The Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles program has just launched an award redemption promotion. This has the potential to be a good deal, though go figure it comes just a couple of weeks after the program rolled out a massive devaluation.
In this post:
Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles award ticket promotion
Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles is running a redemption sale, offering a 20% refund on redeemed miles. There are some restrictions to be aware of:
- This is valid for bookings made between March 4 and August 31, 2024
- This is valid for travel between March 4 and August 31, 2024
- This applies to all award tickets in economy and business class
- This is valid for travel on Turkish Airlines, whether flying one-way or roundtrip
- The 20% mileage refund will post to a member’s account within one week of taking a flight
- The miles earned as part of the refund with this promotion are only valid through December 31, 2025 (ordinarily these miles expire 36 months after they’re issued)
- Only miles redeemed for the Miles&Smiles member will be eligible for the 20% refund, and not awards redeemed for others
Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles award pricing
Below you can find the Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles award chart, with all pricing being one-way and per segment.
Pricing isn’t bad if you’re traveling to or from Istanbul, but the issue is that award pricing is additive, which makes the cost of connecting itineraries quite expensive.
But there are good deals to be had for some routings. For example, if you want to fly from the United States to Istanbul, you could book that for 65,000 miles in business class, and then you’d get 13,000 miles refunded to your account. Similarly, 20,000-25,000 miles to fly from many parts of Europe to Istanbul in business class could be quite a good deal, and would get you a refund of 4,000-5,000 miles.
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 a 20% refund on award redemptions throughout its network. This comes just weeks after the Miles&Smiles program was massively devalued.
If you do have Turkish Airlines miles, this could be a good time to redeem, since you might as well take advantage of a discount on redemptions. However, there’s no denying that the program isn’t as lucrative as it used to be.
Do you plan on taking advantage of this Turkish Airlines award sale?
Cool, they raised the prices >100% and then they'll give you 20% back, but only as a rebate so you have to book more overpriced tickets and in points that expire even faster than usual. Want to feel like you're negotiating to buy a carpet in a souk? Don't even bother going to Istanbul, just deal with Turkish Airlines.
LOL
Ugh, so you have to have the full mileage amount in your account to book and then you get some of it back after traveling? No thanks.
A needlessly complicated promotion when they could just discount the amounts upfront.