BoatyMcBoatface

Hello, my family has a 3 leg trip in a week and a half and the airline (Turkish Airlines) just cancelled the 2nd leg (1. SF->ATH, *2. ATH-> IST*, 3. IST-> ATH). As a side note, the cancellation was just noted in a form email noting a status change. It would have been easy to miss ;(

The context here is on the date of the cancelled leg, I have a non-refundable flight from Crete to Athens booked on a seperate airline on a seperate ticket (required because Turkish Airlines won't cover this location itself or with partner airlines). This means I can only catch one of the other flights between ATH-> IST on that day (TK9192) without eating big $$$ to book new tickets out of Crete from scratch last minute.

No problem, I'll just switch to that one flight! Turkish airlines website errors out and can't make any change. Turkish Airlines on the phone said they won't put me on that flight because it's operated by other airlines (must be a code share?). The only option they gave is a very early flight I can't make because of flight out of Crete or to completely cancel/refund the entire ticket all legs.

I could only escalate to an email address and no responses so far.

Any other suggestions as to how to convince the airline to just move us at it's cost to their own coded flight (code share) earlier that day? I could potentially go down to SF airport but that is a big big headache.

p.s. no reason for cancellation provided in email or on the phone when asked. It seems they just are saving costs.

craigthemif

Go down to the TK office at SFO. They are far more likely to sort it out to your satisfaction than the call centre.

Are you also flying SFO-ATH via IST on TK? Otherwise the airline flying you to ATH could also potentially fix the problem.

BoatyMcBoatface

Yeah, SFO to Athens is on Turkish Airlines with a layover in IST.

ISTFlyer

As your flight is within a week, I assume that the sales office would be able to rebook you on the A3 codeshare flight ( TK 9192 ).
As craigthemif mentioned, I would highly suggest you to visit the airport ticket counter as they have more power than call center agents. Unfortunately, outsourced call center agents do not have the power to book people to other airlines.

BoatyMcBoatface

Sorry for being unclear, my trip begins with first leg June 25th. The cancelled second leg is July 7th. So if I wait until Saturday to go down to the airport, it will indeed be less than a week until the trip begins, but more than a week until the cancelled leg. Does that timing matter?

I need to decide whether to cut my losses and eat new tickets from Crete to Athens now or wait to see if Turkish will eventually put me on the codeshare flight. I am inclined to wait but that's more living dangerously

Thanks for any thoughts!

ISTFlyer

You could do changes anytime until departure. Just be sure not to press the confirm changes button online. When you click it, even by mistake, you would lose all your free rebooking rights and you would automatically accept the proposed itinerary that TK offered you.

Also, thanks for the clarification on the date.
TK has notified you 15 days in advance so they have no obligation to rebook you on an A3 flight. It's -15 days that is taken into consideration, the date of the initial flight in the reservation has no importance on rebooking.

If your flight is on 7 July, TK would most likely not put you on the codeshare flight. I initially thought that your cancelled flight was next week.

BoatyMcBoatface

Thank you, so in your thoughts it sounds like there is no point in going down to the airport? I did have a flight cancellation within 15 days of the start of the trip... just not the cancelled leg

ISTFlyer

Sorry if I was not clear,
The start date of your trip does not matter.
It's the actual flight date that has been cancelled that matters if you would like a rebooking to another airline.