Severe Grievance with Turkish Airlines

We have just got back from our 3 week vacation to South America which was utterly ruined by Turkish Airlines on multiple occasions. We booked our return flights to Colombia back in June 2017 and checked with the Colombian embassy, our travel agent and multiple online sources who said as South Africans we did not need visas. We were excited that we could use the longer layovers to visit the city of Istanbul.

The Colombian embassy changed the visa rule in September 2017, now requiring South Africans to have visas to enter Colombia which we were never informed about. We understand that this is out of control of Turkish Airlines and just poor luck.

We boarded our flight on 11 December from Cape Town to Istanbul with connection to Bogota. Below is detailed account of the events that followed:

Layover Hotel: Arrived at Cape Town International, a Turkish Airline employee (before check in) asked our final destination and reviewed passports for visas. After he reviewed and confirmed our paperwork was in order we proceeded to check in with no problem. Arrived in Istanbul with a 20+ hour layover so wanted to make use of the free hotel which is a reason we were happy to accept such a long layover. Waited 2 hours in a line at the hotel desk, once assigned a hotel waited another 45mins until we were called to go outside for the bus. Once called for the bus waited in the cold outside for another 30min for the bus to arrive. Then another hour to get to the hotel. The hotel was neither close to the airport or to the center of town or even public transport to get to centre of the city. It was quite literally on the outskirts of the city. Address: Kayabaşı Mahallesi, 1. Sk. No:5, 34306 Başakşehir/İstanbul, Turkey We were also only allowed one meal in the hotel for which we were expected to stay for 16+ hours. Colombian Immigration - Inbound flight: Finally get back to Ataturk airport for our final flight to Bogota. Go through Turkish Airline check in noting our final destination is Colombia with no problem. After 13 hours arrive in Bogota Colombia, we get to immigration where we are informed that we do not have visas and cannot enter the country. We are in disbelief as we had checked and our airline should not have let us board without the required visas. We get taken to a detention room where we try to establish what is going on with immigration officials who cannot speak English. They tell us there is no way to get visas on arrival and nothing we can and that we are now the airlines problem. We keep calling Turkish Airlines in Bogota who say they will come down to assist. The immigration officer keeps trying to take away our phones so that we can not make phone calls. We were being treated liked *********. We were not even allowed to sit on the couch but had to sit on plastic chairs. 5 hours later 3 ladies from Turkish Airline come to the detention room. They inform us we have 2 options. 1) Wait until the return flight to Istanbul or 2) book a flight to a neighboring country that does not require visas. They suggest Ecuador on their partner airline Avianca as TA do not fly to any neighbouring countries. The next flight to Istanbul is in 48 hours which means we would need to wait in the detention room with no food or cellphones for that period. This is quite frankly not an option. We are therefore forced to buy the next flight out to Quito on Avianca (which is in 12 hours time). These flights cost ZAR8200 each for a 1h10m flight. As suggested by our travel agent who is trying to help us at this stage over the phone, we should take names of whoever is assisting us from the airline. The Turkish Airlines ladies refuse to give us their names. We eventually make it onto the Quito flight, completely traumatized at this stage. We arrive in Quito 18 hours after landing in Bogota without any bags. Our luggage only arrived 48 hours later. Our holiday we had planned for 6 months has now been completely lost. We have to cancel accommodation bookings and an internal flight We also now have to make a new holiday in a country we know little about and had not intention of visiting. Quito-Bogota return flight:

Nervous about our inbound experience we made sure to check in online for our return journey which now included a flight back to Bogota from Quito on Avianca. We check in online for Avianca flight to Bogota no problem. When checking online for Turkish Airlines flights Bogota>Istanbul>Cape Town, we get error message saying we need to get our boarding passes at the airport due to an "operational reason". There is no Turkish Airlines in Quito so we hope that Avianca (also Star Alliance) can print them for us. We make sure to get to the airport early for this. At Quito airport, Avianca check in informs us we cannot get on the plane to Bogota without our Turkish Airline boarding passes as we have to stay airside in Bogota (without visas) and there is no way to print Turkish Airline boarding passes airside at Bogota airport or via Avianca at Quito airport. Note that Avianca are fully aware that as South Africans we need visas for Colombia. She also tries online check in for us and gets the same error message. Her suggestion is that we apply for a Colombian visa and come back in 5-8 days so that we can print our boarding pass in Bogota... We obviously point blank refuse and get her to take us to Avianca offices to call Turkish Airline, at this stage it is 4am. Turkish Airline offices in Bogota open at 9am so that is no help. We call Turkish Airlines in Turkey and the call centre agent informs us that he cannot help us get a boarding pass. We ask if he can direct us to who can and he says he doesn't know and doesn't have a direct number to anyone that can help. Again completely traumatized we just want to get off the continent and start to look for the next flight that can get us to Cape Town which would likely be Quito -Lima - Sao Paulo - Johannesburg - Cape Town on anything but Turkish Airline. Somehow at the last minute the Avianca staff are able to get us our boarding pass from Bogota to Istanbul and they allow us on the flight. We have to take our checked bags with us as Avianca cannot check them through to Istanbul or Cape Town. Once in Bogota we get to Turkish Airlines gate and they check us in and we give them our bags which they tag. We are have our extended layover in Istanbul (using our own hotel this time) and make it to Cape Town no problem. We are now safely in Cape Town, but once again one of our bags is missing. This has been a harrowing experience and we have never been so poorly treated by an airline . Once we arrived in Quito our travel agent took this up with Turkish Airline who is still apparently investigating what went wrong and we have heard nothing from the airline. Not even a single apology or offer of assistance. We are very aware that visa issues are out of the control of the airline but we are also aware that it is the sole duty of the airline to know visa regulations and to deny boarding to avoid these types of situations. We are astonished that Turkish Airline was not aware of this. We were check in at Cape Town and Istanbul and this was not picked up. We have had absolutely no communication from the airline yet. We have spent much money more on this trip than we had budgeted. If Turkish had denied entry in Cape Town we would not have been in this predicament and we would have been able to plan from there as opposed to having to do everything off the cuff in a foreign country.