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On the heels of the success of SAS's million-mile challenge, Turkish Airlines launched its own head-turning million-mile promotion in June 2025: Fly Turkish Airlines to six continents to earn one million bonus miles. The promotion sparked so much interest that the airline closed it down to anyone who didn't purchase tickets by July 8, 2025.
When the promotion was announced, my wife and I already needed to fly from Europe to South America and then onward to North America. That meant we could strategically book flights to complete half of this challenge without adding too many extra flights. So, we put together a plan to earn 2 million miles at a cost of around $3,100 each.
Halfway into the challenge, we had some regrets. This was a lot of miles in economy, and we found out the hard way that flying Turkish Airlines A350 economy is particularly uncomfortable.
And then, it got worse. An Air Canada staffing delay on a positioning flight from Vancouver (YVR) to Seattle (SEA) caused more than a 3-hour delay arriving in Seattle. That was barely enough to make us miss our Turkish Airlines flight from Seattle (SEA) to Istanbul (IST) and then onward to Amman (AMM) to claim Asia.
With Turkish Airlines trying to charge thousands of dollars for us to rebook on the later Turkish Airlines flight, we abandoned that leg and flew Finnair to Europe to catch up to our onward flights from Istanbul (IST) to Cairo (CAI). We then booked a round-trip from Abu Dhabi (AUH) to Istanbul (IST) for a couple of months later to complete the Asia segment.
Little did we know we still had the worst part of the challenge ahead. On what we planned to be our last flights of the challenge — an ultra-long-haul from Istanbul (IST) to Melbourne (MEL) via Singapore (SIN) — a passenger got so drunk and belligerent that the crew shut down the cabin and didn't serve any food or drinks for the back half of an 11-hour flight.
Add in broken in-flight entertainment, broken lavatories, inoperative Wi-Fi, and exceptionally rude passengers. It was a very, very long journey.
But all of those memories just got a bit more fond. This morning, my Turkish Miles&Smiles balance was finally updated. Just two days before the November 1-15 posting window ended, Turkish Airlines deposited one million miles each into my wife's and my accounts for completing this challenge. We are both now Turkish Airlines miles millionaires!
Turkish Airlines included “Great Voyager #00155” in my posting and “Great Voyager #00645” in Katie's miles posting. I'm curious if this indicates that there were at least 645 Miles&Smiles members who completed this challenge. If you completed this challenge and have a higher number than 645, please let me know in the comments below!
How We Plan to Use Our Two Million Miles
Ideally, these two million miles would give us a stash of Turkish miles to utilize as we find good value over the next 3-5 years. However, Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles expire after three years regardless of activity. So, we need to utilize these two million (plus our ~25k earnings each from the flights themselves) in a relative hurry.
We'll be utilizing Turkish Airlines sweet spots, such as:
- Domestic United flights for 10,000 miles each way — including Hawaii
- North America-Istanbul in business class: 65,000 miles each way
- Istanbul-Asia (e.g., Seoul, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore) in business class: 65,000 miles each way
Turkish Airlines practically uses segment-based pricing. Essentially, booking a connecting flight is the same cost as booking two one-way flights. So, I suspect that we will be spending a lot more nights in the Moxy Istanbul Taksim.
If these sweet spots sound appealing but you didn't complete this Turkish Million Mile challenge, you're not out of luck. Turkish Airlines is a transfer partner of several transferable points programs:
That means you can earn bonuses through the following cards and transfer points to Turkish Airlines — or over a dozen other transfer partners, if those provide a better redemption:
- 10X on Hotels, Car Rentals, and Attractions booked through CitiTravel.com
- 3X – Earn 3 Points per $1 spent on Air Travel and Other Hotel Purchases
- 3X – Earn 3 Points per $1 spent on Restaurants
- 3X – Earn 3 Points per $1 spent on Supermarkets
- 3X – Earn 3 Points per $1 spent on Gas and EV Charging Stations
- 1X – Earn 1 Point per $1 spent on All Other Purchases
- 10X miles per $1 on hotels and rental cars booked via Capital One Travel
- 5X miles per $1 on purchases through Capital One Entertainment (through 12/31/2025)
- 5X miles per $1 on flights when booking via Capital One Travel
- 5X miles per $1 on vacation rentals booked via Capital One Travel
- 2X miles per $1 on all other eligible purchases
- 12X – Earn 12 Points per $1 spent on Hotels, Car Rentals, and Attractions booked on cititravel.com.
- 6X – Earn 6 Points per $1 spent on Air Travel booked on cititravel.com.
- 6X – Earn 6 Points per $1 spent at Restaurants including Restaurant Delivery Services on CitiNights℠ purchases, every Friday and Saturday from 6 PM to 6 AM ET. Earn 3 Points per $1 spent any other time.
- 1.5X – Earn 1.5 Points per $1 spent on All Other Purchases.
Bottom Line
Flying more than 35,000 miles in Turkish Airlines economy in a span of just two months wasn't nearly as enjoyable as we had hoped going into this challenge — between extremely tight seat pitch and no power outlets. Add in disruptive passengers, broken in-flight entertainment and Wi-Fi, and a lengthy Air Canada delay that caused us to miss a flight, and it was an exhausting challenge to complete. But now that Turkish Airlines has posted the bonus miles, I don't regret completing this challenge!
At current rates, these two million miles — plus our ~50k miles in earnings from the flights — are enough for 15 round-trip business class saver awards between the U.S. and Istanbul. That's going to more than make up for those long-hauls squeezed in 29 inches of pitch.
Now, I'm off to start using these miles!
For rates and fees of the cards mentioned in this post, please visit the following links: Citi Strata Premier® Card (Rates & Fees), and Citi Strata Elite℠ Card (Rates & Fees)
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