Award ticket downgraded from business to economy on a schedule related change
 

Dear Flyertalkers,

Need your input on my situation. I had a one-way award ticket on Turkish for 4 passengers from JFK to BOM in Business Class booked in Saver Category. A month after booking I got a schedule change notification. To check on the schedule change, I went inside the Turkish mobile app. Turkish mobile app offered me a "free change" - 7 days in either direction - and allowed me to change the origin airport from JFK to BOS. I went through mobile app's workflow for schedule change pulled up BOS - BOM for the same date and completed the change. After that, I noticed that I was downgraded in the new itinerary from Business to Economy class. As far as I could tell, there was nothing in the mobile app's schedule change workflow that told me that they were downgrading me to Economy. I have talked to the phone customer service and they can't make any changes, they suggested me write to Turkish via the feedback form. I have written to Turkish via the feedback form, this feedback form advertises a response back within 7 days. I have also sent an email to Turkish's Boston office.

Is there anything else I should be doing? Do I have a chance to getting my booking restored back to Business class? As you could imagine, I'm beating myself up for responding to the schedule change notification. Please comment and let me know.

Thanks for your time!

DLBOSFO

Nothing else to do right now except wait for the responses, IMO. You did the right thing, have no reason to beat yourself up, and have every right to be rebooked in business class. If the customer relations and local BOS teams both deny you rebooking in business, then you can and should escalate.

Thanks for your reply dkc192!

Boston office already responded sayinig "they are unable to help, as I accepted the change" and so I only have a pending response to that "feedback" form.

How would I go about escalating if it is needed? PLMK.

Sigh... it is just amazing to me that this airline continues to get away with operating this way... :mad:

Regards

Yikes. Did you point out that you were unknowingly downgraded to economy without prior warning, due to the app's limitations or a glitch? If not, try that. And wait for the response to the feedback form--you might get a customer relations rep who is more empowered and interested in solving your problem.

I don't actually know how to escalate beyond those channels...hoping others with more experience can chime in.

We had a similar issue regarding a cancelled itinierary - The schedule change was unacceptable and we cancelled the itinerary, only to find out the buttons we had clicked gave us a credit, not a card refund. We were successful only after credit card dispute, which was very difficult.

You can try contacting Turkey's Civil Aviation Directorate (reference SHY passenger rights), but unfortunately I believe you are out of luck here. We now avoid booking with Turkish whenever possible.

Thank you @dkc192 and @golfer20 and scubadu for your responses.

I have amended my initial request to Turkish and made it explicit that there was no indication during the schedule change workflow whatsoever that I was being downgraded.
@golfer20 you are probably right and I might be out of luck, I would cry a little if that happens :(, as you can imagine lots of hours of searching went into securing this saver space for 4 with tripistanbul opportunity.

I would definitely keep this thread posted if/when I hear back from Turkish.

If your efforts fails, you wait for another schedule change - and then you call TK CS to get rebook/reinstated in C/J. Agents will be able to see that your original award ticket was in I class, not X class.

With all due respect I don't think this is really a viable option. Why should OP have to wait for another schedule change for TK to fix the mess they created? What if that other schedule change doesn't occur?

I emphasized "If everything fails", i.e. as a last resort if OP is unable to persuade TK to rebook into C/J class.

An update: summary - no progress so far with the feedback form. They did not get back to me within the 7 days. Talked to Turkish Customer Service, the guy asked do you want me to add "Urgency Request" to your feedback form to that I said yes. He said if you don't hear anything back by tomorrow, call in and add an additional "Urgency Request" :(

In my experience delays can be a good sign. Often a reply "Computer says no" is quick, but a period of silence has usually resulted in a satisfactory outcome after the (frustrating) wait.

Good luck.

Update #2 -

• Summary - no response back from Turkish, it is been 14 days since I submitted the feedback form
• In the mean time, I wrote to Turkish' Jakarta office, they redirected me Boston office, I wrote to Boston office again and received no response
• At 12 day mark, I also wrote to some email contacts I found online - for e.g. CEO, COO (NY based), Corporate Help Desk, have received no response
• At 14 day mark, this morning I wrote to them on Twitter and Facebook Messenger, Twitter CS responded and asked me to wait
• I also call Turkish CS on the phone every day, and they transfer me to "Customer Relations" and I'm always told feedback form is "In Progress" and to "Wait"

Final Update - I appear to be all set. I got an email 20 minutes after my post above indicating that new e-tickets were issued in "I" class. I went into my reservation and confirmed that I can assign myself seats in Business Class Cabin. So everything appears to be restored and I've my original booking class back. So in spite of the delays, it appears TK has come through and made the change on day 14 since submitting the feedback form. I do not know which of my actions moved the needle or "feedback form" mechanism would have worked on its own given enough time.

Thanks for the support and comments from all the flyertalkers!

Thx for reporting back. I'm glad it was solved eventually.