fnaime23

In short Turkish Airline told me there was seats to upgrade and in fact did upgrade me from Comfort to Business for IST-LAX a week ago. then while in my new assigned seat asked me to move back to my old seat.

I had previously checked with you guys here and you had informed me there wasn't a single seat available on Business for Sunday the 20th of September. But I figured I don't lose anything if I asked at the airport, and so I did. To my surprise the agent said, yes the system shows 2 seats available and it will be 27K miles to upgrade. I said perfectly fine, lets go ahead and do that. after about 10 minutes or so of him typing away, I got my new seat assigned and I got an email that showed the miles had been deducted from my account.

Then, after boarding, while sitting in my seat sipping on my welcome drink, the same agent that upgraded me comes and informs me there has been a mistake and there was no seats available and I had to go back to my seat and the system made mistake.

is this possible, to make a mistake like that? and what other course of action could i have taken at the time? short of posting on TK's facebook page complaining and showing my dissatisfaction in hopes of getting something out of it, anything I can do about it?

thanks

LH4116

That is totally unacceptable! Did they have proof that your seat had been sold to a different customer, and also did you get a refund on your miles?

Personally I think TK should remove Comfort Class from LAX and use the 49J aircraft, especially since booking class J and award seats are impossible to find on the route.

Gnopps

Very irritating to have it happen to you and you should try to get some compensation from TK. Given that, I think the agent did the right thing. It seems there was no seat available and so the choice was between downgrading the (presumably) passenger who had a business class ticket or downgrading you who had a comfort ticket.

Unless TK did someone a favour I think they handled this correctly.

vincewy

Those 2 seats were probably reserved for reservation assurances for E+ members. In my experiences all of the sold out flights always ended up with 2 empty seats unavailable until the last day.

If the flight is out of IST more than likely TK is doing someone a favor, I have seen this all the time out of IST Even worse, some of those don't behave like premium class passengers (use your imagination), in 1 flight the FAs ended up sending upgraded folks back to coach because they were disrupting other passengers in the cabin.

fnaime23

thanks folks. it is unacceptable and the reason I asked was because I'm aware there usually is 2 empty seats just in case. I just wasn't sure how to proceed with this. my goal is to post the incident on TK's FB site and see what I can get out of it. the upgrade was reversed, so miles went back with the same expiration timeline. well comfort class will be out by march, on my next trip, there will not be a comfort class. so hopefully my upgrades will be a bit easier even though a bit more expensive.

vivamuci

Happened to me a couple of times on both UA and AA.
UPG last minute as some passengers confirmed for the higher service class of service didn't check in.
Then pax arrived late, agent accepted them, I got moved back.
Neither UA, nor AA offered compensation and I don't think you stand a chance with TK. It will be wasted time to complain IMHO.

You might get a standard letter of apology, sent by a call center agent that couldn't care less.
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nacho

As long as they gave you your points back I don't see them owing you anything.

bamba70

Did you just concede immediately when requested to move back? Or tried to push back in some way?

fnaime23

knowing that my chances of winning any push back was going to be slim and knowing that I wasn't in the of the US (who knows right , and not wanting to be taken off the flight for further discussions.. my push back was limited to "no", "you specifically completed this transaction", "are there any other business seats". the answer to all these were "I'm sorry sir, I made a mistake, the system made a mistake, there are no other seats. I'm very sorry sir"

SK AAR

You got a decent and sincere apology from the person who did the upgrade/made the mistake and you got your miles back = you shouldn't ask for more - this was resolved in a fair way IMO.

luluv

The bolded is interesting, as it would explain why last year several passengers (traveling together) attempted to get me booted from my paid business class seat so that their friend in economy could move up. The ground staff at IST even came onto the plane and did their best to convince me to move, possibly assuming that they could intimidate or shame me into complying. Well, they learned a mighty good lesson that day.

slickvik

Last minute upgrade for 26k? That's a good deal it's 90k according to the upgrade table

fnaime23

It was a great deal, a bit unbelievable. i guess it was unbelievable, since I lost that seat. sadly.

fnaime23

having paid for the business seat, would be different. specially if done way in advance. I managed to get a great deal on a business seat for my upcoming trip. since I bought my ticket in February for July. there will simply be no way, they will downgrade me or try to shame me. but since there are 2 flights a day now. I can be persuaded with some kind of offer.