TurkishAirlines

A VERY bad company. Take home message: AVOID traveling with Turkish Airlines (TK). You'll find yourself in the most stressful situation while traveling with them. At the airport you'll find that your flight that you booked through the company website does not exist! Last month I booked my overseas flight directly through the TK company website. On my way back at the airport, I was told that my connection flight from Istanbul to USA is canceled and I have to wait at Istanbul Airport till the next day to catch the next flight to USA. This resulted in a very inconvenient situation where I had to wait for 14 hours overnight sitting on a chair at the airport, which was completely shut down (no restaurants or stores are open), and I missed important business on the day I was supposed to be back home. This is exactly what I tried to avoid when booking my flight although there were other respected airlines offering cheaper prices. What confirms that this is a nightmare company is that: 1) they did not even bother to send me an email or contact me before departure to let me know that the connection flight is canceled, although I entered my contact information when booking the ticket; 2) I wrote to TK customer service complaining about this situation; no one cared to reply. Not mentioning that most of the personal monitors on the trans-Atlantic airplanes are not working (so you don't even have a means of entertainment during the long flight) and that the flight crew are unprofessional. So, in summary do yourself a favor and avoid flying with Turkish Airlines or you may experience this yourself.

Terrible customer service. I had a trip in May 2021 that I had to cancel because of rising covid cases and Turkey being on lockdown. I wanted to reschedule my trip to May 2022 but the company wouldn't let me because I booked the ticket in March 2021. I pleaded the agent (Umut) to please be flexible and let me to talk to the manager to see if they can make a exception to the rule because of the covid crisis. He responded that he is the higher person at the call center and there is nothing he could do. The company only cares about money not about the experience with the customer. Umut also mentioned that what "news" I am getting my information from because Turkish airlines site did not mention cancelling of international flights. Umut admitted that there is a domestic flight cancellation and lockdown in the city but did not have the common sense to understand that an international traveler would not come to turkey only to spend his time in lockdown. Other than Umet the other agents are so terrible and do not care about the human side of providing a service. They are so arrogant in their tone, I would rather pay more money for another airline that travel with Turkish Airlines. Absolute, complete trash of a company who does not know how to train their customer service reps.

I also have fallen victim to Turkish Airlines ruses, scams and outright lies.

In October 2019, I bought In good faith a round trip business class ticket from BKK to YUL scheduled to depart April 13 2020 and return June 1 2020. On March 20 2020 I was notified that there was a problem with my flights and told to contact their call centre. For 8 days I tried (and wasted hundreds of dollars in phone charges) unsuccessfully to reach anyone at the call centre, only getting recordings in Turkish.

I also tried the feedback forms requesting a refund. Thus far I have completed about 15 feedback forms each time getting different cryptic, misleading and sometimes incomprehensible responses.

To make matters more confusing, on April 6, I was informed that bonus miles had been credited to the miles and smiles account that I had been asked to open. This transaction was offered to me not as a refund but rather as a "good will" measure in recognition of the frustration created by the lack of communication about my cancelled flights and the monies I expended trying unsuccessfully to contact the Call centre as well as travelling to the Bangkok office as instructed (however the office closed in March without notification).

On April 14 a Turkish Airlines employee named Betul A. Informed me that an EMD coupon had been issued and that I would need to go to a local sales office with my passport and the EMD number to initiate the refund for my cancelled flights. However the Bangkok office remains closed now for 6 months and Turkish Airlines no longer flies to Thailand.

On September 11, I completed yet another feedback form seeking a means to process my refund. On September 18, I was informed that Turkish Airlines had "refunded" me in bonus miles as per my request and that they will not be refunding my ticket. I never requested bonus miles as a refund option.

All this to say, Turkish Airlines is knowingly misleading clients and ripping us off. When the world returns to some semblance of normalcy, I can only hope that Turkish Airlines will not be rewarded for its unethical business practices during this pandemic.

Would choose negative stars if I could. Used to love Turkish Airlines but not anymore. These days, they have adopted highly unethical business practices and a subpar product. Completely arbitrary change fees, which we disputed and amex found in our favor for half the fees. As a result, they suspended / cancelled our tickets without telling us, forcing us to purchase last minute segments, for 3x the price, at the gate so as to not ruin our honeymoon further. There are numerous other cases on other sites of having tickets arbitrarily suspended without notice. Their Newark manager Nuri Basaran was highly unprofessional, refused to help one bit, and tried to convince us it was our own fault.

Fly this airline *at your own risk* You will not be able to make changes, receive refunds or do any customer service action of any value through the phone with them and you're forced to communicate through an antiquated online feedback form, designed to frustrate customers and force them to quit (there is no record of previous discussions, new agents each message, 5 day replies) Think you can get an issue resolves in person? Think again -- in any airport, including in Istanbul, there is not one person that has authority to issue flight changes, credits or refunds. You have to keep fighting through the feedback form and hoping that your message gets routed to the right corporate department.

Flying this airline is absolutely not worth it anymore. The planes are old, the food is a LOT worse than it used to be, the prices are high - and if you have any service issue whatsoever, you will waste many hours, if not weeks or months of aggravation. For those that are having issues - know your rights, carefully review the below documents and present them to Turkish and your local authorities where possible.

https://web.shgm.gov.tr/doc4/shy-passenger.pdf
And
https://cdn.turkishairlines.com/m/4365a15e0f5af528/original/FR_67_0329_EN-PDF.pdf