I had a lovely experience on Turkish Airlines’ 787-9 Business Class. That redemption is one of many Turkish Miles & Smiles’ great uses… until February 15th when the award costs all jump much higher. book now! Photo by: Evan Berman

I’ve written before about one of my favorite programs to book award tickets with: Turkish Airlines. For flying Business Class to Europe, or the Middle East (as well as Asia and Africa!), there is nobody better than Turkish in terms of value! Unfortunately, that is changing on February 15th. Let’s talk about the changes and how they render the Turkish program worthless. 🙁

The Current (Not For Long!) Award Chart:

Note that there are two different award charts: a “promotional” and “guaranteed space” chart. The promotional chart is what you should focus on as it applies the same concept as saver awards with other airlines– both for Turkish and for partners. The guaranteed space chart has much higher prices though as the name suggests, if there is a seat available in Business Class you can purchase it with miles.

Here is the current award chart:

For reference, here is the space guaranteed award chart:

Note that these amounts are for round trip itineraries, so cut the prices in half if you are booking one-way. Here are the prices for one-way routes from North America to various parts of the world in Business Class:

• 45,000 miles to Europe and Turkïye
• 47,000 miles to the Middle East
• 52,000 miles to Central Asia (India, the Indian Subcontinent, and the “Stan” countries)
• 60,000 miles to North Africa (Algeria, Morocco, Libya, Egypt, and Tunisia)
• 67,500 miles to the Far East (all of Asia East of the Indian Subcontinent, such as Japan, Korea, and Thailand)
• 72,500 miles to Central Africa (the majority of Sub-Saharan Africa, such as Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Kenya)
• 75,000 miles to Oceania
• 85,000 miles to Southern Africa (South Africa, Mozambique, Zambia, and the island countries of Madagascar, Mauritius, and the Seychelles)

Note that Turkish does pass along fuel surcharges both on their flights and on partner awards, so you can expect to pay between $50 and $600 in taxes and fees, depending on where you fly and with whom. Turkish also has an annual sale on their (read: Turkish Airlines only) flights each December. For example, my flight from Seattle to Budapest via Istanbul on Turkish Airlines last year cost 31,500 miles and $267.60 in fees. Normally, that total would be 45,000 miles. If you book a partner award on an airline such as Air Canada, or one of the Lufthansa Group Airlines (Lufthansa, Austrian Airlines, or Swiss Airlines), the taxes and fees can rise well above that. It might still be a good deal, but you need to weigh the pros and cons of paying extra in fees compared with paying more in miles while saving on fees with a program like Air Canada or Avianca LifeMiles.

The Disappointing New Award Chart:

Now for the changes. The first change is that Turkish awards and Star Alliance awards no longer price the same. Here is the award chart for Turkish Airlines awards (replacing the old “promotional chart”);

The (only) good news is that you no longer need to do division! The pricing is based on one-way flights as opposed to roundtrip flights. Here are the new prices for one-way routes from North America in Business Class:

• 63,000 miles to Europe and Turkïye (40% increase)
• 65,800 miles to the Middle East (40% increase)
• 73,500 miles to Central Asia (India, the Indian Subcontinent, and the “Stan” countries) (40% increase)
• 84,000 miles to North Africa (Algeria, Morocco, Libya, Egypt, and Tunisia) (40% increase)
• 94,500 miles to the Far East (all of Asia East of the Indian Subcontinent, such as Japan, Korea, and Thailand) (40% increase)
• 101,500 miles to Central Africa (the majority of Sub-Saharan Africa, such as Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Kenya) (40% increase)
• 105,000 miles to Oceania (40% increase)
• 119,000 miles to Southern Africa (South Africa, Mozambique, Zambia, and the island countries of Madagascar, Mauritius, and the Seychelles) (40% increase)

The new Star Alliance Award Chart is quite convoluted and hard to show in a screenshot. That said, the prices are going up here as well:

A few routes highlighted in Business Class from the US:

• 65,000 miles to Turkïye (44.4% increase)
• 85,000-90,000 miles to Europe (85k for Europe 1, 90k for Europe 2) (88.9%-100% increase)
• 93,000 miles to the Middle East (97.9% increase)
• 100,000 miles to Central Asia (India, the Indian Subcontinent, and the “Stan” countries) (92.3% increase)
• 105,000 miles to North Africa (Algeria, Morocco, Libya, Egypt, and Tunisia) (75% increase)
• 130,000 miles to the Far East (all of Asia East of the Indian Subcontinent, such as Japan, Korea, and Thailand) (92.6% increase)
• 125,000 miles to Central Africa (the majority of Sub-Saharan Africa, such as Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Kenya) (72.4% increase)
• 140,000 miles to Oceania (86.7% increase)
• 140,000 miles to Southern Africa (South Africa, Mozambique, Zambia, and the island countries of Madagascar, Mauritius, and the Seychelles) (64.7% increase)

Wow! Talk about destroying value. Imagine if any product that you frequently buy raised their prices 44-100% across the board. You’d never buy from them again and switch to a competitor, I’d hope! The same should be true here. Keep in mind that within Star Alliance, you can find Business Class from North America to Europe for 60,000-70,000 miles (and no more than $100-$200 in taxes and fees) with either Air Canada or Avianca LifeMiles, round trip to Europe for 88,000 miles with ANA (keep in mind that you must book round trip with ANA and you do need to pay high taxes and fees on certain airlines so you should focus on airlines with low fuel surcharges such as United, LOT Polish, and Singapore Airlines)

Additionally, the prices for the new space guaranteed rate award chart have increased:

I won’t break down the specifics here because as mentioned above, there is no reason to pay the high rates when there is no saver award space available and the “limited space” aka saver award charts are not applicable.

Didn’t think that was bad enough? There’s more! On the website, it appears that Turkish is also going to charge by segment, rather than one price by region, as shown in the example below:

This is quite unfortunate as it would essentially mean that if your origin/destination is not Turkïye, prices would be even higher than the award chart would first appear. How on earth does this make sense when Turkish Airlines is proud of and advertises that they fly to more countries than any other airline? Sure, if you only care about flying to or from Istanbul this has no effect, but isn’t the point of an airline that connects the whole world to allow you to do so without punishment?

Recap:

Unfortunately, you only have until February 15th to book awards at the old (lucrative) award prices. After that point, I’d recommend writing off of the Turkish Airlines partner award chart completely and only using Turkish Airlines’ award charts for their own flights to Central Asia and the Far East as the 73,500 and 94,500 miles from North America to these destinations (assuming multiple segments are not priced additively) is a fair price. No longer great as it currently is, but still decently priced. You can transfer points from either Capital One or Citi at a 1:1 ratio. Transfers from Capital One are typically instant (though make sure to transfer the total amount at one time, not 1,000 points now and the rest later), though transfers from Citi are reported to take some time, usually no more than 12-24 hours. I’m thinking of booking a trip to Central Asia in the fall. Will you make a booking before the prices go up?

Evan