for more details.)

How much does it cost to change a name on a Southwest flight?

We understand plans change, so we don’t charge a fee to change your mind. If you’d like to change a flight itinerary, you’ll just pay for any fare difference. To learn more, visit our FAQs page.

What happens if you cancel a Southwest Wanna Get Away flight?

If you cancel your Wanna Get Away fare you won’t receive a refund but you can get credit (travel funds) applied toward future travel on Southwest Airlines for the originally ticketed passenger only. This means that you can’t cancel and then do a name change and expect to use those travel funds for the new passengers.

Can southwest change your flight without asking?

The airline would normally notify you if your flight number or departure time is changed. Based on what you said, apparently changing a nonstop to a direct does not trigger a notification.

Originally published at https://aviationrepublic.com on June 2, 2021.