u/SquareCable7314

I thought I would share our experience because getting compensation from Turkish Airlines turned out to be much more confusing than it needed to be. Hopefully this saves someone else some time.
The situation
We had one booking:
Stavanger (Norway) → Copenhagen → Istanbul → Hanoi
Our final flight, TK164 Istanbul–Hanoi on 18 July 2026, was delayed and we arrived in Hanoi 3 hours and 28 minutes late.
There were three passengers on the booking: two adults and our son.
Turkish Airlines later confirmed in writing that the delay was due to a technical malfunction/damage.
1. Finding somewhere to actually submit the claim
This was probably the most frustrating part.
The normal website/forms kept sending me around in circles, and at one point a link from Turkish Airlines customer service simply gave me a 404 error.
I eventually contacted Turkish Airlines through WhatsApp. A customer service representative gave me a rather strange but very specific instruction:
Go to the Turkish Airlines Customer Relations / Feedback page, create new feedback and select:
Other → Sustainability → “I am writing on my own behalf”
Yes, Sustainability. It makes absolutely no sense for a flight-delay compensation claim, but this was the route a Turkish Airlines representative specifically told me to use, and it worked.
Official Customer Relations/Feedback page:
https://www.turkishairlines.com/en-us/any-questions/customer-relations/
I submitted the flight details, booking reference, passenger names/ticket numbers and explained that TK164 had arrived approximately 3h28 late.
I then received a feedback/case reference number.
Important: Once you have a case, use “Previous feedback” when contacting them again. I accidentally created several new cases because I didn’t understand this initially.
2. First offer: Miles
Turkish Airlines investigated the flight and confirmed:
Delay: 3 hours 28 minutes
Cause: technical malfunction/damage
Their first offer was:
18,000 Miles
I did not accept the Miles.
Instead, I replied politely, thanked them for the quick investigation and said I would prefer compensation in monetary form rather than Miles.
I didn’t threaten them with lawyers, claims companies, etc. I simply asked them to reconsider and offer cash compensation.
3. Second offer was much better
They came back with four choices:
25,500 Miles
9,000 Status Miles
€360 TKPAY Wallet
€300 refund cheque in cash
Crucially, they also wrote:
“Our offers apply to each passenger included in your application for this feedback.”
So the €300 was per passenger, not €300 for the whole booking.
We chose the €300 cash/refund cheque option.
For three passengers that meant:
€300 × 3 = €900 total.
4. Don’t be scared by the words “refund cheque”
I initially assumed “refund cheque” meant an actual paper cheque.
It didn’t.
After accepting the offer, Turkish Airlines issued individual Refund Cheque Numbers.
They then provided access to their Refund Form, where we could request payment directly to a bank account.
The form asked for things such as:
Country
Bank account currency
IBAN
SWIFT/BIC
We used our normal Norwegian bank accounts.
After submitting the banking details, the confirmation said:
“Payment Request Submitted”
and stated that the request would normally be processed within 5–7 business days and the money transferred within 15 days.
5. Multiple passengers can complicate things
This was another slightly confusing part.
I originally submitted the claim for all three passengers.
Turkish Airlines processed my son together with me, but for the other adult passenger they later specifically asked us to:
“Please create new feedback with the other passenger’s name/surname and contact information.”
So we created a new feedback case using her own name and her own email address, referred to the original case, explained that Turkish Airlines had already confirmed €300 compensation per passenger, and attached her boarding pass.
They processed it quickly and issued her own €300 refund cheque.
So my advice if you have multiple adult passengers:
If Turkish Airlines asks for individual submissions, create the new claim as if that passenger is writing personally and use that passenger’s own email/contact information.
6. The money actually arrived
This is the important part:
It worked.
The payments have now arrived in our Norwegian bank accounts.
Total compensation received:
€900 for three passengers.
No AirHelp or other claims company was used, so there was no percentage/commission deducted.
What I learned
Use Turkish Airlines’ Customer Relations / Feedback system.
If you cannot find the right way into the form, the route that worked for me was Other → Sustainability, following instructions from Turkish Airlines’ own customer service.
Save every case/reference number.
For follow-ups, use Previous feedback rather than constantly creating new cases.
If they initially offer Miles and you want money, don’t immediately accept the Miles.
Politely ask for monetary compensation instead.
If offered a refund cheque, it can ultimately be paid to your bank account through the Refund Form.
If they require separate claims for adult passengers, use each passenger’s own name and email address.
Keep boarding passes, booking confirmation and ticket numbers until everything is finished.
Be patient and polite. Their system is confusing, but in our case they did eventually pay exactly what they offered.
Timeline: Flight delayed 18 July → claim submitted → first Miles offer → requested cash → €300 per passenger offered → refund cheques issued → bank details submitted → all €900 eventually received.
Hopefully this helps someone else navigate the Turkish Airlines compensation maze. 🙂

One final tip: I used ChatGPT throughout the process to help me keep track of the different case numbers, understand Turkish Airlines’ replies, and draft my responses. With multiple passengers, refund cheque numbers, different customer representatives and a rather confusing feedback system, that was genuinely useful for keeping everything straight. 😄