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If you woke up and checked the weather report this morning, you might have noticed that it said cloudy with a chance of Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles award chart devaluation. According to the carrier's website, a change to its beloved award pricing is likely on the horizon, but higher rates have yet to go live.
If you've got Turkish miles in your account (or Capital One miles or Citi ThankYou® points), you might want to put them to use sooner rather than later.
Here's what we know about Turkish Airlines' potential new award charts.
Turkish Airlines to Devalue Miles & Smiles, Introduce New Award Charts
As first flagged by Prince of Travel, Turkish Airlines has swapped out its old award charts for new ones. As all devaluations go, booking a Miles & Smiles award will soon require coming out of pocket for more miles.
But what's odd about this situation is that — despite Turkish's newly published award chart — the booking engine still reflects the old pricing. So, book ASAP if you intend to book award flights through Turkish Miles & Smiles.
Turkish has introduced two new charts — one for flights it operates and another for partner-operated flights. Turkish will still offer promotional award pricing, but new higher base rates will make it less of a bargain.
Here's the new Turkish Airlines award chart:
For those unfamiliar with the prior award chart, promo awards from New York to Istanbul will increase to the following once the changes take effect:
- Economy: 40,000 miles (33.33% increase from the current 30,000-mile rate)
- Business: 65,000 miles (44.44% increase from the current 45,000-mile rate)
And for partner-operated flights, well, the new chart is simply too big to paste into this post. But we'll pull out one subsection in particular that U.S.-based travelers will find most useful — the mini chart for one-way domestic flights:
We've long harped on how Miles & Smiles offers one of the best deals for a free flight to Hawaii. And while the future pricing still presents a good deal, it won't be as good as it is now. So, again, time is of the essence if you're looking to lock in an award at the current pricing.
Turkish is also switching to segment-based pricing
Part of what made Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles a fan-favorite program was its zone-based pricing. You could travel a long way for a reasonable amount of miles. Unfortunately, that'll soon change as the carrier introduces segment-based award pricing.
This is undoubtedly a big change, and will quickly make some awards substantially more expensive. Adding a second leg to your future Turkish award itineraries will be met with a cost — potentially a great one.
Final Thoughts
As the airline's website suggests, Turkish Airlines is in the process of devaluing the Miles & Smiles program by way of introducing a new award chart. Thankfully, the prices aren't live yet. So, if you're sitting on a stash of Turkish miles (or Capital One or Citi points), you still have time to book before the rates fly higher.
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