Is this true?
 

Saw this post from FB:

"25 hours in business class for $630 USD. No points or anything!
SYD-KUL (mh140)
KUL-IST (tk63)
IST-NBO (tk607)
It's because Turkish Airlines has such a strange rebooking policy!
I am a 22yr old backpacker and I've never flown business class before. In April I saw a $630 business class fare with TK from Johannesburg to Nairobi via İstanbul. That's a long detour, but I was more after the experience.
Then, in August, TK changed the time of my IST-NBO flight by about 25 minutes. They asked me to approve the change, but I played around with the website and realised they would let me change the origin city to literally anywhere in their network! Including codeshare flights!
I figured why not go visit my family in Australia for a few weeks considering the return flight is free.
I'm used to flying Jetstar, Scoot and Airasia. This was such a surreal experience, and I was treated like a full-fare paying customer. Ordinarily this routing would cost $4000 USD.
I half expected to turn up at Sydney Airport and be told that my booking doesn't exist. But it did! And everything went perfectly!
Naturally, I went to every lounge possible, tried everything on every menu, and tried my best to avoid sleep. Special mention to the İstanbul lounge where I got my own 'hotel room' to catch up on sleep.
Also, from KUL to IST I was on an ex-aeroflot a350 which had fully enclosed suites. Super lucky as there aren't many like that in the TK fleet.
The funny thing is I earnt 19000 TK miles from this, which is worth a few hundred USD in itself!
My brother is going to Germany next year and he's already booked a cheap regional business class fare on TK in the hope the same thing happens again! If you want to try the same, book a long way out and hope for the best!"

I don't think one can change region like that due to a schedule change.

Source: https://www.facebook.com/groups/3894...61552420940804

There were some flaws in the TK app (maybe also on the website) last year where you were able to change destination also to outside the original region during invol. rebooking but I believe it has been fixed by now. Also I don't recognise the extreme possibilities available but it might be due to my ticket being an TK award and the backpacker/poster was on a revenue ticket apparently. But to me it sounds a bit too good to be true and it is def. not in line with the official TK invol. rebooking policy. I can almost guarantee you that you will receive a big "No" if you call TK CS and try to change destination from Africa to Australia. Official TK policy is that change of region is not allowed.

If you look at the comment, he claimed that he can even depart from South America - it seemed that the whole Southern Hemisphere is grouped into one region...

You never know how people lie in Social media, and I'm really shocked he can even book codeshare...

It’s definitely possible there was an unpublished glitch, but I’ve also seen more than a few influencers outright lie about travel hacks.

His original ticket was from Johannesburg. He change it to start from Sydney. By doing so, he would need to pay for another positioning flight from Johannesburg to Sydney, so he can start his journey with TK, unless he meat to say Johannesburg-Sydney is included in his new TK ticket. Obviously, he didn't tell the complete story.

I was also told by someone, about a year or two ago, that there was a glitch and that person who told me was claiming to me that he changed a trip to the Balkans to the USA without any fee.

However, I currently do have an involuntary schedule change on one of my international itineraries and the system only lets me change within the same region and on TK/AnadoluJet flights; anything else is not possible and would show as "Sold Out" at the involuntary rebooking page so I assume that this glitch has already been fixed.

I can also confirm that I was not able to change to a different region when having a schedule change.

Can you change both orig and destination within the same region in case of an involuntary change?

Yes should be possible. Some TK agents will deny it/do not know it.

I therefore think that it’s easier first to try to make the changes online (TK website or app). If that doesn’t work, try the call center.

Last year my niece claimed that her friend flew RT flew RT IST-MIA with TK in Biz for only $800 and had posted about it on her social media, I called BS on that and said that it was not possible. When she dug into it she found that: 1) The friend's father upgraded her using his points on the outbound, and that for the return, she bought an upgrade at MIA for $999. So yeah, she flew RT in Biz to/fr MIA for $800+$999+45,000 miles (which let's say for argument sake is worth $675). Total Price $2,475....................and while TK's Biz fare at the time was around $3200, she could have gotten a half dozen connecting itineraries at that time for sub $2500. Never trust what you read on Facebook.

That's what I thought. I think you pay more if you want to upgrade before you get to the airport. It's more likely to be $1075 than $675.

Some bloggers are just as bad - one claimed that he didn't like the hotel that AA offered him and he checked himself in to the Park Hyatt. He said because he has this AMEX card they paid for his $325 stay... If this is in Europe I'm 110% certain that they won't cover it as AA has offered you something, and they are not obliged to send you to a 5* hotel. I feel bad about people misleading other like this to either make themselves feel good and/or have monetary gain (cc referrals).

Oh yes, I also read the article and had a similar overnight at the same airport where my red-eye flight was delayed overnight ( 12 hours ), due to crew availability of AA.

Indeed, they offered a Country Inn 20 kilometers away from DFW + a taxi voucher, which the drive ( incl. waiting for a taxi with the voucher ) and the location was not the most pleasant experience. However, a J pax was arguing with the agents that why can't they book him to the Grand Hyatt within the airport premises ( was $489 + taxes ) and the Park Hyatt was already sold out that night. I don't know what happened but he was quite annoyed when he was told that AA would not reimburse any other accommodation other than what was offered.

I am also pretty sure that if I had the same credit card, they would have found a blind spot, as I was on a trip with series of multiple tickets, as finding multiple excuses not to pay for it that this trip is not eligible because it is xxx, yyy or something like that.

20km away is not unreasonable as long as they paid for a taxi. Last time AA put us in Fairfield inn and we had to wait 90 minutes for a shuttle. I don't believe that just because I have that card I can expect that they will pay for the LAX Marriott or something.

Also if anyone is stuck at IST, most hotels are at least 20 minutes drive. The airline is not paying you a hotel that is next to a mall or a sight, it's for the destress pax to rest. So it's that guy going to check himself into the Ritz at Istanbul if AA or whoever put him into a hotel he doesn't like?

I hope people don't buy his story and expect the card will reimburse them.

I feel like a 4* airport Marriott is very much within reason? It's not exactly a Ritz or Park Hyatt. I think the Amex Plat trip delay is up to $500 per claim.