Turkish Miles&Smiles is the frequent flyer program (FFP) of Turkish Airlines. It is one of my favourite programs to redeem miles wherein we can consistently get a good deal when we redeem miles. They fly daily to Istanbul from Mumbai and Delhi however their miles have other uses too.
Turkish Airlines is a member of a global alliance called Star Alliance so Turkish miles be used on airlines like Air India, Singapore Airlines, Lufthansa, etc.
Some Pointers with Turkish Miles
- We cannot book for others online; thus, we have to call Turkish call centers in Istanbul, which can be a language barrier
- We cannot book First Class or premium economy
- Partial carrier imposed surcharges apply for own metal (that is, using Turkish miles to fly Turkish), and for Star Alliance, surcharges depend on the airline flown
- One stopover is permitted for round trip flights operated by Turkish Airlines and this cannot be booked online. For Star Alliance flights, the condition for stopover should have minimum of 60,000 and 90,000 miles in Economy and Business class respectively
- Turkish Miles have a hard expiry of three years. Thus, transfer only when we have firm plans
You may have a look at their FAQs for award flights and terms and conditions for more clarity and familiarity with the FFP.
Turkish Miles & Smiles Sweet Spots from India
The best uses of the Turkish miles are:
| Economy Class (miles) | Business Class (miles) | |
| Indian Domestic | 7,500 | 12,500 |
| India to Turkey | 15,000 | 25,000 |
| India to Western Europe (UK, France, Italy, Germany, etc.) | 19,000 | 30,000 |
| India to North America (USA, Canada) | 34,000 | 52,500 |
| USA Domestic inc. Hawaii and Alaska | 7,500 | 12,500 |
If you look closely, the requirement for business class is roughly 1.6 times that of economy, and this itself is a sweet spot. Most FFPs ask two times and some programs like Virgin Atlantic or Qantas ask even more.
Mileage Requirement for other destinations
| Sector | Economy (miles) | Business (miles) |
| India-Central Africa (Nairobi, Addis Ababa, etc) | 31,000 | 50,000 |
| India-Far East (Singapore, Japan, etc) | 34,000 | 52,500 |
| India-Middle East | 20,500 | 32,000 |
| India-Oceania (Australia, New Zealand, etc) | 41,500 | 60,000 |
All mileage requirement shown is for one way. And the above are “Promotional award” only. Complete award chart can be seen here.
Canada (or the USA) to India for 34,000 miles in economy and 52,500 miles in business class is one of the best sweet spots of any airline redemption from India.
India to London for just 19000 miles and minimal taxes is such a steal! During peak travel time, it could easily be costing Rs 75,000+.
I have booked multiple domestic Air India flights and traveled business class. Their hard product isn’t quite aspirational, to put it mildly. They are expanding rapidly and with talks of a merger with Vistara, we shall have even more options to redeem our Turkish miles. You can see the List of Air India destinations.
Turkish also comes up with occasional promotions on award travel like 25% discount on mileage requirement even bettering a favourable award chart.
Carrier Imposed Charges (YQ/YR) with Turkish
Booking with miles means we would have to pay taxes and other surcharges like “Carrier imposed surcharge.” Turkish airlines typically impose reasonable surcharges, and not all of them are passed to passengers. However, for Star Alliance partners, it would depend on the airline. Here are some sample YQ/YR that we have to pay:
| Sector | Economy | Business |
| JAI-BLR (via BOM) with AI | Rs 1060 | |
| DEL-BLR with AI | Rs 690 | |
| MAA-VIE (via BKK) with TG, BR | Rs 14,100 | |
| BOM-MUC (via IST) with TK | Rs 42,000 | |
| MAA-MUC (via DEL, WAW) with AI, LO | Rs 5,880 | |
| BLR-FRA with LH | Rs 16,900 | |
| DEL-SFO | Rs 4,550 |
Expect to pay minimal surcharges with Air India, Singapore Airlines or LOT Polish. Medium surcharges apply on Thai Airways and Turkish Airlines. Lufthansa, Swiss Air and ANA would pass on the whole surcharges.
Earning Turkish Miles
Transfer Partners for Indian Cards
Earning Turkish Miles is relatively easy. We can transfer points from Axis Bank and Citibank points. We can transfer indirectly from American Express MR Points by first transferring to Marriott Bonvoy Points. Marriott Bonvoy Points transfer in the ratio of 3:1, however for every 60,000 points transferred, we get a bonus of 5,000 points. Thus, 60,000 Marriott Bonvoy Points convert as 25,000 Turkish miles.
Axis Bank and Citibank take T+1 day for the miles to hit our account after transferring.
Earning By Flying
Apart from earning Turkish Miles by flying Turkish, we could earn by flying Star Alliance partners like Air India or Singapore Airlines. Miles earnings would depend on the class flown. Our first Star Alliance flight would fetch thus 1000 bonus points. Look up Where to Credit to see which program would yield good earnings. I also credit to Air Canada as we can pool our points across family members.
Earning By other ways
We can earn Turkish miles by booking hotel stays through Booking.com or RocketMiles, booking car rentals, etc. Some of them can be lucrative like this one night stay:
Checking Star Alliance Flight Award Space
Turkish website execution is poor and doesn’t even show up most (if not all) of the available options. On occasion, it even fails to display results from earlier searches. Further, we can neither view by calendar nor does it show for nearer dates like +/- 3 days. As a result, we need not even bother with Turkish website to look for award space.
The following are the best places to check for Star Alliance Award space:
Air Canada
AC is my first port of call for checking star alliance flight award space as they seem to be the most accurate option. It shows the number of award seats available too. However, we can not view it by calendar and since Air Canada has a lot of partner airlines, it shows other than Star Alliance flights, thereby cluttering the search result.
We need not have an Air Canada Aeroplan account to perform searches. Also we can exclude airport(s) and airlines to remove non Star Alliance flights.
United Airlines
United Airlines sites doesn’t need any login and is very user friendly. The biggest advantage is that we can search by calendar and compare with other dates.
Seats.aero
This is a new independent site where you can see availability for Star Alliance (through Avianca LifeMiles). I use this site to search for Virgin Atlantic and their partner airline Air France and KLM as well. This site only shows up space to the nearer dates up to next 60 days and also limited airports. It shows only DEL and BOM availability for India. It is easier to see award space across multiple dates and without having to search every time.
Please note that the above sites also throw up phantom space (which means system showing space wherein there isn’t any). To be absolutely sure, we may have to call Turkish Airlines to confirm space before transferring points.
How to Book
Once we have found an award space, we would need to book the ticket. One major limitation of Turkish website is we can book for ourselves only online. To book for other people or when the award space isn’t showing, we would have to take help from Turkish to ticket. This can be a (mis)adventure and needs a lot of patience.
Booking with Turkish Site
Searching for star alliance flights isn’t straightforward. After logging in, click your account name and on “Miles Transactions” which appears as a drop down menu. Now go to “Star Alliance award ticket” book now link which would bring you to Star Alliance award search tool.
Note that not all flights would show up and you may be check with Air Canada or United Airlines website to do some basic searches. However, if our desired flight does show up, we can book them easily.
Booking through International Call Center
We could call 24 x 7 toll free India Call Center at 000 8000 501 565 and ask them to check for availability quoting the flight number, sector and date to book the same. Payment can be by credit card through IVR and not through agent. In contrast to other places where we must verbally disclose our credit card information, it thus appears secure. Calling them maybe a big task with language barrier as we have to phonetically tell all the details from name, DOB, passport number and takes a lot of time.
Booking from Sales Office
Turkish has Indian sales offices in Delhi and Mumbai. We could go in person and make the booking. Alternatively, we can email them at bomreservation[at]thy.com (Mumbai) or delreservation[at]thy.com (Delhi) to book. I generally do this and find it the most efficient way to book. After confirming availability, they can hold the reservation (timeline depending on the airline) and we would have to send a filled form and copy of our passport to book.
Payments can be made through net banking or, if we want to use a credit card, by calling an international call centre (keep in mind the language barrier).
Cancelling or Changing Award Ticket
For $25 plus 5% GST, or approximately Rs. 2150, we can cancel or modify an award ticket and receive full refund for the miles and surcharges paid. We can cancel by contacting sales office. We would have to fill a refund form, send in passport copy and bank transfer $25 to sales office to do the cancelation.
We can cancel the ticket even after the flight has taken off because the No-Show Redesposit Fee is also $25!
Bottom line
Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles is one of my favouite program and I could even transfer miles speculatively This is true even with three years hard expiry since it is easy to get good value. I conservatively value each Turkish mile at Re 1 which should be possible even on economy flights.
Doing Turkish miles redemption isn’t straight forward and has its disadvantages. However, if we are willing to spend some additional time, there are fantastic value to be had. Turkish is one of the best options to do North American, European and domestic flight redemption.
There’s a bit of confusion. The mile chart shows a round trip miles requirement of 50,000 miles within Central Asia. Unsure of how you arrived at 12,500 for domestic tickets in India when 50% of the above should be 25,000 miles for one way?
Actually intra country is 7500/12500. I am not sure if that could be checked in the chart but if we try to book it would show 7500/12500 miles.
Hi – Thanks for providing the option of searching for flights on air canada / united airlines portal. However, how do we calculate the turkish miles required for the same route ?
I have linked to the award chart in the article or you could just see the table for the mileage requirement.