Turkish Airlines is adding a new Denver – Istanbul flight this summer, and business class awards are wide open – with availability most days starting in July through end of year (and plenty of space returning in January 2025 as well).
Use this to fly to Europe in peak summer! Even during the Paris Olympics. Connect west back to Western Europe, or connect eastward to Asia – you don’t need to use this to go to Turkey. It may be your jumping off point to the Mideast as well. And United Airlines saver award space can be added into awards to get to and from Denvern as well.
Some booking options:
- United charges 88,000 miles per person each way and points transfer from Chase or Bilt.
- Air Canada charges 90,000 (or more, depending on destination) each way and points transfer from American Express, Chase, Capital One and Bilt.
- ANA charges 88,000 miles roundtrip plus nearly $500 in taxes and fees and points can be transfered from American Express but take a couple of days – and rates go up April 18.
This is a great find from @FindFlightsForMe but note that while the Instagram post suggests access to United’s Polaris lounge in Denver, that lounge isn’t expected to open until next year. Also, the listed transfer partners to ANA aren’t accurate.
Turkish is flying ex-Aeroflot Airbus A350s on the route (“Turkoflot”).
Amazing summer business class award space across the Pond has not been something we’ve seen often so many of you will jump on this. It’s frequently the case that new routes are a gold mine of award space.
Turkish Air is an institution that is being sacrificed to the political interests of Erdogan and AK. It used to have something like 8 roundtrips per day to Tel Aviv and was one of the largest carriers of Israelis to the rest of the world, but these flights have all been cancelled for at least the next year to support Hamas and THY has massive excess capacity, while at the same time the Turkish Lira is a guaranteed loser and forces companies to put their capital into deployed capital assets rather than financial assets – you might lose money flying a half empty plane to Denver but less than you’ll lose by keeping it in the bank.
It’s not showing up on AC?
If all goes well Turkish can be a good option. However, God help you if there are flight disruptions, you need to cancel/change a ticket, etc. Maybe just me but I don’t mess with foreign carriers that make it difficult to either transfer points or book/change reservations (including those known to have horrible customer service). I’ll stick with most major Western European carriers, most Asian carriers, Qantas, Air New Zealand and Emirates. Yes I may miss some great “sweet spots” but IMHO avoiding the likely inevitable hassle is well worth it.
Honestly, overrated airline. I flew them last year from Doha to Washington via Istanbul in Business and the overall experience was okay but not great. I was on the 787 – their new business class product – and it was tight and uncomfortable. Service was slow and uncoordinated – so much so that they almost couldnt complete the main meal service before landing in Washington. Literally an hour between the first pass of the appetizer cart and the last, and I barely had time for my main meal. It was just sloppy and poor. Not impressive. Then the issues I’ve had with ticketing. I had purchased my ticket using Turkish Smiles miles or whatever when it was still like 47K one way from Doha to washington – not a bad price!! For business!! But then there was a schedule change or something and they rebooked me in economy, inexplicably, for Istanbul-Washington. No. So I called their 1800 number and their people on the phone were incapable of doing anything. They made me fill out some online form that was never responded to after a few months. finally somebody told me to get in touch with their Washington, DC sales office, who fixed it, but it was lots of uncertainty and nobody willing/able/ empowered to fix the problem. Recently I had to refund another award ticket and again – nobody empowered to do so on the phone, a baffling/ incomprehensible email asking me to send in my credit card and picture of my passport to provide “feedback”, and then yet another run in with the Washington sales office, who is making me receive my refund via a wire transfer rather than directly to my credit card for god knows why. Honestly, a frustrating experience on every level. Not a well run airline. Service that just isnt quite what has been talked about breathlessly. NO thanks.
@mak no one asked or cares. Completely off topic.
I found a flight but why isn’t it showing on Air Canada? The last one I booked was on both.
I searched a number of routes and only found one at 90,000 points on the TA website. Couldn’t find it on Aeroplan or United so clicked through and found it was phantom space. The last time this happened I called TA and they reserved it. But I have 180k points stuck at Aeroplan I was hoping to
I live in Denver and am thrilled that TA is flying here and they have Biz award tix for 88K. I was able to change my original tix from Den-ORD- IST to Den-IST for the same points. I booked the tix on United.
I chuckled at how excited the bloggers are at paying 88k miles when just a year ago buiness awards were 60k, or 64k (+$230 fees) on Turkish when a couple of months ago they were 47k. I mean honestly, how great can these be when you’re paying almost 50% more than before? This isn’t a “great” deal by any stretch of the imagination
@Mak bla bla bla bla bla bla killing tens of thousands of children is OK but refusing to serve an airport is not? priorities eh?
@Chris – are you talking about United miles? I think the lowest business class rate on United has been 80,000 miles for a few years.