Sep 8, 2017, 8:42 am
Last edit by: flyerby
E+ members receive two upgrade vouchers per membership year that can be used as system-wide upgrades. Vouchers are not delivered to E+ status holders in physical or electronic form and only exist on the screens of TK agents.
It is advisable to call TK to verify the number of vouchers you have prior to and after the upgrade (unless you have no vouchers left).
Upgrades are done by calling TK CS or a local TK office (by phone or email).
One voucher is needed to upgrade per direction. For example, the itinerary LHR-IST-BKK will need one voucher to upgrade, and the itinerary LHR-IST-BKK-IST-LHR will need two vouchers. If an agent tells you otherwise, HUCA.
How to find itineraries with availability for a voucher upgrade?
Find an itinerary in any class in Y that has 4 seats left in J booking class on the same itinerary as the Y. To be extra cautious, you may also check the individual legs (when applicable) for 4 seats left in J booking class. For example, for the itinerary LHR-IST-BKK, check at least that LHR-IST-BKK has 4 seats left in J booking class, and in addition, check LHR-IST and IST-BKK individually too.
You can no longer check for upgrade availability without having an e-ticket number.
A relatively low-risk method of proceeding is therefore...
1) Reserve a ticket online with TK but don't pay for the ticket yet. Just put it on hold for 48 hours for free for E+ members.
2) Book an economy class ticket on the same itinerary with a reputable USA-based OTA that offers a 24-hour cooling-off / full refund period.
3) Once you have received your e-ticket number, go to Manage Booking on the TK website and check if TK has offered a business upgrade with miles for your intineray. Any segment eligible for an upgrade with miles on the website is also eligible for an upgrade with E+ vouchers.
4) Another option would be to call TK CS and ask an agent to check if the ticket in (2) is upgradeable with your vouchers. Do not upgrade this ticket; just check.
5) Once availability is confirmed for your itinerary, pay for the ticket in (1). Upon payment and ticketing, call TK CS to ask an agent to upgrade this ticket.
6) Cancel for free the ticket in (2).
Another even lower-risk method would be to skip (1) and just upgrade the ticket in (2). If unsuccessful with the E+ upgrade, you can proceed to cancel your economy ticket within the 24-hour cooling-off period. Going with this route, you would then have to be in contact with the OTA and not TK in cases of schedule change, cancellation, or IRROP, which is not usually advisable unless you really have to.
You might be asked to enter a PIN number via an automatic system to access your vouchers; this is the PIN you use to log on to your TK M&S account.
It is advisable to call TK to verify the number of vouchers you have prior to and after the upgrade (unless you have no vouchers left).
Upgrades are done by calling TK CS or a local TK office (by phone or email).
One voucher is needed to upgrade per direction. For example, the itinerary LHR-IST-BKK will need one voucher to upgrade, and the itinerary LHR-IST-BKK-IST-LHR will need two vouchers. If an agent tells you otherwise, HUCA.
How to find itineraries with availability for a voucher upgrade?
Find an itinerary in any class in Y that has 4 seats left in J booking class on the same itinerary as the Y. To be extra cautious, you may also check the individual legs (when applicable) for 4 seats left in J booking class. For example, for the itinerary LHR-IST-BKK, check at least that LHR-IST-BKK has 4 seats left in J booking class, and in addition, check LHR-IST and IST-BKK individually too.
You can no longer check for upgrade availability without having an e-ticket number.
A relatively low-risk method of proceeding is therefore...
1) Reserve a ticket online with TK but don't pay for the ticket yet. Just put it on hold for 48 hours for free for E+ members.
2) Book an economy class ticket on the same itinerary with a reputable USA-based OTA that offers a 24-hour cooling-off / full refund period.
3) Once you have received your e-ticket number, go to Manage Booking on the TK website and check if TK has offered a business upgrade with miles for your intineray. Any segment eligible for an upgrade with miles on the website is also eligible for an upgrade with E+ vouchers.
4) Another option would be to call TK CS and ask an agent to check if the ticket in (2) is upgradeable with your vouchers. Do not upgrade this ticket; just check.
5) Once availability is confirmed for your itinerary, pay for the ticket in (1). Upon payment and ticketing, call TK CS to ask an agent to upgrade this ticket.
6) Cancel for free the ticket in (2).
Another even lower-risk method would be to skip (1) and just upgrade the ticket in (2). If unsuccessful with the E+ upgrade, you can proceed to cancel your economy ticket within the 24-hour cooling-off period. Going with this route, you would then have to be in contact with the OTA and not TK in cases of schedule change, cancellation, or IRROP, which is not usually advisable unless you really have to.
You might be asked to enter a PIN number via an automatic system to access your vouchers; this is the PIN you use to log on to your TK M&S account.
Elite Plus upgrade voucher
Aug 22, 2019, 12:03 am
#631
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: BKK,YYZ
Programs: Star Gold
Posts: 50
Now that you can upgrade TK with miles, online, will voucher upgrades be online as well ?
It's a pain having to call for miles and voucher upgrades.
On this note, almost all Star Alliance partners have online voucher upgrades already possible,
TK, I think, will probably be slow on this.
It's a pain having to call for miles and voucher upgrades.
On this note, almost all Star Alliance partners have online voucher upgrades already possible,
TK, I think, will probably be slow on this.
Aug 26, 2019, 6:47 am
#633
Join Date: Mar 2013
Location: CDG
Programs: TK Elite
Posts: 1,611
Aug 26, 2019, 7:49 am
#635
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Aug 2000
Location: London
Programs: Hilton, IHG - BA, GA, LH, QR, SV, TK
Posts: 17,008
Aug 26, 2019, 9:15 pm
#636
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: AMS, JFK/EWR/LGA
Programs: Flying Blue/Platinum, TK/Elite Plus, QR/Platinum, LH/FTL, Marriott/Platinum
Posts: 293
I just had the absolute pleasure (NOT) of wasting 1+ hours of my life dealing with TK customer services. When I called in to upgrade, I was told that I have no more vouchers left on my account. Upon investigation, the SYD office, unbeknownst to me, applied two vouchers for a one-way SIN-IST-FRA upgrade back in May...
Now they'll need to open another online feedback thread to hopefully get one voucher back on my account, how fun...
Now they'll need to open another online feedback thread to hopefully get one voucher back on my account, how fun...
Aug 27, 2019, 2:26 am
#638
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: AMS, JFK/EWR/LGA
Programs: Flying Blue/Platinum, TK/Elite Plus, QR/Platinum, LH/FTL, Marriott/Platinum
Posts: 293
For myself. Sorry I should have been more clear: I did ask the SYD office to upgrade my SIN-IST-FRA itinerary (no stopover in IST). However instead of using one voucher only, the (actually very nice) lady obviously applied two vouchers, one for SIN-IST and the other for IST-FRA...
Aug 27, 2019, 5:36 pm
#639
Join Date: Feb 2017
Location: Czech Republic
Programs: TK E+
Posts: 38
This is actually what my local office claims - that one voucher is strictly for one leg, not one direction.
Already upgraded twice in past, always only one flight. I had been aware (from this forum - actually I found no official TK statement on this) that it was supposed to be for both flights in the direction, but it was never worth the effort and money to call the support in Turkey.
Did another upgrade two weeks ago, and again, despite posting a screenshot from TK support in Facebook (giving me a clear answer that both legs are to be updated for one voucher), the local office still refused to do so. After calling to Turkey and getting whole ticket upgraded in a few minutes and forwarding my upgraded ticket to local office (showing them it WAS possible), I got a very rude answer telling me basically that I had been wasting their time.
Can anyone recommend a way to go around this to avoid them wasting MY time and money for international calls? I'm afraid that filing a complain on TK website well just get me an universal answer (call our support to process your upgrade...).
Already upgraded twice in past, always only one flight. I had been aware (from this forum - actually I found no official TK statement on this) that it was supposed to be for both flights in the direction, but it was never worth the effort and money to call the support in Turkey.
Did another upgrade two weeks ago, and again, despite posting a screenshot from TK support in Facebook (giving me a clear answer that both legs are to be updated for one voucher), the local office still refused to do so. After calling to Turkey and getting whole ticket upgraded in a few minutes and forwarding my upgraded ticket to local office (showing them it WAS possible), I got a very rude answer telling me basically that I had been wasting their time.
Can anyone recommend a way to go around this to avoid them wasting MY time and money for international calls? I'm afraid that filing a complain on TK website well just get me an universal answer (call our support to process your upgrade...).
Aug 27, 2019, 8:37 pm
#640
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Nov 2018
Location: Istanbul, Turkey
Programs: TK Elite Plus,BAEC GGL,ITA Executive, AFKL Gold,QR Gold,HH Diamond,Bonvoy Gold,ALL Gold
Posts: 14,186
This is actually what my local office claims - that one voucher is strictly for one leg, not one direction.
Already upgraded twice in past, always only one flight. I had been aware (from this forum - actually I found no official TK statement on this) that it was supposed to be for both flights in the direction, but it was never worth the effort and money to call the support in Turkey.
Did another upgrade two weeks ago, and again, despite posting a screenshot from TK support in Facebook (giving me a clear answer that both legs are to be updated for one voucher), the local office still refused to do so. After calling to Turkey and getting whole ticket upgraded in a few minutes and forwarding my upgraded ticket to local office (showing them it WAS possible), I got a very rude answer telling me basically that I had been wasting their time.
Can anyone recommend a way to go around this to avoid them wasting MY time and money for international calls? I'm afraid that filing a complain on TK website well just get me an universal answer (call our support to process your upgrade...).
Already upgraded twice in past, always only one flight. I had been aware (from this forum - actually I found no official TK statement on this) that it was supposed to be for both flights in the direction, but it was never worth the effort and money to call the support in Turkey.
Did another upgrade two weeks ago, and again, despite posting a screenshot from TK support in Facebook (giving me a clear answer that both legs are to be updated for one voucher), the local office still refused to do so. After calling to Turkey and getting whole ticket upgraded in a few minutes and forwarding my upgraded ticket to local office (showing them it WAS possible), I got a very rude answer telling me basically that I had been wasting their time.
Can anyone recommend a way to go around this to avoid them wasting MY time and money for international calls? I'm afraid that filing a complain on TK website well just get me an universal answer (call our support to process your upgrade...).
However, you could e-mail the situation to a Turkish aviation journalist with the evidence of the mail that they have sent to you. They could make news out of this.
And don't expect any miles or travel voucher as a sorry gift, similar to British Airways, Lufthansa, US carriers, etc... In addition, they wouldn't reimburse the money that you had spent to international calls.
Aug 27, 2019, 9:16 pm
#641
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Barcelona, London, on a plane
Programs: BA Silver, TK E+, AA PP, Hyatt Globalist, Marriott LT Plat, Hilton Diamond
Posts: 13,051
I call the US office using Skype. Never an issue from them to do the E+ upgrade for me and it costs me nothing...
Aug 30, 2019, 10:07 pm
#642
Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: DTW
Programs: TK E+, WY, Radisson R
Posts: 2,360
Another DP of successfully upgrading with my vouchers this membership year on YYZ-IST and IST-YUL. Flights to/from CAI stay economy which is perfectly fine with me.
YYZ-IST, IST-CAI, CAI-IST, IST-YUL (YYZ has no J seats) in July 2020.
I actually want to go to IST only but I created this crazy 4 segments to allow J to appear on YYZ-IST and IST-YUL under married segment fare rule. If I book CAI-YUL, CAI-YYZ, or IST-YYZ then those long haul segments become K. If you come across such situation be flexible with the flight time and dates in TK's multi-city booking. Check the fare buckets at thy.com, other sites aren't completely up-to-date and/or reliable.
Next concern was whether they could be upgraded, thankfully both went through. The phone agents seem to be more knowledgeable these days, knowing all the main rules to upgrade vouchers.
Also I found booking with Expedia, all details are in sync with TK's own site. As soon as I made the booking all details are there in TK's app when I log in, including upgrades.
Initially I was ready to forgo the vouchers due to high Y fares. Since I'm only going to CAI for 1 night/2 days, I moved CAI flight dates and they vary as much as $500 within a week which is how much I saved not flying during 4th of July weekend.
YYZ-IST, IST-CAI, CAI-IST, IST-YUL (YYZ has no J seats) in July 2020.
I actually want to go to IST only but I created this crazy 4 segments to allow J to appear on YYZ-IST and IST-YUL under married segment fare rule. If I book CAI-YUL, CAI-YYZ, or IST-YYZ then those long haul segments become K. If you come across such situation be flexible with the flight time and dates in TK's multi-city booking. Check the fare buckets at thy.com, other sites aren't completely up-to-date and/or reliable.
Next concern was whether they could be upgraded, thankfully both went through. The phone agents seem to be more knowledgeable these days, knowing all the main rules to upgrade vouchers.
Also I found booking with Expedia, all details are in sync with TK's own site. As soon as I made the booking all details are there in TK's app when I log in, including upgrades.
Initially I was ready to forgo the vouchers due to high Y fares. Since I'm only going to CAI for 1 night/2 days, I moved CAI flight dates and they vary as much as $500 within a week which is how much I saved not flying during 4th of July weekend.
Last edited by vincewy; Aug 31, 2019 at 11:07 am
Sep 7, 2019, 9:20 am
#643
Join Date: Jun 2018
Posts: 8
I want to upgrade JNB-IST-CDG. In a TK agency they couldn't see availability for JNB-IST when inserting individual segments but when introducing JNB-CDG, there was one J seat available (same as in Expert Flyer). The agency officer didn't know how to upgrade with vouchers so I had to call the TK line the same day. None of the 2 operators could see availability in J for JNB-IST. I was asking if they could insert JNB-CDG but they answered that there was one stop in IST so they couldn't do it. I believe they were searching individual segments and not married segments but I'm not sure about the procedure. Should I just let go and upgrade only the IST-CDG segment with the voucher?
Sep 7, 2019, 9:48 am
#644
Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: DTW
Programs: TK E+, WY, Radisson R
Posts: 2,360
1. Keep calling at different time to find an agent knowing enough about the rule.
2. Be flexible and book with TK's multi-city and check if the J appear on JNB-IST and/or IST-JNB by changing IST-CDG/CDG-IST flights.
3. Also check flights out of CPT and DUR and repeat the same process. I just redeemed with IST-YUL because IST-YYZ is almost impossible to upgrade at this point.
Even if there's J, that seat may not be available for upgrade, so book with an US OTA like Expedia, in case it can't be upgraded you can get refund within 24 hours.
Last edited by vincewy; Sep 7, 2019 at 11:17 am
Sep 10, 2019, 9:18 am
#645
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Barcelona, London, on a plane
Programs: BA Silver, TK E+, AA PP, Hyatt Globalist, Marriott LT Plat, Hilton Diamond
Posts: 13,051
I recommend that people call TK before making any reservations they intend to upgrade using a voucher.
I called TK and my vouchers for the new elite year had not yet been received. The agent suggested that this is a common problem but that Istanbul will issue the vouchers for me within an hour.
Luckily I booked with a US OTA so have enough time to wait before cancelling the whole thing if necessary.
But it would have been less nerve-wracking if I had simply spent 5 minutes ahead of time to call TK to confirm that I have the 2 vouchers I'm expecting to have...
I called TK and my vouchers for the new elite year had not yet been received. The agent suggested that this is a common problem but that Istanbul will issue the vouchers for me within an hour.
Luckily I booked with a US OTA so have enough time to wait before cancelling the whole thing if necessary.
But it would have been less nerve-wracking if I had simply spent 5 minutes ahead of time to call TK to confirm that I have the 2 vouchers I'm expecting to have...