I signed up with United Mileage Plus like 20 years ago and I used "Phil" as my first name, but my actual legal name is "Philip" and that's what is on my passport.
I'm American and I just used my long-earned award miles to book a trip to Italy but it never gave me the opportunity to use my real name, it just assumed Phil. I've never traveled abroad with United before.
Now I'm worried this mismatch will cause problems either for boarding or when arriving in Italy. I tried to change it online but it won't let me. There's the option to upload documents or an affidavit proving the change so I did that, but then after submitting it said that the name on tickets purchased before won't change either way! (and it will take two weeks to get back to me.)
I went to the airport to speak to a United rep and they said they couldn't change it but that there shouldn't be a problem but show up early just in case.
Am I right to be worried about this? What can I do? Thank you
UPDATE: I decided to go to where the rubber meets the road and ask someone at the United check-in at the airport I'll be flying out of, and they were anything but reassuring, hem and haw, not sure what TSA would say. So I just cancelled my ticket and bought a new one on another airline where I was able to use the full name. I was prepared to lose the money (ugh) but to my surprise I got a refund! I wouldn't have been able to live with this anxiety for four weeks. In the meantime I put in a request for name change with customer service but that will take a while and even so they wouldn't be able to change existing tickets, it'd only take effect for future ones.
I'm 90% sure it wouldn't have been a problem anyway but that uncertainty was killing me.