Turkish Airlines Offering 30% Off Select Awards

There’s a lot to love about Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles, as the loyalty program has some very low redemption rates for travel on Turkish Airlines and Star Alliance partners. Miles&Smiles is offering an award sale promotion, which has the potential to be an incredible deal.

Save 30% on select Turkish award tickets

Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles is running a redemption sale, offering a 30% discount on award tickets. Officially this applies when originating in one of 100 cities, but in practice it also works when flying to those cities from somewhere else. First let’s go over the basic terms:

• This is valid for bookings made between December 5 and December 25, 2022
• This is valid for travel through May 31, 2023
• This applies to all promotional award tickets in economy or business class
• This is valid for travel on Turkish Airlines, whether flying one-way or roundtrip
• The discounted price will be reflected at the time you make your reservation

Per the terms, you can receive a 30% discount when originating in one of the following cities, while traveling to any Turkish Airlines destination:

Accra, Addis Ababa, Alexandria, Amman, Aqaba, Asmara, Baghdad, Bahrain, Bamako, Bari, Basel, Basra, Batumi, Beirut, Bilbao, Billund, Bishkek, Bologna, Bordeaux, Bremen, Bucharest, Budapest, Catania, Cluj, Cologne, Conakry, Constanta, Dammam, Djibouti, Doha, Douala, Dubrovnik, Edinburgh, Erbil, Frankfurt, Freetown, Ganja, Gothenburg, Hanover, Helsinki, Hurghada, Isfahan, Jakarta, Juba, Kuala Lumpur, Kuwait, Leipzig/Halle, Libreville, Ljubljana, Luanda, Luxembourg, Lyon, Madrid, Malaga, Malta, Marseille, Mashad, Mogadishu, Muscat, Nairobi, Nakhichevan, Naples, Ndjamena, Niamey, Nouakchott, Nuremberg, Ouagadougou, Podgorica, Pointe Noire, Porto, Prague, Pristina, Riga, Riyadh, Rome, Salzburg, Sarajevo, Seychelles, Sharm El Sheikh, Shiraz, Singapore, Sofia, Stockholm, Strasbourg, Stuttgart, Suleymaniye, Tabriz, Tallinn, Tbilisi, Tehran, Tel Aviv, Thessaloniki, Tivat, Toulouse, Varna, Vienna, Vilnius, Yaounde, Zagreb, Zurich

While those are the official rules, in practice it would appear that you also get the discount if you’re traveling from any Turkish Airlines market to one of the above destinations. So if Zurich is on the list, you can get the discount if you’re originating in Zurich or traveling to Zurich.

Why this promotion is such a good deal

If you’re not familiar with Turkish Miles&Smiles, you’ll want to check out my guide to the program. For context, here are the regular one-way business class award costs for travel between the United States and various points in the world:

• Fly between the United States and Europe for 45,000 miles
• Fly between the United States and Middle East for 47,000 miles
• Fly between the United States and Central Asia for 52,500 miles
• Fly between the United States and North Africa for 60,000 miles
• Fly between the United States and the Far East for 67,500 miles
• Fly between the United States and Central Africa for 72,500 miles
• Fly between the United States and South Africa for 85,000 miles

In other words, if you could find business class award availability from any of the destinations in Europe on the list to the United States, you’d pay just 31,500 miles one-way. That’s an incredible deal.

As mentioned above, even though you technically have to originate in one of the 100 featured cities, in reality it appears that you can also travel to one of those destinations, so a Chicago to Zurich itinerary would work as well.

There are fuel surcharges on Turkish Airlines awards, but they’re relatively mild compared to airlines like British Airways — expect to pay around $300 one-way for a long haul flight for this (the fuel surcharges used to be lower, but they increased with oil prices increasing).

I think the biggest catch here is that Turkish Airlines can be difficult with award availability — sometimes the program has a good amount of award space, while other times there’s barely any space. Taking a quick look at inventory, at the moment the latter is definitely the case.

I almost wonder what the point is of offering an award sale if there’s such little availability. I guess space isn’t that hard to come by on short haul flights, but on long haul flights it’s a different story.

By the way, you might notice that awards often price at 100,000+ miles one-way, and you might be wondering what you’re missing. When you see that pricing, that’s in situations where there’s not saver award space available. The discount also doesn’t apply to those kinds of awards.

How to earn Turkish Airlines miles

Turkish Airlines partners with two transferable points currencies, giving those with credit cards easy access to these miles:

• You can transfer Citi ThankYou points to Turkish Airlines at a 1:1 ratio, so you can earn Turkish miles with cards like the Citi Premier^® Card (review)
• You can transfer Capital One miles to Turkish Airlines at a 1:1 ratio, so you can earn Turkish miles with cards like the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card (review) (Rates & Fees)

Bottom line

Turkish Airlines is offering 30% off awards for travel to or from 100 destinations around the globe, in both business class and economy. You must book between December 5 and December 25, 2022, and travel by May 31, 2023. With a 30% discount, you’ll be looking at some jaw-droppingly cheap award tickets, if you can find availability.

Add in the fact that Turkish flies to more countries than any other airline in the world and that Turkish miles are easy to earn (via Capital One and Citi), and this is a pretty awesome opportunity to lock in some travel.

Do you plan on taking advantage of this Turkish Airlines award sale?