GE issues when middle name does not match passport?

[andysiz]

I was wondering if there will be GE kiosk problems if the GE account/card was set up without a middle name, but passport has a middle name.

I've read some older posts on FT (pre-2014) of people not having issues in this situation regarding precheck on domestic travel where GE has no middle name (matching the name on the ticket's secure flight info), but no datapoints on whether the GE kiosks will have problems coming home from international travel.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Mountain Trader]

I don't know the answer to your question. However, you can get the GE account info changed and then order a new card.

 

[andysiz]

Thanks, @Mountain Trader - that is the last resort. The reason I'm hoping there is no issue is a bit complicated, but long story short:

The legal middle name is "complicated" in that it itself has three names, two of which are hyphenated. Unfortunately, each airline has its own difficulty in getting that info (middle name: name1 name2-name3) into their secure flight passenger data correctly (some can't get the spacing right; some can't put in hyphen). So the hope was to just get middle names out of all airline accounts and GE so that PreCheck is not an issue.

 

[janetdoe]

TL;DR - you should have zero issues leaving your middle name off your tickets

I'm really surprised they let you set up GE with a different name than your passport, but that should give you a clue how little they care about middle name.

I have a middle name on my passport and my Nexus/GE card, but I never, absolutely never, put my middle name on any plane tickets. The same for my husband, we never put his middle name on tickets, even though he doesn't even respond to his first name, he goes by his middle name in daily conversation. Even when I book tickets for my dad, brother and nephew, who all have the exact same first and last names, I don't put middle names on the tickets.

We've never had a problem at a GE kiosk, even on carriers that do not have our known traveler numbers, or on last-minute irrops where we ended up on a different plane going to a different entry airport (e.g. NYC instead of ORD) than we were originally ticketed, etc. If the passport number is registered as GE and the fingerprints match, you're good to go, as far as I can tell. <shrug>

I know I took my niece on an international trip last summer and there was a typo in her last name on the ticket that no one at the airlines or TSA ever caught, and I don't recall any problems using global entry kiosks coming back into the country. She also didn't have a middle name on her ticket, because I booked it.

To me, having the middle name on an air ticket is just one more thing to go wrong - there's no error if it's not there, but if it is there, it's one more thing that could go wrong. Leave it off. The only people who I would recommend having a middle name on a plane ticket is if you need it for 'redress' purposes - like a suspected terrorist has your same first and last name or similar, and you keep getting sent to SSSS screening. Or if it's a young child that goes by their middle name and won't recognize and respond to their first name, then a middle name is probably a good idea.

 

[andysiz]

I've had the same experience generally - having no middle name on ticket/secure flight data is no problem even where there is a middle on the ID. My primary concern is whether GE will work if the GE account has no middle name but passport does. It sounds like it should, but I'll find out in the next few months.

So what I ended up doing was pulling the middle names from all FF accounts and existing reservations to match the GE account. It was a little bit of a hassle, but did not require more than a phone call (as opposed to making a more major change which would require faxing in appropriate documentation). I've been on four one-way trips since, all of which were cleared for TSA Precheck (as expected).

TL;DR - you should have zero issues leaving your middle name off your tickets

I'm really surprised they let you set up GE with a different name than your passport, but that should give you a clue how little they care about middle name.

I have a middle name on my passport and my Nexus/GE card, but I never, absolutely never, put my middle name on any plane tickets. The same for my husband, we never put his middle name on tickets, even though he doesn't even respond to his first name, he goes by his middle name in daily conversation. Even when I book tickets for my dad, brother and nephew, who all have the exact same first and last names, I don't put middle names on the tickets.

We've never had a problem at a GE kiosk, even on carriers that do not have our known traveler numbers, or on last-minute irrops where we ended up on a different plane going to a different entry airport (e.g. NYC instead of ORD) than we were originally ticketed, etc. If the passport number is registered as GE and the fingerprints match, you're good to go, as far as I can tell. <shrug>

I know I took my niece on an international trip last summer and there was a typo in her last name on the ticket that no one at the airlines or TSA ever caught, and I don't recall any problems using global entry kiosks coming back into the country. She also didn't have a middle name on her ticket, because I booked it.

To me, having the middle name on an air ticket is just one more thing to go wrong - there's no error if it's not there, but if it is there, it's one more thing that could go wrong. Leave it off. The only people who I would recommend having a middle name on a plane ticket is if you need it for 'redress' purposes - like a suspected terrorist has your same first and last name or similar, and you keep getting sent to SSSS screening. Or if it's a young child that goes by their middle name and won't recognize and respond to their first name, then a middle name is probably a good idea.

 

[janetdoe]

My primary concern is whether GE will work if the GE account has no middle name but passport does. It sounds like it should, but I'll find out in the next few months.

That should be zero concern at all, if there was a problem, they never would have approved the GE without the middle name.

 

[TheBOSman]

I'm really surprised they let you set up GE with a different name than your passport, but that should give you a clue how little they care about middle name.

My passport is listed as, to play off my posting handle, The B. Man. So is my DL, my SS card, all of my personal correspondence, all of that. My GE card, however, is The Bos Man. I've yet to have a name-related issue with GE or Precheck, never missed Precheck (only issues for GE were with <72 hours in advance of USA arrival one-way tickets booked with Lifemiles but that's another story for another day and has little to do with my name format ).

 

[andysiz]

My passport is listed as, to play off my posting handle, The B. Man. So is my DL, my SS card, all of my personal correspondence, all of that. My GE card, however, is The Bos Man. I've yet to have a name-related issue with GE or Precheck, never missed Precheck (only issues for GE were with <72 hours in advance of USA arrival one-way tickets booked with Lifemiles but that's another story for another day and has little to do with my name format ).

Awesome - thanks for the data points! Sounds like it should work out in my case, with the worst case scenario of having front-of-line privileges to speak to immigration officer if something goes wrong at the kiosk.