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.
In this post:
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?
Tried searching for space for 2 pax, but Turkish website won't allow it. Do I need to just call then vs booking them online?
How can I see a list of dates with discounted flights available?
Apparently this DOES WORK on flights from the USA.
Just booked IAD-IST-AMM in Business on 787 for 32,900 miles & ~$300. Could have booked to Beirut, Rome, Malta or Muscat for same or less.
Thank you for the info. I just booked two IAD-IST-EDI in Business on 787 and 321neo for 63,000 miles and ~$565 in total. This will allow me to finally try out its 787 and check out the new lounges at the newish Istanbul airport.
No matter what awards or fare sales that Turkish promotes, I will never fly that airline again. Each time that I have flown them, there has been a problem. Most recently, they cancelled our IST-SFO segment in business class, informing us that they did not have an IST-SFO flight on our originally scheduled date; so, consequently, we would have to fly back from Malta a day early through Istanbul and pay a change fee (when...
No matter what awards or fare sales that Turkish promotes, I will never fly that airline again. Each time that I have flown them, there has been a problem. Most recently, they cancelled our IST-SFO segment in business class, informing us that they did not have an IST-SFO flight on our originally scheduled date; so, consequently, we would have to fly back from Malta a day early through Istanbul and pay a change fee (when Turkish was the one that changed their flight number and time, not us) or stay an extra day in Istanbul at our own expense. I agreed to fly back to SFO a day early, but on the condition that Turkish would not charge a change fee. As it turns out, Turkish had changed the flight number and departure time on our original date, and that they did, in fact, have an IST-SFO flight on our original date, so let's just say that the agent misled us about the dates we could fly. When I complained to Turkish Airlines, they said that the original IST-SFO flight (TK #289) was cancelled "due to bad weather conditions." Well, there was no TK #289 on Nov. 3 because they had changed the flight number to TK #79, which did, indeed, operate on our originally selected date, according to several flight tracker applications. All in all, I simply do not believe that Turkish Airlines operates with full transparency to its customers.
"I simply do not believe that Turkish Airlines operates with full transparency to its customers."
Is there ANYTHING in Turkey that "operates with full transparency to its customers"? Not much I can think of.
They had a similar promo last year except it wasn’t limited by cities. Booked round trip business from USA to Italy for 63k total.
from Europe to Asia there is some availability to Kuala Lumpur which isn't a bad starting point for a trip as there are plentiful cheap flights from there onwards and makes a nice 1-2 day stopover too
However something strange with the pricing, I'm seeing 42k miles on the EU-Asia leg instead of 31.5k. Shows correctly in the other direction
Promotional discount is only valid for flights originating from cities listed in the T&C. To avail of a discounted fare in each direction, you'll need to originate each trip from one of those cities; e.g. NAP-IST-SIN & return KUL-IST-MXP where NAP & KUL are both on the list.
What city are you originating from in EU? I have tried many different combinations from Rome, Madrid or smaller cities in France, to no avail. I’m looking to use TK miles for a trip to Asia but am finding it really difficult to spot good redemptions…
Correction to the article: Citi to TK is now an instant transfer most of the time.
FYI, I've recently transferred to Turkish from both Capital One and Citi, and they were both instant.
It's practically impossible to find award space and it has been like this for the last year. Coming out with this "promo" is like Turkish is laughing at their customers. I will lose about 90.000 miles on Dec 31 because I simply can't find any availability onflights that were easy to book with mileage before Covid.
Agree re: availability, very poor now from US to IST/Europe.
It’s live! Just scored ZAG-SEA for 13,500 TY points, thank you for the info!!
31,500, sorry
Thanks Ben!
I've been eyeing certain Turkish flights that would cost approx. 800 USD in Y, or 55k miles + 210 USD. Thanks to you and this promo, by moving my desired dates by one day only, I got a J award for 34k + 320 USD.
I just checked (Dec. 4) a number of European airports to ORD or JFK. All showed 115,000 in business. Where is that 45,000 fare?
Lucky did say that saver space is almost nonexistent.
Married segment availability for awards are applicable to TK-operated flights; i.e. SFO-IST is rarely available in J but availability on the SFO-IST segment 'miraculously' opens up when one is transiting IST to a final destination like AUH, CAI, BKK, SIN or other favorable (to TK's revenue dept.) destination.
It's an odd promo given how little saver space there is anywhere.
I have often looked from IST-LAX for saver awards for six months out and have not found a single ticket available in business for the entire period
Best way to find space? United?
Yes and I double check with aeroplan. Then pack your patience. It took me 4 calls to get someone capable of booking, but fantastic when completed!