ex-IST BA success
 

With all the doom and gloom about the ex-IST OWE bookings, I though I'd chime in to say that I've finally managed to complete my booking!

Wasn't easy though:

• Sent a fax to my local BA telesales on April 3rd with my AONE3 itin and instructions to forward it to the Turkey telesales for pricing.
• Got the booking back on April 6th, priced by the local telesales with ex-Finland pricing. Called Turkey telesales directly with the PNR and asked them to reprice -- got the correct ex-Turkey price on the reservation on April 7th.
• Called on April 10th to confirm my reservation with a credit card, was told that they needed to do an address check on the card and that it would take a few days.
• A preauthorization for the price appeared on my credit card on April 12th, but no ticket numbers appeared on the booking. I called the Turkey telesales a few times every week, only to hear that everything was fine and the tickets would be issued in due course.
• Finally, on my call to the telesales on April 24th, it transpired that BA IST had been waiting for me to show up at the airport before issuing the ticket (which obviously made no sense at all given that they already had my credit card details and had authorized a charge), so I told them that I wouldn't be in Turkey any time soon. The telesales agent then had me hold a bit, and told me that my ticket would be issued in Istanbul and sent to my credit card's billing address in Finland.
• The next day, April 25th, my ticket was issued and I got a message that I'd be able to pick it up at the airport on the departure date.

So, four weeks from my initial fax to ticket numbers on the reservation. My advice: be patient, but do call them if nothing happens for a day or two: all the action above occured immediately after my calls.

Oh, and the price:

EUR 5 491.00 base fare + EUR 545.58 taxes & surcharges for

IST-LHR-ORD-SFO/JFK-LAX-DFW-JFK-BGI-JFK-HKG-NRT-HKG-SIN-HKG-LHR-MCT-LHR-IST.

Sure beats slumming it to CAI, especially since I now get the MCT round trip that wouldn't have been possible with a CAI booking.

Thanks very much for posting that information.

While dealing with Bremen (?) did you ever get the sense that they resented the fact that you were making the arrangements from outside Turkey, and that you were being given an exception to get you out of their hair? I ask because a lot of current OW activity (inferred from posts here) suggests that they've taken notice that not everyone who buys an OWE starting in Turkey is Turkish, and would like to clamp down on that.

No, there was evidence of one idiot agent feeling that way. They do not resent it, but ae currenly very overwhelmed by the numbers of RTW's

Yes, I must say that in all my dealings with them, the Turkey telesales in Bremen were extremely professional and courteous. There was a sense that they couldn't collectively decide on the right procedure for issuing the ticket for someone outside the country, but luckily that turned out okay as well.

Thanks for the feedback, first real Bremen experience. I avoided all the hassle as I just managed to ticket before their IST office closed.

Seems that you got (naturally, orcourse) the pre-Apr15th price. Let's see how IST stands compared to other European cities once the current pricing is better known (once someone with access posts it here...)

I am writing this from the BA lounge at IST, sadly this seems the last xONEx ex-Turkey for a while due to the price increase. Ticket pickup still worked like a breeze, only downside was that BA wrongly informed us that their airport office is closed from 11am until 1.30pm and we were here way too early to pick up our tickets for the 1.50pm flight...anyway it didn't make any sense in the first place as how could they sell tickets with office closed prior to their own flight...must give some feedback to BA about that...

IDIOTS. This is what happens when you relocate a call center to another country and do not train the people there. Those hours USED TO apply when BA had only TWO flights per day seperated by a lot of hours, this has definately NOT been the case since the third flight started.