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When you think of deals on Star Alliance award bookings, your first thoughts might be Avianca LifeMiles, Air Canada Aeroplan, and Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer. However, the Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles program can offer a wide variety of excellent redemptions at great value for your miles — despite recent devaluation in February 2024 and another in December 2025.
Whether you're looking to burn through a million Miles & Smiles miles or trying to get value from your Capital One, Citi, or Bilt points, Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles has some appealing sweet spots worth considering.
Here's how Turkish Airlines award charts work — and some of the top sweet spots within its Miles & Smiles loyalty program.
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Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles Award Chart
Unlike airlines with dynamic award pricing, Turkish posts two main award charts: one for flights it operates and another for Star Alliance/partner-operated flights.
While there are a lot of numbers to pore over, you can still determine precisely what your award itinerary will cost — something many other frequent flyer programs don't offer. Looking at you, United, Delta, and American Airlines.
Turkish Airlines offers a mileage calculator that should show you the award chart price. However, it rarely works in practice. That leaves travelers squinting at the award charts.
Turkish-operated flights
The award chart for Turkish-operated flights is split into two sections that highlight one-way promotional (saver) and standard (non-saver) pricing. Awards are cumulatively priced by region, segment, and class. So, if you're trying to estimate the cost of a potential award, you'll want to add the cost of the first segment to the cost of the second one.
Star Alliance partners
Turkish Airlines publishes a separate award chart for Star Alliance and partner-operated flights. This chart is also region- and class-based. However, segment-based pricing only applies to Turkish-operated awards, not partner-operated ones.
This chart stretches on for a while, making it rather hard to read. To make it a bit easier, we've broken the chart into three images with a header for each. You can find the one-way pricing for partner/alliance-operated flights below:
Turkish Miles & Smiles utilizes a unique third chart specifically for domestic flights, covering one-way Star Alliance flights within the same country. This is the part of the chart that was recently updated to add Hawaii-specific flight pricing.
Miles & Smiles award regions
One of the pricing factors for Turkish- and partner/alliance-operated awards is the region of both departure and arrival. The table describing countries and correlated regions is viewable below:
Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles Sweet Spots
Without further ado, here are five sweet spots you can redeem Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles for.
Fly United Airlines in the United States
It's not as sweet a deal as it used to be, but flying United Airlines domestically is still one of the best ways to redeem Turkish Airlines miles. Domestic flights (excluding Hawaii) cost 15,000 miles in economy or 22,500 in business class each way — even if you have to connect.
While Turkish Airlines has added a separate award chart for Hawaii, you can still fly between the lower 48 and Alaska for just 15,000 miles each way — whether nonstop or connecting. That's a lot of flying for a reasonable amount of miles, but you'll need to be patient when digging for one of these awards. They're hard to find.
Domestic United awards in premium cabins, such as business class or domestic first class, are also difficult to find. But if you can spot one, snag it! Booking a transcontinental award in a premium seat for 22,500 miles is an incredible deal. The rates you can pay through Turkish on these routes can be cheaper than if you redeem United MileagePlus miles for the same awards.
But again, domestic United awards can be hard to find, so, unfortunately, it's worth managing your expectations.
Related: Which Credit Card Should You Use to Pay Award Taxes and Fees?
Fly Turkish Airlines from the United States to Turkey
One-way business class tickets to Turkey on Turkish Airlines cost 65,000 miles plus applicable taxes and fees. Even better, these awards are generally accessible. And compared to what a lot of other carriers charge for transatlantic business-class flights, it's still more than reasonable — especially for an excellent business class product:
Turkish Airlines flies to nearly every corner of the United States. You can book a flight out of Chicago (ORD), Dallas–Fort Worth (DFW), Miami (MIA), New York (JFK), Newark (EWR), Los Angeles (LAX), Seattle (SEA), and many others. Its broad accessibility makes Turkish an excellent option for affordable international business-class tickets from many major cities.
Especially when booked far in advance, award availability can be easy to find. For example, every flight from New York (JFK) to Istanbul (IST) is available at the cheapest rate for this date in February 2027:
Taxes and fees aren't minimal. In this example, you'd need to pay $219 one-way for a business class award. That's more than you'd pay out-of-pocket if booking the same award via United MileagePlus. However, United charges much higher rates for these awards — and has a shorter booking window.
Related: How Far in Advance You Can Book Airline Award Tickets
For award travel from North America to destinations beyond Turkey, you'll have to tangle with the airline's segment-based pricing scheme. Depending on your travel plans, it can make sense to book an award to Istanbul, see the city for a couple of days, and then continue onward on a separate ticket.
Fly from the U.S. to Europe for 85K–90K miles in partner business class
Turkish Airlines divides Europe into two regions. While you'll generally fly further to reach many of the “Europe 1” countries, the rates for business-class awards to this region are priced less than those to “Europe 2.”
For example, a business award from the U.S. to Greece, Hungary, or Croatia costs 85,000 miles, while one to the United Kingdom, France, or Switzerland costs 90,000 miles. Ultimately, you'll get more bang for your buck by flying a little further.
There's a high concentration of Star Alliance carriers in Europe and North America, so there are plenty of options to get from the U.S. over to Europe — both regions 1 and 2. For example, you could fly from Montreal (YUL) to get to Athens (ATH).
If you want to head to London (LHR) or most other “Europe 1” countries, United Airlines can take you there (and most places) nonstop for 90,000 miles, plus negligible taxes and fees. There's extra value in awards being prevalent, which United awards bookable with Turkish miles are.
Fly from the U.S. to the Middle East for 93K miles in business class
Partner awards to countries such as Jordan, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates come in at 93,000 Miles & Smiles miles. Yes, that's a hefty price tag, but it's comparable to what several other carriers charge for similar flights.
To book these awards, or any awards you find Star Alliance availability on that Turkish doesn't show (not just to the Middle East), the best practice is to call Turkish after you find bookable partner space. For example, if you're looking to book a flight from Newark (EWR) to Dubai (DXB), you can use United's 30-day calendar to find partner award availability and then dial Turkish's support line at 800-874-8875 to confirm agents can book the space.
After the representative confirms there's bookable space, it's a good time to complete your points transfer (if necessary) to Turkish Miles & Smiles and then pay the taxes and fees over the phone. However, some points transfer to Turkish quicker than others, so keep this in mind before you call to book. Refer to AwardWallet's mile transfer times tool for an idea of what to expect.
Fly from Istanbul to North Asia for 65k miles in business class
Another sweet spot in the Miles & Smiles award chart doesn't touch North America. The Miles & Smiles award chart prices awards between Istanbul and the “Far East” at just 65,000 miles each way in business class. And there are some “Far East” destinations that are pretty far away from Istanbul.
For example, you can fly from Istanbul (IST) to Seoul (ICN) for 65,000 miles in business class. That's a pretty great rate for nearly 10 hours in business class.
One quirk of Turkish Airlines' award availability is that you might not see award availability on a nonstop flight — but you'll see saver availability on connecting flights through Istanbul.
How To Earn Turkish Miles & Smiles
You can earn Turkish Miles & Smiles miles by crediting Turkish flights or Star Alliance partner flights to Turkish Airlines. You can also transfer a multitude of points directly to Turkish Miles & Smiles. The complete list of programs that offer point transfers to Turkish Miles & Smiles is shown below:
That means cards like the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card, Citi Strata Premier® Card, and Bilt Palladium Card will all transfer rewards directly to Turkish Airlines for redemption in the Miles & Smiles program.
$95
- 5X miles per dollar on purchases through Capital One Entertainment
- 5X miles per dollar on hotels, vacation rentals and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel
- 2X miles per dollar on all other purchases
$95Rates & Fees
- 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
$495
- Up to 1X points on rent and mortgage payments
- 2X points + 4% back in Bilt Cash on everyday purchases
Related: Do Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles Miles Expire?
Final Thoughts
It's not a secret that the Turkish Airlines award charts aren't as good as the past Turkish Airlines award charts. Nowadays, you'll need to redeem a handsome amount of miles to get around the world. But for certain redemptions — especially if you can leverage a transfer bonus — the mileage requirement to get to select destinations is reasonable and better than what you'll find on other carriers.
What's your favorite use of Turkish Miles & Smiles awards? Let us know in the comments below.
For rates and fees of the cards mentioned in this post, please visit the following links: Citi Strata Premier® Card (Rates & Fees)
