BudgetAir.com in South Africa is not responding to our problem

This is a very difficult situation and I know you will probably give the generic answer that I should not be contacting BudgetAir.co.uk but rather BudgetAir South Africa. The problem is, the number (+***8) doesn't work and they only respond with automatic emails on our request.

I am contacting you on behalf of my parents. They booked tickets last week, ref n.: BZA- ********** . And somehow they got confused when filling in the details of the second ticket. My father's name was filled in again - so now they have two tickets with his name for the same flight. The name on E-ticket: ********** 398460 is MRS JAN VENTER and it should be Mrs Francina Hendrina Venter (my mother).

I already received this response from BudgetAir: "We regret to inform you that AIRLINE does not permit a name correction of any kind. This is an established practice by many airlines, and it is in place for security reasons. If the name on your ticket does not match the one in your passport, your ticket is not valid for travel.

Tickets are personal and non-transferable. The only possibility to change the name is by cancelling your ticket and buying a new one."

So I contacted Emirates directly and their representative said "It's a name change and not cancellation Linki." (please see our live chat below and Mohamed from Emirates response highlighted in red). And he said an exception can be made. "Please inform the travel agency to get in touch with the Emirates sales support for exceptions."

Can you please get in touch with them and see if we can sort this matter out?

Transcript of my live chat with Emirates

00:00 Linki : EK Error code : [Contact us - On Trigger] Custom Message : [If you need some help or want to let us know something, please get in touch. We can offer help with flights, tickets, check-in and more in our help centre. - Emirates South Africa]

00:09:24 Linki : Hi, I am contacting you on behalf of my parents. They booked tickets with Emirates from South Africa last week. Somehow the name on the one ticket is not correct. Is there a way we can correct it?

00:09:31 Mohamed : Hi Linki, how can I help?

00:09:32 Linki : The e-ticket number is ********** 398460.

00:10:16 Linki : Hi, I am contacting you on behalf of my parents. They booked tickets with Emirates from South Africa last week. Somehow the name on the one ticket is not correct. Is there a way we can correct it?

00:12:22 Linki : It's for flight number EK23

00:12:44 Linki : and EK766

00:12:57 Mohamed : Kindly give me a moment while I check this for you Linki.

00:13:14 Linki : Thank you Mohamed

00:20:51 Mohamed : I'm sorry for that Linki, but this is to be done only through the travel agency.

00:21:19 Mohamed : May I know where is the msitake as well?

00:21:23 Mohamed : mistake*

00:22:10 Linki : They say we have to cancel the ticket. I'm not sure how the mistake was made... my parents may have got confused.

00:22:36 Linki : The agency only responded with this: "We have received your request to cancel your booking BZA- ********** . Unfortunately the conditions of the airline which are applicable to your booking show us 'non refundable' in case of cancellation. If you wish, we can request a tax refund from the airline on your behalf, minus our administration fee of ZAR 750.00 per person. Please note that most taxes are equally non-refundable, which can result in no refundable amount.

If you want to proceed with the cancellation, please respond to this e-mail and state clearly which passengers it concerns."

00:23:28 Linki : There are two tickets in my father's name now

00:23:36 Linki : instead of my my mothers name

00:24:40 Mohamed : It's a name change and not cancellation Linki.

00:25:21 Linki : but according to Budget Air we should cancel the ticket? It seems unreasonable..

00:26:31 Mohamed : In this case, it's a cancellation if you're changing the name totally.

00:26:41 Linki : They responded with this the first time: "We regret to inform you that AIRLINE does not permit a name correction of any kind. This is an established practice by many airlines, and it is in place for security reasons. If the name on your ticket does not match the one in your passport, your ticket is not valid for travel.

Tickets are personal and non-transferable. The only possibility to change the name is by cancelling your ticket and buying a new one."

00:26:48 Mohamed : Can I have the name of your mother please?

00:27:10 Linki : FRANCINA HENDRINA VENTER

00:27:26 Mohamed : Let me see if any exceptions can be given.

00:27:45 Linki : Thank you so much Mohamed - I hope so!

00:33:19 Mohamed : Thank you for your patience Linki, I really appreciate your time.

00:33:36 Mohamed : Please inform the travel agency to get in touch with the Emirates sales support for exceptions.

00:33:54 Mohamed : Or let the travel agency speak directly to us.

00:34:25 Linki : Can I give them some sort of evidence that I spoke to an Emirates representative?

00:34:50 Mohamed : Sure, you'll receive the chat transcript on your email.

00:35:09 Linki : Thank you Mohamed.

00:35:13 Mohamed : You’re welcome. Thanks for contacting Emirates chat. Enjoy your day!

It occurred on: 3/04/2019

This meant that My mom and dad saved ages to book a trip to visit us from South Africa and they risk losing the money they payed for the tickets now as they have to cancel them according to BudgetAir.

Please, if you can just put me in touch with an actual person at BudgetAir South Africa that would be very helpful. Not the +***8 number and not the ********** email address - as we get nowhere using these two methods of contact.