{"id":216717,"date":"2025-07-08T23:59:26","date_gmt":"2025-07-08T23:59:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/?p=216717\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T14:18:49","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T14:18:49","slug":"plan-to-complete-turkish-six-continents-million-mile-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/travel\/plan-to-complete-turkish-six-continents-million-mile-challenge\/","title":{"rendered":"6 Continents, 2 Million Miles: Here’s Our Plan to Complete the Turkish Airlines Million Mile Challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"

Update: My wife and I received our million-mile bonuses<\/a>!<\/strong><\/p>\n

In late June, Turkish Airlines launched an appealing new challenge. Any Turkish Miles & Smiles member who flies Turkish Airlines to six continents<\/a> between June 27 and October 27, 2025 will be rewarded with one million miles<\/strong>. That's incredible, considering the numerous Turkish Airlines sweet spots<\/a> available.<\/p>\n

If you're considering booking this, note that Turkish Airlines just updated the terms of this promotion<\/a> to limit eligible flights to those ticketed by July 8, 2025.<\/em><\/p>\n

This comes at a perfect time for my wife and me. We are currently traveling through Europe, with plans to travel to a couple of different continents over the next few months anyway. Plus, this new challenge aligns perfectly with another challenge we're undertaking this year: visiting 40 countries in 2025 to celebrate turning 40 this year.<\/p>\n

Over the past week, we've developed a plan to tackle this challenge — completing the entire challenge between now and mid-August. Here's how we plan to earn two million Turkish Miles & Smiles through the Six Continents Challenge.<\/p>\n

Our Turkish Airlines Six Continents Plan<\/span><\/h2>\n

South America & Europe<\/span><\/h3>\n

The main reason it was appealing to jump on this challenge is that we need to head to South America for RoboCup<\/a> — an annual robot soccer competition we help organize. With the best award options being business class for 85k miles plus several hundred in taxes and fees (and economy awards costing even more), I'd been dragging my feet on locking in plans. Then, this challenge popped up.<\/p>\n

For our dates, a one-way Turkish Airlines flight to S\u00e3o Paulo cost around $1,000 each. A round-trip returning to Europe? Around $1,100 each. So, it was a no-brainer to add on a return flight to complete another continent.<\/p>\n

So, we hopped up from our stay in Tirana, Albania to Zagreb, Croatia (country #24 of our 40-country challenge) using 6,000 United miles each. After a few nights in the Croatian capital, we'll fly to S\u00e3o Paulo, Brazil via Istanbul. Every itinerary we found requires an overnight in Istanbul, so we stretched our layover as long as we could to visit one of our favorite cities in the world.<\/p>\n

\"Turkish
Screenshot of Turkish Airlines booking<\/em><\/enter><\/figure>\n

After RoboCup, we're flying back to Athens, Greece (ATH) to achieve the European continent and position for our next flights…<\/p>\n

North America & Asia<\/span><\/h3>\n

Our next necessary travel plans take us to the Pacific Northwest at the end of July. So, we explored routes and dates until we found a budget-friendly option: Athens, Greece (ATH) to Seattle (SEA), with a return trip from Seattle to Amman, Jordan (AMM). The cost: just 883.58 euros ($1,036) round-trip.<\/p>\n

Returning to Dubai would have been even cheaper, but we'd happily pay ~$55 more each to avoid 100\u00b0F (40\u00b0C) peak summertime temperatures. Plus, the Grand Hyatt Amman is a Category 1 property, and our dates cost just 5,000 points per night.<\/p>\n

\"Grand
Screenshot of Grand Hyatt Amman award pricing<\/em><\/enter><\/figure>\n

Related:<\/strong> 12 Best Hyatt redemptions under 12,000 points per night<\/a><\/p>\n

Once we reach Amman, we'd have achieved four continents (and visited six countries) for a total flight cost of just $2,133 each — including travel to two destinations we need to visit anyway, plus a visit to one of the jewels of the Middle East.<\/p>\n

Africa<\/span><\/h3>\n

Jordan borders Egypt — the entirety of which is considered part of Africa for this challenge — with affordable flights connecting the two. However, we need to fly Turkish Airlines through Istanbul to earn the African continent. And unfortunately, Turkish Airlines isn't competing on price on these routes. Pretty much every day costs more than $500 one-way, with some brutal flight times.<\/p>\n

\"Google
Screenshot of Google Flights<\/em><\/enter><\/figure>\n

Rather than book these expensive flights, we figured we would split up the trip. First, we'll fly from Amman (AMM) to Istanbul (IST) for just 7,500 Aeroplan points. After a few days of properly visiting Turkish Airlines' hub city, we booked a relatively cheap $269 one-way flight to Cairo (CAI) to check off the African continent — plus position for our last flights of the challenge.<\/p>\n

Oceania<\/span><\/h3>\n

There's only one eligible country listed in Turkish Airlines' (now-deleted) terms for the Oceania region: Australia. Turkish Airlines operates routes to Australia from Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. But, to count for this challenge, all flights must connect through Istanbul.<\/p>\n

Knowing this would be an expensive leg, we started by searching for the cheapest flight options to Australia from any region. The cheapest one-way option we could find was from Cairo (CAI) to either Sydney (SYD) or Melbourne (MEL). For our dates, Melbourne was the cheapest option.<\/p>\n

\"Turkish
Screenshot of Turkish Airlines<\/em><\/enter><\/figure>\n

Since this itinerary includes a whopping 20 hours on flights, we considered splurging for business class for around $2,400 each one-way. However, that would have made our final cost for completing this challenge a lot less impressive. We settled for economy for just $767 one-way.<\/p>\n

Speaking of the total cost…<\/p>\n

Our Total Cost and Earnings<\/span><\/h2>\n

In total, we are paying just over $3,100 per person to complete this challenge:<\/p>\n