boywonderto

There has been numerous reports here that after Turkish's "system upgrade" on November 19, Turkish ticketing offices (New York, Toronto etc) were unable to issue *A reward tickets.

I personally experienced this, was in daily contact for over a week in late November with Turkish's Toronto office to try to issue a *A reward ticket with Air Canada that they booked but unable to issue. Eventually, the booking was cancelled. Because of the week long delay, the actual purchase price of the ticket with Air Canada went up by $300. To add insult to injury, I have been receiving regular emails from Turkish reminding me of my 12000 soon-to-expire status miles and how I can redeem them for reward tickets!

(To be fair, Turkish's Toronto office was very attentive and seemed to be trying their best to deal with the issue, but no ability to do so, and no ability to raise the issue with anyone.)

I filed a complaint about it back in November. After having my complaint ignored for almost four weeks (initially filed Nov 27), and after repeated follow-up, today I received a reply of “sincere apologies” and “we hope you accept this experience as an exception”, and a subsequent message saying the case has been "resolved". No acknowledgement of my actual financial loss, or any offer of remedy.

From my perspective this is obviously NOT RESOLVED, and Turkish's answer is utterly unacceptable. This is 100% fault of Turkish’s system failure, and it has failed to honour Miles&Smiles members’ right to redeem award tickets on star alliance flights in a timely manner. The lack of any meaningful response to my complaint only adds to the insult.

Any suggestion/advice on where/how to escalate this? Think Star Alliance would care or address the issue?

MSPeconomist

kohswisscheese

Sorry to hear about your financial loss due to the inability to ticket the flight you held: I don't think TK will be sympathetic to that since Awards are not guaranteed.

I do however relate to your frustration: I similarly have miles expiring and have an AC flight on hold. Toronto told me they can't ticket, and I'm going to try the Singapore office today. Will let you know how it goes. It's all rather ridiculous that they can't issue awards! I *do* have M&S Elite status but that hasn't helped solve this so far.

To MSPEconomist's point, perhaps worth writing for an extension of Mileage Expiry.

tmj143

I have M&S gold status and haven't been able to get them to agree to extend the expiration date yet. The people on the phone and at the service office by email told me the only way to do this was by to file the online complaint form; needless to say I have not heard from them yet. I am going to be furious if they refuse to extend for their own technical difficulties.

kohswisscheese

No-go at the Singapore office too. The system cannot price any domestic route on AC or UA due to "technical error" -- the number of required miles does not show. I'll write in to CS for an extension of mileage expiry later today.

slickvik

airoli

I just fired off a request to the ZRH station about a *A booking. In the past they were quite good at this (and fast), but it was before that system cutover. I hope that it will work, for I too have miles expiring.

Tifosi

I've contacted TK via the webform but they just come back with an apology without offering a solution or any mention of what to do with the expiring miles (which is specifically what I asked about when I sent the comment in the first place). I just sent a twitter message specifically asking them to extend the life of the miles.

Does anyone know if it's possible to book hotel stays with TK miles? I'm guessing not because I can't find any mention of it or option on their website, but that would be a much better use for me than ordering some unnecessary products from their shop or letting the miles expire.

kohswisscheese

I wanted to report back that after submitting an appeal to M&S via the webform (responding to an earlier email which sent apologies but declined to extend mileage expiry), I was just notified that my expiring miles have been reinstated and that the new expiry is end-2022. Overall a satisfactory result. I'm (for now, still) Elite if it helps.

xiaozzxi

I had two trips with UA domestic flights I wanted to book through TK miles but weren't able to. Sorry hear the financial loss, I can totally relate. Over months of not able to ticket UA and AC domestic flights is ridiculous. This needs to be fixed!!

G_G

Not with TK !
They really don't care about their customers.