International air travel and typos don’t mix. A California couple booked the tickets for their vacation in Cancun over the phone. If they had made the reservations online, at least they would have been the ones to blame for their last name being spelled incorrectly. The agency assured them that two transposed letters in their last name would be no problem. Aeromexico, the airline they’ll be flying, disagrees.

Actually, the first version of the mistaken tickets left out the letter “C” in their shared last name. After a lot of wrangling, they finally got the company to issue new tickets with the “C” restored…but this version had two letters in their last name transposed.

Despite the agency’s assurances that the incorrect name would cause no problems at the airport, Aeromexico told them that it would, in fact, be a problem, and that they would have to pay $150 per passenger to change the names on their tickets.

It’s not surprising that the couple’s name was spelled wrong, or even that it was spelled wrong twice. Typos happen. What’s surprising about this story is that the travel agency insisted that this wouldn’t be a problem, even though it’s a pretty well-established fact that names on travel documents and ID have to match exactly.

This story had a happy ending: consumer reporting hero Kurtis Ming stepped in. The agency issued a third set of tickets once there was a TV station on the other end of the phone.

“I shouldn’t have to go to this length to get them to correct what they’ve done wrong,” one half of the couple told the station. Indeed.

Call Kurtis: Plane Ticket Typos — Will They Leave Me Grounded? [CBS Sacramento]

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