Hi all. I have two Aeroplan bookings involving Turkish Airlines in the next two weeks.

JFK-CAI-IST-UBN (first two legs on EgyptAir; departure in three days)
UBN-IST-EWR

There have been multiple schedule changes on the Turkish flights in recent weeks -- a few minutes here or there. Turkish has been updating me about those via text message.

Today, I logged in to my Turkish record, and I got an error message indicating that I needed to call Turkish. Instead of the new IST-UBN and UBN-IST flights replacing the existing flights, they instead were appended to the record. As of this moment, each record has four IST-UBN / UBN-IST flights in it. I have experienced this before with other records, and it has been a fairly easy fix.

I called Turkish to ask them to clean up the record and they said they couldn't because it was an Aeroplan booking. They verified that I would not be able to fly until it was cleaned up by Aeroplan.

I subsequently spent three hours on the phone with Aeroplan and they told me they are unable to fix the record because there is a longstanding system glitch that doesn't allow proper communication between their system and Turkish Airlines' system. The only option they provided was cancelling the flight (not ideal, since I have prepaid many thousands of dollars of activities in Mongolia for a trip that was delayed three years). I'm extremely frustrated that Aeroplan doesn't seem able or willing to do anything.

Is there a next step you'd suggest? Will EgyptAir allow me to board the first two flights? If so, is it likely that Turkish will work with me to fix this problem when I'm on the ground in Istanbul? Help!?

 

Does TK have agents at JFK? If so, you might try to get to the airport early and try to get them to help since aeroplan would no longer control the ticket on the day of departure.

BTW, have you done HUCA a couple times? Maybe a different agent (at TK or at aeroplan) will help.

 

Turkish Airlines does have agents at JFK, so that's a possibility to explore. However, (a) JFK is more than two hours from my house and (b) the layover in Cairo is actually 23h55m, so the day I'm at JFK would not be the day of departure of the Turkish flight (two calendar days beforehand, in fact.) Or I could try during my six hours in Istanbul (but that's even farther from my house. Ha.)

I've called Aeroplan twice -- 90 minutes and 3 hours. Called Turkish twice (short holds both times, but their agents are unable to touch the record.)

 

Aeroplan controls the ticket, it's up to them to fix it. If their only solution is to cancel the TK segments to/from UBN, you can tell them that's fine, as long as they immediately re-book them and buy a revenue ticket for you on those segments if they need to. That might get a manager or somebody to either figure this out or just buy you a revenue ticket and fix the problem. It's also possible that if you called TK once you had Aeroplan on the line, and got someone from each entity on the phone together, they could work it out.

 

There is a massive festival in Mongolia, so revenue tickets from IST-UBN are completely sold out on my date (on both Turkish and MIAT).

I did talk to a manager, who attempted to find another routing, and was unable to do so. (Presumably, she only looked for an award routing; there certainly did not seem to be any interest in securing a revenue ticket for me.) I have no confidence that Aeroplan is willing to solve this problem for me.

The Aeroplan ticketing department did reach out directly to Turkish while I was on hold. Turkish told them to instruct me to hit the "confirm" button within my Turkish record. I relayed that the "confirm" button was not present, but no attempt was made to reconnect with Turkish thereafter.

 

If you've managed to get Aeroplan to talk to TK, is there no way for TK to hold the seat while Aeroplan does the cancel-rebook thing? Or TK forces a booking somehow on the same flight and then Aeroplan cancels? I mean the seat is yours, its not like its oversold, you just need to make sure the seat stays with you somehow...

 

I ran into a similar problem with Aeroplan vs BR before..... Talked to BR at TPE and they referred me back to Aeroplan.
The only good thing by being at the airport is they offered is to make the call, saving me long distance call $ and you can encourage them to solve their issues in the call.

 

I have a similar issue last week at Istanbul business check in and business lounge, both locations told me they cannot touch the booking, even at the last, there was IROP, asking the reprotection, the agents were so dumb, business ticket can be only be reprotected to a business seat, which is not going to depart until 3 days after, even I am willing to take Economy. I want to speak to their managers, they only laugh 😃 at me. Spoke to Aeroplan, even when spoke to their supervisor at travel ops, after being on hold for 2 hours and I am only being told, if you cannot travel, we can offer you a particial refund, what a joke. How about my cost for accommodation and such? Turkish ground agents, avoid at all cost , " you know my English is no good", with strong Turkish accent. OMG How about revenue ticket reprotection? Only being told they will only buy revenue seats only when there is an Air Canada SKCH or IROP took place, otherwise, no. Good luck, I believe you might have an old itinerary which you booked under the old system.




QUOTE=grlmopz;34381584]There is a massive festival in Mongolia, so revenue tickets from IST-UBN are completely sold out on my date (on both Turkish and MIAT).

I did talk to a manager, who attempted to find another routing, and was unable to do so. (Presumably, she onlya looked for an award routing; there certainly did not seem to be any interest in securing a revenue ticket for me.) I have no confidence that Aeroplan is willing to solve this problem for me.

The Aeroplan ticketing department did reach out directly to Turkish while I was on hold. Turkish told them to instruct me to hit the "confirm" button within my Turkish record. I relayed that the "confirm" button was not present, but no attempt was made to reconnect with Turkish thereafter.[/QUOTE]