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I've looked at previous questions regarding this, and solutions seem somewhat varied. The last two times my wife and I have traveled together, she hasn't received the PreCheck notation on her boarding passes. Queries to TSA each time are met with "Code 13B Mismatch Issue" meaning that either the name or DoB are not in agreement with what is in her Trusted Traveler program.

After the first time, we triple-checked everything, and Name, DoB, and KTN match. All were provided to the carrier at booking - first time Delta, most recently United.

What I'm trying to find out is how to determine with more precision exactly what is wrong. Every possible way of contacting TSA just requires the same information which is processed in an automated way and provides the same templated text as a response.

Anyone know? I'm going to call the customer service line now, but am not hopeful.

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    How are you querying TSA about this problem? How are they meeting the query with "Code 13B Mismatch Issue"?
    – phoog
    Apr 12, 2022 at 5:36
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    Does her name have any accent or special characters? If so, which ones? For instance, the a with an umlat on it will show up as "aa" on a plane ticket of many airlines, so that pretty much guarantees that there will always be a mismatch between the name on the passport and the name on the ticket (which will always require an additional screening).
    – Stephan Branczyk
    Apr 12, 2022 at 5:44
  • The first attempt last July was using the online web-based query tool and a day or two later the "Code 13B Mismatch Issue" was the answer. The most recent attempt last week, we used the iOS Messenger link which has some automation, but eventually (I think) a human gives the final disposition with the same message. There are no characters with accents in my wife's surname.
    – LearningDaily
    Apr 12, 2022 at 22:32
  • @aganju - yes, we most recently flew United, and our middle and surnames were mashed together in the way you described. I didn't give that a second thought because I had PreCheck on my boarding pass, while my wife didn't. It does seem attention to detail is key here, but the problem is that airline checkin and boarding pass issuance isn't until 24 hours before the flight and if you don't get PreCheck, that's hardly enough time to deal with it - going to carrier agent is the only option. In this most recent case, they claimed it was out of their hands. TSA provides a binary yes/no to PreCheck.
    – LearningDaily
    Apr 13, 2022 at 6:46

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Middle names are often an issue. If your wife has a middle name (and TSA knows that), the ticket must show the same middle name.

Even then, some airlines fail to transfer correctly. Both Delta and United print my name on the ticket as "Doe, JohnJack" - glueing first and middle name together. As a result, I never get TSA-Pre either, because that's obviously a mismatch for a TSA computers; sometimes when I go to the counter and ask them to correct this, they actually can fix it.
Not using the middle name when booking doesn't help either; as then it is no match either...

Btw, American and Lufthansa can handle that perfectly well, and TSA-Pre works every time there. It's just United and Delta, and it seems they couldn't care less about those issues - or would you fly another airline for that reason?

Another problem could be if you have a stored profile at the airline with slightly different data. I found once that my profile had a wrong birthday (after many years being correct, unclear why), and the airline transferred the birthday from the profile to TSA, not the (correct) one from the booked ticket.

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