flyjfk

I made a booking last year for this September and used one of my Elite Plus upgrades that was going to expire last year in December. TK made a schedule change and now I need to confirm these changes.
When I call them, they tell me that they would need to reissue the ticket, but to do that they'd need to remove the upgrade first, and then approve the changes. This creates two problems:
1- Since the upgrade expired, they can't process the same one again. So I end up losing it
2- Even if they use a different upgrade, there might not be availability in the upgrade class.

Has anyone ever had a problem like this? TK agent told me that I should just go to the airport and they can check me in there, but right now I don't even have a seat assigned to me so I'm not sure what to do.

ISTFlyer

This is an issue where an outsourced call center agent is very likely to do a fault. If I were you, I would have visited a sales office in person and asked politely to reissue the ticket over there with the ELPL voucher manually. Sales offices have access to the back office in Istanbul via phone and could process complicated things.

SFOTraveler1984

This is a very common issue - it is bound to happen if you use the voucher for a flight too far in advance, given the frequent schedule changes of TK.

However, this wouldn't be a problem on its own - it is TK's inability to deal with it and the lack of customer-friendly processes.
Every other airline call center would be able to simply re-issue the ticket (BA GUF vouchers), but no ... TK has to remove the voucher, reissue the ticket in economy, re-apply the voucher - assuming it is still valid and there is still upgrade availability. Not to mention the endless occasions where the voucher did not end up in the account automatically, so you need to chase via feedback forms. Or the agent can see the voucher, but not access it ...

I have come to the conclusion: If you see the vouchers as a game - you apply them, sometimes you win and end up in business, sometimes you loose and end up in eco - then they are fine (or upgrading right at the boarding gate).

But if you can't stand the risk of ending up in Eco, then the vouchers are not for you - so I stopped using them. At this point, consequently, ELITE Plus is also irrelevant as the vouchers are literally the only benefit over ELITE.

sorry for the rant :-D

flyjfk

I agree - it's very painful to be an Elite Plus.. and what's even more concerning is that they had these problems for so long and they do nothing to fix them.

pull_over

You won't be able to check in before you show up at the airport but I'd just try to assign a seat by the phone and leave the flights as they were. Next time just select a seat as soon as it's possible. I had this issue every year, I never confirmed the change as TK agent recommended, I always flew business and I always had the seat I assigned before schedule change. Good luck!