Just two months before a big trip abroad, a suburban Chicago family discovered a curious mistake on their plane tickets-- One wrong word would lead to weeks of headaches, hours of long phone calls, and the looming possibility they might not be able to visit their relatives and home country of Albania after all.
Bardha Bandula and her family of five purchased Turkish Airline tickets through JustFly.com at the very beginning of 2016. They were going to Albania for three weeks to celebrate two weddings and visit other family members.
“I’ve only seen them once in the last like 12 years,” said Alba Bandula.
As their flight date neared and excitement started brewing, Alba’s mother, Bardha Bandula, took another look at the tickets only to notice the word “NO” listed as each of their middle names.
“At first we thought it was like ‘Haha funny’ like they put down ‘NO,’ which quickly turned into a very big nightmare for us,” Alba Bandula said.
The family recognized that if the names on their passports did not match the names on their tickets—they would not be allowed to fly. Bardha Bandula called JustFly.com and asked if this small but significant error could be changed. She says the answer, after several confusing conversations, was “No.”
Turkish Airlines pointed them back to the travel web site, and the travel website pointed back at the airline. The bottom line advice? Buy the tickets—again.
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“So that’s when we first learned that we might not be able to fly at all,” Alba Bandula said. “I mean it was like, it was devastating.”
“I was very stressed out,” Bardha Bandula said. “I didn’t know what to do at that point.”
The family says they exhausted every avenue to resolve the problem. From a trip to O’Hare to speak to airline agents in person, to seeking legal advice, to contacting the Better Business Bureau—all to no avail. The Bardulas say they were told multiple times that they would have to take the first purchase as a loss- and start over.
With only one week left, a friend of Alba Bandula’s suggested taking it to NBC5 Responds.
Within a couple days of NBC5 Responds stepping in, Turkish Airlines agreed to step up and duplicate the tickets for the family, wiping out most- but not all- of the fees. Due to airline’s own policy regarding ticket changes, the Bandulas paid an additional $650 charge.
In a statement, Turkish Airlines said, “As courtesy Turkish Airlines refunded the original tickets and issued new tickets. We would like to clarify that the fare difference is not $800, but $640. The Bandula Family contacted us approximately 5 months after the tickets were issued with the error that had occurred. The new tickets were issued with the current lowest fare possible, as there was no lower fare available the fare difference could not be waived.”
“We’re extremely happy we get to fly,” Alba Bandula said. “I feel like if….NBC5 Responds hadn’t gotten involved, we would still be calling and being on hold for four hours and like doing the whole runaround with things.”
The Bandulas have since landed in Albania safely where they were greeted with a large celebration from their family. JustFly declined to answer any questions about the case.
