There could be some upcoming changes to Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles, as there are new award charts published on its website with higher award pricing than before.
However, the booking engine still displays the old pricing, and not the new costs that are now displayed on the Miles&Smiles website.
If you’re sitting on a balance in your Miles&Smiles account, you may want to lock in a booking sooner rather than later.
Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles Publishes New Award Charts
Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles has published new award charts on its website, and it could mean award pricing is set to change in the near future. If this holds true, it’ll cost much more to redeem your Turkish miles than before, and with no notice to boot.
As a reminder, Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles is a transfer partner with Bilt Rewards, Citi ThankYou Rewards, and Capital One Miles in the US, and also with Marriott Bonvoy.
Turkish Airlines previously published a chart for flights with Turkish Airlines and Star Alliance partners with “promotional award pricing,” which for all intents and purposes is the equivalent of “Saver”-level pricing in other programs.
Turkish Airlines also published an “Award Tickets” chart for flights exclusively with Turkish Airlines, which offered access to more seats at a higher price.
Now, Turkish Airlines has published one chart for awards with Turkish Airlines, and another for flights with Star Alliance airlines.
The Turkish Airlines chart has Promotion Award Ticket prices (the equivalent of “Saver”-level awards), as well as Award Tickets, which are more expensive (and more bountiful).
The above prices reflect one-way prices, whereas the previous charts displayed round-trip pricing.
The below table summarizes the differences between the old chart and the new chart in terms of Promotion Award Ticket pricing for flights out of Türkiye with Turkish Airlines:
|
Destination (from Türkiye) |
Turkish Miles (One-Way, Economy) |
Previous Cost in Turkish Miles (One-Way, Economy) |
Turkish Miles (One-Way, Business) |
Previous Cost in Turkish Miles (One-Way, Business) |
||
Meanwhile, Turkish Airlines has a separate chart for flights with Star Alliance partners. The prices are laid out by class of service and destination, and it’s too big to summarize the differences in a single chart.
However, here are a few examples of by how much award pricing differs between the old charts and the newly published charts:
- One-way business class flight from Europe 1 to North America: from 45,000 miles to 85,000 miles (89% increase)
- One-way business class flight from Far East to Europe 1: from 45,000 miles to 85,000 miles (89% increase)
- One-way business class flight from the Middle East to North America: from 47,000 miles to 93,000 miles (98% increase)
- One-way business class flight from Far East to North America: from 67,500 miles to 130,000 miles (93% increase)
- One-way business class flight from Southern Africa to North America: from 85,000 miles to 140,000 miles (65% increase)
It’s important to note that the new award prices displayed in the chart don’t appear to be reflected in the booking engine just yet. However, if the newly published award chart prices kick in, then it’ll cost a lot more than it currently does to book the same flights.
Furthermore, Miles&Smiles has historically used zone-based pricing, which means that you calculate the number of miles required for a booking with your origin and destination.
However, along with the newly published award charts is an example of calculating the amount of miles needed for a redemption, and it looks to be additive instead of zone-based, which would be a huge change.
For example, with the new award charts, a one-way flight from Vancouver–Istanbul prices out at 40,000 miles in economy, and a one-way flight from Istanbul to London costs 15,000 miles in economy.
However, with additive pricing, the total cost for that trip would be 55,000 miles.
By comparison, a one-way flight from Vancouver to London via Istanbul with the historical pricing should work out to be 30,000 miles in economy, assuming you can find a Promotion Award Ticket.
It’s not clear what’s happening here, since the new award charts display one version of pricing, while the search engine and mileage calculator show something completely different. Plus, moving from zonal to additive pricing would represent a major program change.
If you have any miles sitting in your Miles&Smiles account, it could be wise to redeem them sooner rather than later.
Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles Sweet Spots
If you’re currently sitting on a balance in your Miles&Smiles account, here are some redemptions to search for.
All of the below prices are the old prices, and not the ones reflected in the newly published award charts. It may be tricky to find availability, so it’s best to use your favourite award searching website or tool to speed things up.
Miles&Smiles treats North America as one whole zone. This means that flights from mainland North America to Hawaii are all considered intra-zone travel.
You may be able to find flights in economy for just 7,500 miles per direction (or 10,000 miles), or in business class for 15,000 miles.
For flights from North America to Europe, you could fly Turkish Airlines business class for just 45,000 miles.
Heading a bit further afield to the Middle East, the cost jumps up slightly to 47,000 miles for a one-way flight in business class.
If you’re able to find award availability, a flight from North America to the Far East would cost just 67,500 miles in business class.
From North America to South Africa, you can book flights for as few as 85,000 miles in business class.
If you’re able to find “Saver”-level award availability, there are some great sweet spots with Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles.
With new award charts published on the Turkish Airlines website, but not yet loaded into the booking platform, the window of opportunity to book awards at the current rates could very well be closing.
Conclusion
Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles has published new award charts on its website; however, the new prices aren’t yet loaded into the booking platform.
It’s not clear if there are wholesale changes coming to the program, especially without any advance notice. However, if it turns out to be the case, booking awards with Turkish miles might cost more than it used to.
Therefore, if you have a balance in your Miles&Smiles account, it could be worth looking for redemptions sooner rather than later.
