She put me in touch with Nick Curry, GCO at Expedia, who wrote me this on July 16, the day after the coup attempt, in response to my explanation of the events that had unfolded: Sounds ominous, right? Because I know someone who works at Expedia and was getting no results with the phone, being left on hold for hours at a time, I immediately got in touch with her hoping she’d help. This was the state department and FAA warning issued at the time: We simply had thought a few days in Turkey on the back-end would be a nice way to tie up our family vacation.Īt the time I was going through all of this in mid-July, too, the Turkish president had declared a state of emergency that was in effect through October. We didn’t have to go to Istanbul after all our cruise left from Hungary and ended in Bulgaria. That is, unless, you booked with Expedia.Īt the time, I reached out to the company by both Twitter and phone to go ahead and cancel all our flights my thought was that if I could just get those funds back or a credit to rebook even, I’d simply purchase tickets on another airline (certainly not Turkish) that transported us to another European hub like Vienna or Budapest.
SEPARATE TICKETS BOOKED TOGETHER FULL
Then when our trip was less than one month out, Turkey fell into a military coup-which later failed, but here’s the kicker: For three full days of uncertainty, anyone who had booked trips to the airport, for the most part, could get refunded in full for their trip. So I guess we were going to Turkey there was no way around it. And if you’re thinking “good luck trying to contact Turkish Airlines,” you’re exactly right-they’re about as helpful as Expedia. It was, ultimately, the airline’s decision. There was no way to cancel our flights, they told us. This paired with my dad’s stroke and his inability to communicate left us all feeling uneasy enough for me to attempt to reroute us-with no help from Expedia. Until, of course, the Istanbul airport itself got bombed at the end of June. Throughout all of 2016, the ISIS situation in Turkey continued to escalate, one bombing after another made us a bit wary but the majority of them occurred far from Istanbul, where we’d be visiting. From there, we’d fly to Istanbul for the final week. The trip began in Budapest, wound its way down the Danube and ended in Bulgaria. Why exactly? Well, I’ll tell you.Īs you may recall, my family and I went on an epic European vacation through the Balkans last fall. Cliffsnotes version: Booking through Expedia or another third-party OTA is something you should never do. none of you make the same mistake I’ve done). And while I try my hardest to keep this a positive space, sometimes you’ve just got to tell the truth in hopes that history doesn’t repeat itself (i.e. But it’s been brewing for some time-more than a year, in fact.
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