Turkish Airlines is offering 40% off all economy and business class tickets booked today for travel from the U.S. through April 15.
All destinations except Turkey and Northern Cyprus (which Turkey claims as its own) are on sale. But the truth is you probably don’t want to go to Turkey right now anyway unless you want to be accused of being a follower of Fethullah Gülen. (Had as many people supported the coup in Turkey as have been purged for supporting the coup, the coup would have easily succeeded.)
I do feel comfortable connecting in Istanbul though. The airport’s security is very good, indeed even when there was a plot against the airport over the summer it was pulled off only before security.
Travel on Turkish Airlines is unsurprisingly down, because travel to Turkey is down. That makes a 40% discount not just possible but advisable. And doing it for one day only picks up incremental business while offering it over a holiday weekend helps prevent trading off with business travel they would otherwise pick up. What’s more, by offering this to connecting traffic only that allows Turkish Airlines to compete heavily on price where customers have a world of other options without undercutting the price premium they’ll earn from passengers who actually are traveling to Turkey and doing so non-stop.
Of course, award space on Turkish Airlines remains very good. Here’s 8 passengers from Chicago to Istanbul over the summer. Dotted lines mean there’s at least 8 business class award seats available and solid lines mean at least 8 coach seats available:
I think Turkish Airlines is a very good airline overall. They have a great lounge in Istanbul. There’s billiards, golf, a race track, and a movie room with popcorn machine. They even provide complimentary hotel stays to economy passengers forced to overnight in Istanbul by the Turkish schedule.
Terms and conditions:
- Discounts are available for all destinations that are included in the campaign. You only need to choose a date and destination to benefit from the campaign.
- The campaign only includes the flights from United States.
- There are no quantity restriction for buying tickets during the campaign.
- The campaign only includes flights originating from the United States to all Turkish Airlines destinations except for Turkey and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.
- The 40% discount is only applied to the base fare of the tickets and there will be no discount on the fuel surcharge and other taxes.
- The campaign is available for Economy Class and Business Class booking.
Gary,
What is the best program to use for booking partner awards on Turkish? I used to use US Air prior to them leaving OneWorld, and since then I’ve been unsure how to proceed. United is not very attractive as a Star Alliance option. Thanks and Happy Holidays!
@Mike D – kind of a complicated question, depends on what your reward goals are, I’d stick to a program where you can transfer points in from credit card programs as well (eg Singapore, Aeroplan, ANA – Amex and Starwood only, Aegean-Starwood only). Are your goals Star Alliance elite status? Earning miles for reward tickets?
@ Mike D — we used Lifemiles to book a business award ticket on Turkish. It was 63000 miles for one-way from Europe to the US. Weirdly, Lifemiles site appears to have more access than United to Turkish award space as we booked a flight not available on United’s site.
P.S There’s actually currently a sale on Avianca Lifemiles.
@ Gary — perhaps things have detiorated due to the recent events in Turkey and the airport itself, but my mother just traveled on TK J (Europe-US via IST) and was pretty disappointed with both hard & soft products and the airport. She had a 3-hour layover but couldn’t even get to the lounge due to insane security measures which required her to go through security multiple times inside the transit zone and to stand in another line to register her passport. Both onboard and airport staff was somewhat rude/unhelpful (especially at the airport) and the boarding process was a mess — they boarded J & Y together.
(I think she liked the food though.)
@Gary – My main goal is earning miles for reward tickets on TK. Most of my miles are on AA, but I do have a decent SPG balance. Trying to figure out what program has the best access to TK award space and most competitive partner award chart.
@Ivan – I’m not familiar with Avianca. 126k RT in business doesn’t seem too bad considering recent devaluations. Were you able to book the TK business awards through their site, or did you need to call in…and if so, how is that experience? Avianca isn’t one of those crazy programs where your miles just evaporate after some period of time with no opportunity to extend them, right?
@Mike D you can extend the life of your LifeMiles with activity in your account.
You can also extend the life of your miles in an Aeroplan account, and transfer points Amex->Aeroplan but that’s not a place you’ve got miles. The reason I mention Aeroplan is because they do not add fuel surcharges to TK awards (LifeMiles doesn’t to anyone’s awards). They do not however award full miles on discount fares: https://www4.aeroplan.com/earn_miles/our_partners/partner_details.do?Partner=TurkishAirlines
@Gary, Thanks. Looks like SPG transfers to both LifeMiles and Aeroplan at a 1:1 ratio. The awards appear to be a bit cheaper on Aeroplan though.