Complaint Review: Turkish Airlines - Internet

In all of my experience with travel to 100+ countries, never have I experienced a company with as poor, unethical, and incompetent customer service as Turkish Airlines. My experience with such is detailed below:

September 2015...lodged a complaint that my online access did not work. Called customer service tech support multiple times, one of which hung up the phone during our conversation. Neither fixed the problem and thus, I was unable to book my flight online.

December 2016...called Turkish airlines outsourced US call center multiple times. Was given false and inconsistent feedback by call center employees as to how I can book my flight. Some said I had to visit an airport, others said I had to go into a Turkish Airlines office while others said I needed to call the airport to book my flight.

December 31, 2016 1 PM PST. Spoke to call center who told me I had to call airline office to book a flight with partner airline, United. She said there was no hard deadline for booking expired miles and told me I did not need to hurry to book the flight.

December 31, 2016 3 PM, 5 PM, 7 PM PST...Called Turkish Airlines New York JFK, Chicago O'Hare, and LAX, none of which picked up their phones.

December 31, 2016 6 PM. Spoke to Turkish Airlines Washington DC member who told me I could only book flight within regional office as I was located in Seattle, I had to Book with San Francisco office. He told me to email the San Francisco office and that they would email me back before leaving at 7:30 PM.

December 31, 2016 6:10 PM. Emailed the San Francisco office. Did not receive a response back.

December 31, 2016 6:30 PM. Called San Francisco office. Attendant was very abrasive and accusational. Told me the previous information I was given was incorrect. Told me he would contact the main call center and call me back in 10 minutes.

December 31, 2016 7:00 PM. San Francisco agent never called or emailed back. I tried calling and he screened my call, refusing to pick up the phone.

December 31, 2016 7:01 PM. Called the San Francisco attendant from a different phone and he picked up right away. Found out he never contacted the call center and told me to call them before calling him back.

December 31, 2016. 7:05 PM. Spoke to the most apathetic, rude, disrespectful Turkish Airline employee yet at the Turkish Airlines outsourced call center for US accounts. The agent refused to listen to me or state my case or even speak to a manager. Told me my miles were expired and I had to pay to reactivate them (despite what the other agents told me). After several attempts, he vehemently refused to give me his name or forward me to a supervisor (I recorded the phone call and will release the call if need be to show the horrific customer service this man exuded).

December 31, 2016 7:25 PM. Called the San Francisco office from both phones. Agent screened the numbers and despite telling me to call back, refused to answer and allow me to book my award flights.

Complaint Department Experience

1. The customer service agent(s) at the Turkish Airlines Call Center were rude, disrespectful, and unwilling to book my award ticket. I have recordings of their calls and am not pleased to find that they omitted that as part of Turkish Airlines' alleged 'investigation'. One of the keys to my complaint was the inability for customers such as myself to book award travel through the online call center--what should be a seamless and simple process, but in reality is anything but.

2. I requested six times for a supervisor to contact me, as I possessed additional, very relevant information related to my case that best conveyed to a supervisor over the phone. Turkish Airlines telling a customer that they will be contacted only after completing their investigation does not answer my numerous requests and I is a tactic Turkish Airlines does try and 'silence' any of their critics. Thus, after patiently waiting all this time, I feel at minimal it was their obligation to have a supervisor contact me before the investigation was completed and a decision made, but apparently that was an order too tall to ask.

3. The length of time to respond to my initial complaint was unconscionably long. Over one month and six complaints later, no one had contacted me to follow up on details surrounding my case. No supervisor reached me despite numerous requests , only a short incoherent vague rejection letter was sent as a reply without any acknowledgment of having read my initial inquiry/complaint.

This was a simple matter that if addressed promptly, professionally, and by the appropriate people, could be fixed in minutes, not months.

I never received an appropriate response about my complaint as the few replies I received did not attempt to address the primary focal matters of my complaint as it became clear that the agents looking at my case only skimmed through my complaint, as indicated by their incomplete replies to a small fraction of my complaints.

This is an extremely unethical company who prides itself upon ignoring customers and skimming on customer service. It is mind-boggling to me that a company could spend millions of dollars to hire Morgan Freeman for a Super Bowl ad, but take 1.5+ months to respond to six+ complaints with no supervisors accessible by phone in their customer service department. This is egregiously negligent on Turkish Airline's end and they should be punished for having such untimely, unethical customer service practices. I will never fly this company again and will urge others to do the same.