The differences between Turkish and British customer service

Example 1: My mom and I are flying Onur Air from Izmir to Istanbul. I made an online reservation a few weeks ago. The flight cost about 70 ytl ($55 USD) for a 1 hour, 1-way flight, including tax. We then decided to change the time of the flight. S called Onur Air and within 3 minutes we had our new time and paid (I know this will be hard to believe) NOTHING to change the time.

Had we wanted to change the date, we also would have paid NOTHING. We didn't have a special ticket, we had a normal one. And we paid nothing. And it took about 3 minutes and 1 phone call.

Example 2: I was scheduled to fly home for Sadie's wedding on July 23 (this was the second half of a round trip ticket I purchased with British Airways in September). After she changed her wedding date to July 26, I needed to change my ticket.

I tried about 5 times over the past 2 weeks to change my ticket online like you are supposedly allowed to do. Every time I received an error message instructing me to call my booking agent. Today, I finally gave up and called them.

First, I called customer service. The sickeningly polite British woman informed me that to change my SHEDyule I would have to pay a $200 fee (which is stupid but I understand it's the rule), the change in fare difference (stupid), and a $20 service fee.

She continued rambling on about my SHEDyule when I interrupted her to ask what the $20 service fee was for. She explained that they charge $20 for changes/bookings done by phone.

I had already explained to her about the website told me to call them. I asked her if she could waive the fee since I was unable to make the changes online and I was instructed to call her. She said that she could not, but if I called "online technical support" they might be able to.

So I sat on the phone with my new friend Ruth (the name didn't really fit with her Indian accent) while she tried to find the problem. She couldn't figure it out (after putting me on hold for about 8 minutes), but could help me with the flight schedules on July 21. I choose one and she put me on hold for about 10 minutes.

She came back to explain that she couldn't give me the exact difference in fares but that I was welcome to call back in 3 days to find it out then.

Wait a minute, I thought. You work for BRITISH AIRWAYS but you don't know what the fares are????

I asked her politely if she could please tell me the fare. She said that because my flight was so far in advance (3 months), that their policy was to QUEUE my request. AKA wait for a few days so that the ticket prices go up even more.

I again said I wanted to know the fare. Again, she puts me on hold for 8 or so minutes. When she comes back, she magically knew the fare information! A $200 penalty plus a $159 change in fare. Sweet. I put the reservation on hold to think it over.

I was on the phone with BA from 7:40pm-8:11pm. That's 31 minutes. S was on the phone with Onur Air for a maximum of 3 minutes.

BA wants to charge me a total of $359 (or $379 with their dumb fee) to change a flight 2 days. Onur Air charged me nothing.

Don't even get me started on my 1800Contacts phone call as well...