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One of the best airline sweet spots just unceremoniously killed off this week. Before this month, travelers could book United Airlines awards to Hawaii for just 10,000 Turkish Miles&Smiles miles each way. Those awards now cost 25,000 miles each way — a 150% increase overnight.
AwardWallet first caught this change on Tuesday, December 2. However, Turkish Airlines has a habit of updating its award chart before it implements new award pricing. So, we've been continually checking award pricing to Hawaii in hopes of finding the old award pricing. However, all Turkish Airlines award searches have errored out since the airline updated its award chart.
With that caveat, here's what to know about Miles&Smiles' brutal award chart changes.
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Turkish Miles&Smiles Hawaii Award Chart History
Before this week's change, Turkish Airlines priced all U.S. domestic flights the same. Whether you were flying a short 1-hour hop from Los Angeles (LAX) to Las Vegas (LAS) or flying 9 hours from Houston (IAH) to Honolulu (HNL), the rate was just 10,000 miles each way.
This rate was a slight increase from the even more appealing 7,500-mile rate offered for many years and up through an early 2024 devaluation:
Even after the 33% jump from 7,500 to 10,000 miles, this remained one of the best sweet spots in award travel. Sadly, it is no more.
Related: From Maldives in Qatar Qsuite to Sydney in First: My 9 Best Mileage Redemptions of 2024
Turkish Miles&Smiles New Hawaii Award Chart
Now, it seems Turkish Airlines has finally realized how good a deal this was. Miles&Smiles has now tweaked its intra-country award chart and added a new chart specifically for domestic flights to/from Hawaii.
The revised “OW Domestic Flights” award chart is applicable for all domestic awards within the same country — whether that's within the U.S. or wholly within another country. The award rate for each cabin increased by 50%:
| Star Alliance Domestic Flights | Price prior to December 2025 | Price effective December 2025 | % Increase |
|---|---|---|---|
| Economy | 10,000 | 15,000 | 50% |
| Business | 15,000 | 22,500 | 50% |
| First Class | 20,000 | 30,000 | 50% |
The new “OW Hawaii Domestic Flights” chart is specifically for partner airline flights from/to Hawaii. When you compare these new rates with the prior chart, prices have effectively increased by 150% or more:
| Star Alliance Domestic Flights | Price prior to December 2025 | Price effective December 2025 | % Increase |
|---|---|---|---|
| Economy | 10,000 | 25,000 | 150% |
| Business | 15,000 | 40,000 | 167% |
| First Class | 20,000 | 50,000 | 150% |
What Hasn't Changed About the Miles&Smiles Award Chart
The new award chart for Hawaii flights is the only change to Turkish's award charts — at least so far. That still leaves plenty of solid Turkish Airlines sweet spots, including flying from the U.S. to Istanbul for 65,000 miles each way in business class. Even the 13-hour flight from Los Angeles (LAX) to Istanbul (IST) prices at this excellent rate:
Related: How I Stacked Two Credit Card Bonuses to Fly Turkish Business Class for $0 Out of Pocket
If this sounds good, I wouldn't sleep on any Turkish Airlines sweet spots. Over the past couple of years, Turkish Airlines has repeatedly shown that it will devalue award charts without notice.
If you're looking for ways to top off your Miles&Smiles account, here are the current transfer partners and rates:
Bottom Line
Miles&Smiles just quietly killed off one of the best sweet spots in award travel. The ability to fly from anywhere in the U.S. to Hawaii for just 10,000 miles was a deal that seemed too good to be true. Sure, award availability was hard to find. And Turkish Airlines' policies can make it extremely hard to book partner awards. However, this sweet spot was worth taking advantage of for those who didn't mind jumping through hoops.
The timing of this devaluation is suspect. Just a few weeks ago, Turkish Airlines deposited a million bonus miles into seemingly hundreds of Miles&Smiles accounts. Ever since my miles posted, I've been trying to use a chunk of them to book a trip to Hawaii for my sister's family. But Turkish Airlines' online award search tool has continually errored out when searching for flights to Hawaii. (And it still is.)
It seems the airline is looking for more ways to reduce its loyalty program liabilities. So, we won't be surprised to see further no-notice devaluations coming from Miles&Smiles. Act now if you want to take advantage of current rates.
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