Another “sanctions problem” has arisen among Russian tourists – they report that the Turkish national carrier Turkish Airlines began to block the payment of its tickets with the card “Peace”, although it had previously accepted it. This also applied to other Turkish companies, such as online stores. The Izvestia article, which presented this “problem”, contains a statement by the NSPK, the Mir card clearing center, that foreign banks that provide national cards abroad may unilaterally restrict the services of Russian sanctioned banks.
Tourists, according to experts, complain about the problem en masse. “Numerous complaints from users about the inability to use Russian payment system cards from Sberbank, VTB and Tinkoff on the airline’s website appeared on the Vinsky forum, which is used by travelers,” the newspaper’s experts said.
According to their complaints, Turkish Airlines no longer allows them to buy tickets on the site with Mir cards issued by Russian banks, both sanctioned and unrestricted. The system asks the customer to contact a credit institution or try another payment method. However, according to some reports, it is about buying tickets already in Turkey – so a user of the forum named Bogdesha complained that for several days could not pay “Mir”, Tinkoff and Sberbank tickets from Istanbul to Antalya. As a result, I managed to pay by union card. On the other hand, the fact of problems with payment with the “Peace” card was confirmed by experts personally. As a result, tourists are forced to go to one of the airline’s offices to buy tickets, use cards from foreign banks or the UnionPay system.
So far, Turkish Airlines has not commented on the situation. Banks also did not confirm that they had received complaints from customers about the inability to pay with Mir cards on the websites of foreign countries where Mir had previously been accepted, including “sanctioned” ones.
Experts suggest that the reason why Turkish acquiring banks may refuse to work with Russian credit institutions on the SDN list may be the fear of foreign partners to fall under secondary sanctions. Turkish banks also need liquidity guarantees – the confidence that all transactions will then be covered by cash inflows from Russian banks.
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