Why Is It So Difficult to Get Seat Assignments With Turkish Air for Marina Cruise?

[GeorgiaPeach51]

We are on the Marina, Istanbul to Barcelona in November.  It is our first cruise with Oceania.  The cruise is paid in full almost three weeks ago and our TA says he cannot get the O Air Dept. to give him our seat assignments for our Business Class flights with Turkish Air.

 

Is this common?  Or is our TA just not in the know about how to deal with O Air?  I am mystified as to why this is so difficult, so if anyone can enlighten me I would be very grateful!

 

Joanie

[pinotlover]

If O has paid for the tickets, you can call Turkish Airlines yourself, at their U.S. offices, and get your seat assignments.

 

The first seven words above is the ringer. Getting O to pay for the ticket.

 

 

[ORV]

Generally Oceania books your ticket 30 to 45 days from your cruise. A connected TA will know this.  Do the math, they have it reserved but not paid for yet. A TA can get them to book it, any changes will incur extra costs. Push your TA. 

[LHT28]

after  final payment I usually ask my TA to get  the flights ticketed

 other wise  O many not  ticket until 60 days out  or less

 

[GeorgiaPeach51]

Many thanks for all the replies.  You are so helpful!  We have contacted our TA five times since full payment and he is supposedly contacting O but it has been radio silence with the only communication coming from us and nada coming from the TA.  No amount of contacting him results in any information.  So frustrating. 

 

He says O is really difficult to deal with.  Regardless, we just cancelled a cruise we had booked with him for next April due to the lack of communication.  And we are no further along with our tickets for this O cruise.  But your answers help me to identify where the issues lie.  
 

Joanie

[Jancruz]

18 minutes ago, GeorgiaPeach51 said:

Many thanks for all the replies.  You are so helpful!  We have contacted our TA five times since full payment and he is supposedly contacting O but it has been radio silence with the only communication coming from us and nada coming from the TA.  No amount of contacting him results in any information.  So frustrating. 

 

He says O is really difficult to deal with.  Regardless, we just cancelled a cruise we had booked with him for next April due to the lack of communication.  And we are no further along with our tickets for this O cruise.  But your answers help me to identify where the issues lie.  
 

Joanie

I know for a fact that O is not difficult to deal with if you know the right people..if you need help with this contact me and I will see if I can do anything.

Jancruz1

Edited August 16, 2023 by Jancruz

[the more ports the better]

Your turkish air confirmation number is on you O reservation.  You can call O and use it to get your ticket numbers.  Then you can go on the Turkish air website and get your seat assignments.  
 

You need the actual ticket number in addition to your confirmation number.  You and your spouse will each have a unique ticket number.

 

Once you have the ticket numbers entered under the confirmation number, you can go ahead and choose your seats.

 

If your TA is unfamiliar with the TA website’s ticket number requirement, that could be your problem.

[qballer]

Turkish air is a nightmare, our TA and Oceania had major issues dealing with them. Sometimes you can't avoid flying with them.

[FetaCheese]

2 hours ago, GeorgiaPeach51 said:

Many thanks for all the replies.  You are so helpful!  We have contacted our TA five times since full payment and he is supposedly contacting O but it has been radio silence with the only communication coming from us and nada coming from the TA.  No amount of contacting him results in any information.  So frustrating. 

 

He says O is really difficult to deal with.  Regardless, we just cancelled a cruise we had booked with him for next April due to the lack of communication.  And we are no further along with our tickets for this O cruise.  But your answers help me to identify where the issues lie.  
 

Joanie

Hope you will let Jan help you.  She knows the right people at O.  Helped me by resolving a slow air credit refund.  It was issued the day after intervention.  My TA was not very helpful.

[GeorgiaPeach51]

@Jancruz I will take you up on your kind offer, and would be grateful for any suggestions you have.  One reason for our desire to wrap this up is is that my twin sister and brother in law are going on this trip with us.  He has just been diagnosed with kidney cancer and while his prognosis is good, and surgery is scheduled, this has been an ongoing irritant and aggravation that he does not need.  So, it would be a blessing to take this issue off his plate of worrisome things that need to be resolved.

 

Thank you SO much.

 

Joanie

[pinotlover]

Turkish Airlines is outstanding. We booked our flights ourselves on Turkish for our recent Vista cruise. Easy to book, easy to get seat assignments if Business Class. Turkish is not your problem, and probably neither is your TA.

 

I learned years ago to do my own  flights.  Having to ask help for Jancruz should be an embarrassment for O Air, if embarrassment was possible for them.
 

A lesson for the future. Oceania Air is a profit center. If their customer service is poor, don’t use them and pay for crappy service. We booked Turkish Airlines Business Class round trip ourselves and had a wonderful experience and flights.

[Kristal Blade]

4 hours ago, pinotlover said:

Turkish Airlines is outstanding. We booked our flights ourselves on Turkish for our recent Vista cruise. Easy to book, easy to get seat assignments if Business Class. Turkish is not your problem, and probably neither is your TA.

We booked Turkish Airlines Business Class round trip ourselves and had a wonderful experience and flights.

I agree! Turkish Airlines business class is wonderful. It’s the best food in the sky with great service. We are flying U.K. to Japan next year and we’re offered either a direct flight with BA or fly Turkish and have a 2 hour stopover in Istanbul. We chose Turkish!

[FlyerTalker]

It may be too late for this trip, but folks should be aware of the various tourism options using Turkish.  These range from tours of Istanbul on longer connections to subsidized hotel stays to multiple day stopovers at no addition air cost.  In addition, the TK lounge at IST is a foodie delight, with numerous stations where various items are prepared in front of you.  Plus excellent shower/lounging facilities for you to enjoy.

 

The one drawback is that there are no spirits offered in the lounge - only beer and wine.

 

As for the ticket number mentioned above.  That is a 13 digit number, distinct from your six character locator.  And FWIW, TK is not the only airline that requires that you have it for accessing your account - a number of Asian and African carriers also do - often as a fraud prevention technique.

 

 

[luvnz]

We love to fly with Turkish Air and have arranged our own flights with them.  We agree, best food in the air.  That being said, everyone has a different experience with getting seat assignments.  I have never had such a hard time getting seat assignments as I have had with our upcoming flights.  Our first time flying them 8 years ago was a breeze.  Not so this time.   If you google Turkish seat assignment issues, you will see many, many people have had a very hard time and can't figure out why.  Your TA is probably hitting the wall that we have hit for months, but he should communicate this to you.   We finally got assignments for our first and most important flight, but not able to get the European connection.  We have spent many hours on this and will address the second leg of the trip at the airport since it is a short connection.  Some have said if you install a mobile Turkish App on your phone and then submit a customer report of issue, that will get you what you need.   There are also helpful blogs from various frequent flyer sites that at least let you know you are not alone in dealing with issues and give some helpful advice.  One very important thing you need is the Turkish ticket number.  Our flights start with a United flight and even United was unsuccessful in getting our Turkish ticket number.  Our situation is different because we are using Frequent Flyer miles for our flights so United is the one who booked our flights.  The supervisor for United even tried for days to get Turkish ticked number and couldn't.  I hope you get resolution because even with all of these problems, we are still looking forward to our Turkish flights.

 

 

[FlyerTalker]

Luvnz -- the answer is a simple one.  You do NOT have a Turkish ticket number, nor will you ever get one.  Because there is only ONE ticket number, even though there may be multiple locators for the various airline system.

 

UA booked your ticket.  You are on a UA issued ticket, probably with a ticket number starting with 016.  As such, there is no "Turkish ticket" - you merely have TK flights as part of your UA ticket.

 

Only if you have separate "tickets" (note, not flights) for the various segments would you possibly have a TK ticket.  But given that this is not a revenue ticket, there is no reason for a TK issued ticket as this is most likely a single award.

 

And I have no idea what the "supervisor" was trying for....he should have been able to look at your UA issued ticket, see all the segments on that one ticket, and known there was no TK ticket.  Perhaps he was just trying to get the TK locator, which is not the same as a ticket.

 

 

 

 

Edited August 16, 2023 by FlyerTalker

[luvnz]

FlyerTalker, thank you for your answer and your expertise!  It has been frustrating and yes our UA ticket number has been the only one we have had the entire time.  It does start with 016 and the UA supervisor was on phone with Turkish multiple times trying to get seat assignments.  She could see available seats, but could not get them.  She told us we would have to keep trying Turkish.  I called Turkish and was told every time that we needed a Turkish ticket number for seat assignment or else we would have to wait until the day of travel at the airport. They could see my UA ticket number, but not be able to assign a seat.  I learned to say thank you and call back for another person because they can email their support department with the United ticket number and my request.  Finally I was able to get the ORD-IST segment assigned.  It did take multiple e-mails from Cust Serv to Support Dept. 

 

The customer service reps were always friendly, and several told me to install Turkish App on my phone and go to "Manage Booking" and ask for seats.  This did not work for us, but some people have reported that they were successful doing it this way.

 

We did not have this problem using our miles for an award ticket the previous time we travelled.  Friends of ours just used their UA miles in May on Turkish and did not have trouble getting seats assigned.  They also took advantage of the offers you mentioned above and had an overnight stay and toured IST.  They thoroughly enjoyed using the lounge as well.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

[the more ports the better]

If you have the ticket number and the Turkish air locator number, just go on the Turkish air website, enter the Turkish locator number, then it will ask for the ticket number to register the flight, enter the ticket number you received from United for each person and once the the ticket number is in their system, you will be able to choose seats.

 

The fact that it is a UA booked flight makes it all the easier.  If you open the reservation on the United app and scroll to the bottom of the page then click on “email a receipt”, that receipt will have the ticket number for the entire flight.  I apologize, I did not realize that the flight was booked through United or I would have let you know this from the get go!  It’s fairly straightforward.

[the more ports the better]

Also, Istanbul is a great city to spend a day, and the airport lounge and shopping is fantastic

[luvnz]

Thank you for your suggestion.  We did try that but the Turkish website would not take the UA ticket number even though we had the Turkish confirmation number.  It would have made things a lot easier, but unfortunately did not work.

[GeorgiaPeach51]

On 8/15/2023 at 8:02 PM, Jancruz said:

I know for a fact that O is not difficult to deal with if you know the right people..if you need help with this contact me and I will see if I can do anything.

Jancruz1

@Jancruz

 

if you can point me in the right direction I will be ever in your debt.  My email is rjsoderberg@tds.net.

 

Thanks so much,

 

Joanie