✈ Airlines - EVA Air | Website does not accept longer names

So they changed their GDS in the last two weeks?

I don’t work for Eva, I don’t know :joy:

I know that it’s not a unique problem to Taiwan or Eva

:100:

Either that, or a major software update was rolled out/implemented. That doesn’t happen very often, but it can’t be ruled out.

I know individual airlines can also further limit their characters to below what the GDS allows. Perhaps the COO of Eva Air decided within those last two weeks for whatever logistical reason that they had to further shorten it, even if it means causing headaches for some customers.

Do you think they rolled it out in Thailand?

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Where everyone’s surname—always compact—is spelled “Lin” or “Chen.” :upside_down_face:

Guy

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Thai airways once deleted my customer’s reservation 6 months after she booked because of a duplicate name error. Airlines auto detect when customers go around getting quotes from different agencies and auto-delete these bookings. But mine had already paid so it shouldn’t have been deleted.

Just by chance someone with the same name as my customer happened to book the same flights as my customer :flushed:

(My customer never knew of these issues apart from me calling to double check she didn’t get quotes 6 months after booking :joy:)

I just bought a ticket from them 2 weeks ago without any issues and they said they haven’t updated anything…

That’s why I retain a lawyer.

You can’t give me zero options and then blame me for not boarding my flight.

Easy solution is to register a Taiwanese 3 character name. That would also give them a massive headache because you’ll show your ARC/APRC with you Taiwanese name and then passport with English name.

Don’t deal with customer service. This isn’t their area of expertise.

You could try calling reservations as if you’re booking a new flight, and just ask the agent what the character length limit is for the passenger name. If it happens to be longer than what their website allows, then you know that the issue lies within their website in which case perhaps a web developer messed something up when they last updated the website. Or perhaps they made an intentional decision.

In any case, finding out what the issue is will likely still not help you resolve it (unless it was actually a human error). If the company decided to lower the passenger name character limit on their web form, they must have had their reasons, and they’re not going to care that it is causing issues for a few passengers with long names. That was likely already factored into their decision-making process, and they’re certainly not going to reverse that decision for you.

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I just had another thought. If Eva uses Amadeus, then the character limit is around 60 I believe, but that includes other information about you and about that ticket, including what’s called the PTC (Passenger Type Code). Not just your name.

I’m just taking a wild guess here, but perhaps your first ticket from two weeks ago was a different ticket type which didn’t have a special PTC, and this ticket you’re trying to book has a special PTC (discounted tickets often have them, to indicate the discount). The PTC is usually three characters long, so that additional three characters counts against the 60 character limit.

I’m not saying this is a possibility (I don’t low enough about how the system works), but I’m just giving an example of how your name could have possibly gone through for one booking, but not for another one.

They are certainly one of my favourite airlines to travel with. I haven’t had anything serious with them. But china airlines, good lord.

Update: After a lot of back and forth with customer service and travel agencies we have found the root of the problem.
If I am the main traveler, they will put the infant name together with mine. so that makes it way too long. bought the tickets separately and it worked.

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So the root cause is that your names are too long? Figures.

This is an Amadeus issue! (Speaking from experience , i used amadeus at an old job) If you book with a travel agent that uses Sabre then it should be less of a problem :slight_smile:

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I tried again and it didn’t work. had to make the wife book the tickets under her name and my separately. the infant’s name is also FIRST MIDDLE LAST AND ANOTHER LAST NAME the other child’s name is ok to go with mine because she doesn’t have a middle name.

Again, I used my miles to pay for the ticket and it didn’t allow me to use my name as the main passenger, so I had to go through 5 calls to customer service to get my flight settled.

so we have 2 different reservations, one under my name and the child who doesn’t have a middle name and the other under my wife’s name and the child with the middle name.

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