Originally Posted by
BigE
As I understand, you can't just cancel your ticket and get your money back (as some other airlines allow). You can change your ticket for "free" but you have to pay the fare difference. So if this sale is over (as it probably will be), you will have to pay whatever the new price is. The price might go up from $1500 to $3000. Right? It would be a different matter if you were locked in at the sale price, but that's not the case.
On the positive side, it sounds like you can create an "open ticket", which I assume is in effect a credit voucher. And then you have until Dec 31st to find another sale price that is acceptable. I think you need to rebook by Dec 31st, but the travel could perhaps be for a later date. And it sounds like you can change the destination, which makes it easier to find a sale price.
In the old days, an "open ticket" had a specific meaning: it was valid for transportation between whichever two cities were specifically listed, and you could use it on any date that had that particular fare class available - with the caveat that its use was subject to whatever fare rules were written into its specific fare it was sold on (i.e. refundability, date/time/season restriction, etc). I got excited when I saw that as a possibility here, but then I remembered that it's Turkish, and nothing works quite that easily these days (not just with Turkish but with the entire industry). I suspect you're right, it's just looked at as a credit voucher with applicable fare differences payable, instead of a real "open ticket."
UPDATE: I just looked in the IATA resolutions and ticketing manuals and sure enough, no such thing as an open ticket anymore, in the traditional sense. I'll go back out to my rocking chair on the front porch and sip my lemonade and reminisce about the good ole days!