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Despite ever-increasing mileage redemption pricing, and award space that’s difficult to find nowadays, there’s still one path to earning enough miles for a business class award ticket to Europe with a single card bonus and even using those miles with success.
This is because Citibank points transfer to Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles and Turkish charges just 45,000 miles each way (plus taxes and fees) for business class from the U.S. to Europe and vice versa.
Turkish Airlines serves 12 U.S. destinations and more countries than any other airline in the world allowing tremendous connecting opportunities. You can fly from Atlanta; Boston; Dallas-Fort Worth; Chicago O’Hare; Houston Intercontinental; Los Angeles; Miami; New York JFK; Newark; Seattle; San Francisco; and Washington Dulles.
Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles is most known among frequent flyer aficionados for its inexpensive redemptions on United flights. For instance first class to the Caribbean or Hawaii is just 12,500 miles one-way on United when redeeming Turkish miles. However Turkish is so much more than this.
- Turkish Airlines offers 48 hour award holds so you can lock in an award prior to transferring points.
- Cancel and redeposit fee is just $25.
- US-Europe is just 45,000 miles each way in business class when redeeming for travel on Turkish (plus fuel surcharges)
- India is 52,500 miles (plus fuel surcharges).
It’s not just that their awards require comparatively few miles – that you can book business class to Europe for 45,000 miles one way when saver business class on Delta can cost 180,000 miles.
Perhaps more importantly I’ve found that (though award space even accessible by airline partners can be quite good) Turkish offers much better award availability on their own flights to members using their Miles & Smiles program than they offer when using miles from other programs. Put another way I have almost always found a seat.
As I mention, Turkish Miles & Smiles adds surcharges onto redemptions. Those vary by destination, for instance Istanbul to the U.S. non-stop may run $270 (plus another hundred in taxes) while parts of Europe may have surcharges as high as $335 one way. That’s a great deal for one way business class when fares can be over $4000 right now.
And here’s a trick, that some will value and others may find inconvenient. When I’m scrambling and can’t find award space anywhere and just need to get someone back to North America, it’s hard to beat Instabul – Mexico City for availability.
Turkish has numerous different business class configurations, from Boeing 777s that are 2-3-2 (avoid the middle-of-middle seat!) to Boeing 787s that are 1-2-1. Regardless of aircraft and therefore seating configuration, they do an outstanding on board service and their lounge in Istanbul is a marvel.
Note as well that it’s quite easy to load up on Turkish’s miles since Bilt and Capital One points transfer directly to Turkish as well. And both the Capital One Venture and their Venture X card have 75,000 point initial bonus offers right now, and allow you to earn 2 points per dollar on all qualifying purchases.
The best deal is when M&S can be used to book flights on United metal which is I believe the only one that doesnt carry additional taxes and fuel surcharges. Couple months ago flew EWR to LHR on United business class for 45k turkish m&s points plus just 5.60 in taxes/fees, which is same as United’s own program charges for fees!
Have been for awhile trying to find premium award availability on United’s nonstop flights to India which would be awesome (To then book using Turkish’s program) but has become unicorn to find saver availability in business class.
Cancel & redeposit is only USD 25, but how long to get the miles redeposited, if ever?? I’ve been waiting over a month! They charged me the USD 25 and canceled my award, but I still cannot get my 45,000 miles back or the USD 220 in taxes!!! Calls every day are only met with we are working on it. You cannot speak to anyone who actually handles the problem, only agents who forward the ‘feedback’ form. How many hours to get a refund?? Assuming you can at all. This is the problem with turkish, and it’s a big one. God help you if anything goes wrong, or you need to change or cancel.
I have just checked TK’s website for availability from NYC/WAS/BNA/ATL to IST/other European cities. Nothing is under 105,000 miles ONE WAY.
Addendum: I was looking for January 2023 travel.
What you forget to mention is that it is VERY HARD to obtain the 45k deal. Usually they’ll want the premium award which is 105k. Most of 2022 is booked out. 2023 is hit or miss depending how flexible you are.
Additionally, once something happens, good luck with their Russian/Eastern European call center (even as an Elite Plus), they are like robots.
One more note – when you book an award with a connection through IST, and I class becomes available on an earlier connection, they can’t change one leg only. Pain pain pain
@Royi – that simply hasn’t been my experience I’ve had much better luck booking 45,000 mile awards through Turkish than through Star Alliance partners and as I say they have tons of routes to work with and I flag one where I’ve had pretty much success whenever I’ve checked.
Turkish to Europe makes sense if you are going to take a stopover in IST – which is well worth doing. However, you are flying quite a bit out of your way, and it adds hours in each direction. And I assume the connecting flight from IST to Europe is not up to the same standard as transatlantic business class.
Kind of segues into a larger question – assuming the price was the same, how many additional hours are you willing to spend in Business Class versus a faster connection in coach? Or how about non-stop SFO to CDG in the coach seat of your choosing, vs. Business class to Istanbul followed by a 3.5 hour flight in the equivalent of domestic first class to CDG?
@Ron – Interesting question! Depends on one’s priorities, I presume. International J is still a treat to me in and of itself, so I’d personally take the connection (I LIKE the longer flights in J and have enough flexibility to accommodate the additional vacation or working hours needed).
Another interesting question is whether you’d take a shorter flight and connection in what’s effectively Y over a longer TATL segment and connection in “domestic F”? For example, comparing J SFO-CDG + Y CDG-Nice versus J SFO-IST + J IST-Nice. The improved seat is how I convinced the wife to recently fly TK to visit Rome instead of something connecting elsewhere in Europe.
That said, I’m actually not a fan of the new IST airport, including the TK lounge. Bloggers talk it up, but it was kind of a let down compared to, say, QR or CX. The lounge is functional, but not exceptional. The airport is a model of design failures (wayyyyy too much walking, and I say that as someone that ENJOYED walking everywhere in Rome!). Ubers can only drop-off (clearly the taxi lobby won here), you’re an hour from IST during normal traffic, nearby hotels aren’t great, no expedited security lines (at least when I was there), arrivals have to disembark by stair to board a bus (a new airport… WTF?!?!), and cell signal is garbage. It wasn’t all bad; they have reasonable food in the airport and the airside hotel is functional. However, what a giant waste of money that investment was that they can’t even use jet bridges to deplane!
From US-Europe R/T has to be via Turkey, right?
Does one have to add the full $ fare Turkey->Desired Europe City R/T or is that covered in the business class award?
Thks.
We were able to book last December when they had the 30% off discount of business class awards. We booked a round trip from Dallas to Naples, Italy for 63,000 miles (or 31,500 one way). I thought it was an amazing steal. We traveled in May this year. I’m glad we beat the rush on this one. There was a ton of award availability for up to 4 people when we booked and there are no direct flight to Naples so having one stop in IST was fine for us.
Now we’ve got ANA First Suites planned to Japan in October booked on Virgin Atlantic for only 120k round trip (93k with a 30% transfer bonus). Key is always to be one step ahead of where the crowds are going!
Aloha Gary,
Turkish used to have a link with either Amex or Chase, I know you are trying to plug Citibank for the card, but is there any other program besides Citi or Bilt that can transfer into Turkish?
@L3 the flight from IST to Europe is included in the 45k. There is no extra charge.
Cancun to Istanbul is almost daily available next late spring when every other North American city pair is zero’d out.
Instabul is where my cattle share their selfies.
$4000 in supermarket store gift cards work to hit the spend limit and get the 80k + 12k points?
Grocery stores often sell a wide variety of prepaid gift cards, including prepaid Visa and Mastercards.
If the gift card purchases are mixed into the middle of long grocery store purchase lists done via Apple Pay with the Citi Premier card, would Citi make a fuss about that?
@Diablo – Turkish has never been a Chase or U.S. Amex transfer partner. Capital One transfers to Turkish as I mention above