Turkish Airlines’ Miles&Smiles program is known for being a hidden gem of a loyalty program that offers an award chart with some attractive redemption rates for economy and business-class travel.
Despite rates having increased significantly in 2024, some options remain relatively well-priced. You can also still fly relatively cheaply on domestic flights within the U.S., and the program is a 1:1 transfer partner of three popular transferable currencies.
If you want to learn about an international frequent flyer program that can let you book a flight to Hawaii for just 10,000 miles, here’s what you need to know about Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles.
Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles elite status
The Miles&Smiles program has three elite membership tiers (aside from its basic membership, Classic):
- Classic Plus: Earned after accruing 25,000 status miles or on 40 flights. Benefits include priority check-in, lounge access for domestic flights, 25% bonus status miles on business-class flights and an additional baggage allowance of 22 pounds.
- Elite: Earned after accruing 40,000 status miles. Benefits include all of the Classic Plus perks, dedicated phone support, free standard seat selection, lounge access for domestic and international flights with one guest, Star Alliance Gold status and an additional baggage allowance of 44 pounds.
- Elite Plus: Earned after accruing 80,000 status miles. Benefits include all of the Classic Plus and Elite benefits, as well as two free cabin upgrades, gifting an elite card to three people, a guaranteed seat in certain cabin classes and an additional 55 pounds of checked luggage.
A great benefit of earning status in this program is that it is valid for two full years after you earn it. Some other programs only offer elite status for one year after earning.
You earn status miles through flying; frustratingly, there is no clear information on the Miles&Smiles website regarding how many status miles each flight earns.
How to earn Turkish Miles&Smiles
Transfer points from credit card programs
While no Turkish-branded credit cards are available in the U.S., you can transfer rewards from three programs with transferable currencies directly to Miles&Smiles at a rate of 1:1: Bilt Rewards, Capital One and Citi ThankYou Rewards.
Here are some of the best welcome bonuses available that you could transfer to Miles&Smiles:
Daily Newsletter
Reward your inbox with the TPG Daily newsletter
Join over 700,000 readers for breaking news, in-depth guides and exclusive deals from TPG’s experts
- Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card ($95 annual fee): Earn 75,000 bonus miles after spending $4,000 in the first three months from account opening, plus receive a $250 Capital One Travel credit to use in the first year.
- Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card ($395 annual fee): Earn 75,000 bonus miles after spending $4,000 on purchases within the first three months from account opening.
- Capital One VentureOne Rewards Credit Card (no annual fee): Earn 20,000 bonus miles after spending $500 within the first three months from account opening.
- Capital One Venture X Business ($395 annual fee): Earn up to 350,000 bonus miles: Receive 150,000 miles after spending $30,000 in the first three months, and an additional 200,000 miles after spending $200,000 in the first six months from account opening.
- Citi Strata Premier℠ Card (see rates and fees): Earn 60,000 bonus points after spending $4,000 on purchases in the first three months of account opening.
Transfer points from hotel programs
You can transfer Marriott Bonvoy points at a rate of 3:1 (so 3,000 Bonvoy points would become 1,000 Turkish miles). For every 60,000 Marriott Bonvoy points you transfer, you’ll receive a bonus of 5,000 Miles&Smiles miles.
You can also convert 5,000 Choice Privileges points to 1,000 Miles&Smiles miles.
Related: 17 ways to earn lots of Marriott Bonvoy points
Earn miles for flying
You can fly Turkish Airlines-operated flights to earn reward miles based on your fare class, Miles&Smiles elite status level and flight distance.
Turkish Airlines is a member of the Star Alliance. As a result, you can also earn miles by flying Turkish’s partner airlines — like Lufthansa, United Airlines, Air Canada and Swiss — then crediting those miles to your Miles&Smiles account. For many U.S.-based travelers, the most likely partner to fly and credit to Miles&Smiles would likely be United Airlines.
You’ll earn Turkish miles based on the fare class and distance of your United-operated flight.
The program also partners with the following airlines outside of the Star Alliance:
There are different earning charts for each partner airline. So, check if your fare class can earn miles, and see how many miles you’ll earn before putting your Turkish frequent flyer number on a partner reservation.
Earn miles through other partners
The Miles&Smiles program has a comprehensive list of other earning partners that you can find here. It includes (but is not limited to):
- Hilton Hotels
- Kaligo
- The Bicester Collection
- Avis
- Hertz
- Enterprise
- Sixt
- IHG One Rewards
- Booking.com
- Turkcell
Finally, Turkish miles expire three years from the time they’re earned. You can pay a fee of $20 for every 1,000 miles that are about to expire to extend them for another three years.
Related: How to keep your points and miles from expiring
How to redeem Turkish Miles&Smiles
How to book a Turkish Airlines-operated award flight
If you want to book an award ticket operated only by Turkish Airlines, you can get to the award booking engine from the Turkish homepage by clicking the “Award Ticket” checkbox.
This will require you to log into your Miles&Smiles account and then go to the award ticket booking engine. There, you can enter your origin, destination, dates, class of service and number of passengers. This first search screen is only for Turkish-operated flight itineraries.
After selecting a flight, you’ll see the flight details, the aircraft type and the award space labeled as promotional or regular pricing, which will match the published award charts.
The following page will give you the total flight cost, including taxes and fees, even if you don’t have the required miles in your account.
How to book a Star Alliance partner award flight
You must find the Star Alliance award search engine to search for Star Alliance-operated award flights.
To access Star Alliance award searches, log into your Turkish Miles&Smiles account. On the drop-down menu (below your name), select “Miles Transactions.” You’ll see the link that will take you to the Star Alliance award ticket booking engine.
The Star Alliance search engine looks identical to the Turkish-operated award search engine, except it says “Star Award Ticket” at the top.
You can then follow the same process to book partner flights.
Related: The best websites to search for Star Alliance award availability
Things to know about the program
The best way to redeem Turkish miles is for award flights. While other options may exist in the program, booking Turkish Airlines- or Star Alliance-operated flights will get you maximum value.
With that in mind, here are a few of the most important rules and nuances of Miles&Smiles:
- The Miles&Smiles website is glitchy, complicated and frustrating. You’ll need plenty of patience and persistence to navigate it. For example, when choosing a login password, it can only be numeric, must be exactly six digits, cannot have the same number more than twice (whether consecutive or not) and will not be remembered by your Google password manager. You must then receive a text message code to log in, which may or may not arrive, especially if you have a non-Turkish cellphone number.
- The membership number the program provides to you may not work if you don’t delete the first two “TK” letters.
- There are two levels of award availability for Turkish-operated flights: regular and promotional. Regular doesn’t technically have a name. It is just labeled “award ticket” when you see it in the search results. “Promo space” (still referred to as “limited space capacity” in the terms and conditions) means fewer seats are available at a much lower mileage cost than the regular “award ticket” space.
- You can book one-way awards for half the price of a round-trip journey.
- You can redeem miles for someone else, but you must register them in your Miles&Smiles account first.
- If you need additional miles to purchase an award ticket, you can buy them at a rate of $30 (including value-added tax) per every 1,000 miles (up to 50,000 miles per calendar year).
- Fuel surcharges are not charged on United flights and are somewhat reasonable on Turkish flights, but they can be problematic on some Star Alliance carriers like Lufthansa and Swiss.
- Award tickets can be canceled or changed for a fee of $70.
- One open jaw is allowed on a round-trip ticket. An open jaw is an itinerary when you fly into one city and out of another.
- One stopover is allowed on the outbound or return of a Turkish Airlines-operated award itinerary. A stopover is when you stay in a city along the path of your itinerary for a period of time.
Best uses of Turkish Miles&Smiles
Miles&Smiles uses two different award charts, one for Turkish Airlines-operated flights and the other for Star Alliance and other partner-operated flights.
Here are some of the best ways to redeem Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles:
- Fly on United Airlines from the mainland U.S. to Hawaii for 10,000 miles one-way in economy or 15,000 miles one-way in business class.
- Fly on United Airlines from the mainland U.S. to Alaska, Puerto Rico or the U.S. Virgin Islands for 10,000 miles one-way in economy or 20,000 miles one-way in first class.
- Fly on United Airlines from the mainland U.S. to Mexico for 30,000 miles one-way in economy or 40,000 miles one-way in business class.
- Fly on Turkish Airlines, Star Alliance partners or a combination from anywhere within North America (Mexico and Canada included) to Istanbul for 65,000 miles in business class.
However, finding award availability can be tough. Therefore, before transferring your credit card rewards to Turkish Airlines, confirm that there are award tickets available, as transfers are irreversible.
Related: A review of Turkish Airlines’ 787 in business class from Cancun to Istanbul
Note that while you can book Turkish Airlines-operated flights and most partner-operated flights online, it is difficult to find the cheapest promotional award tickets operated by Turkish Airlines without clicking through day-to-day. You may wish to use an external tool like Seats.aero to easily find the cheapest rates across 12 months.
Bottom line
The game of chasing the best frequent flyer programs and redemptions is always changing. No single program is the best at everything, but the Turkish Miles&Smiles program is worth investigating — especially if you have the patience and persistence to navigate its frustratingly customer-unfriendly website.
Logging into your account on their website is a challenge, especially with a registered non-Turkish phone number.
Some great value redemptions are still available, especially if you can find the fairly elusive 65,000-mile business-class tickets to Istanbul.