Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles 30% off Awards Sale: Business Class to Europe for 31.5K miles

Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles has just launched a 30% off awards sale, which is valid for one-way or round-trip Economy or Business Class flights on Turkish Airlines. 

This makes the program’s sweet spot to Europe even sweeter, but the key problem lies with the travel period- you have to travel by 15 June 2021.

Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles 30% off awards

Here’s the key details of the Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles award sale:

• Booking period: 7-31 December 2020
• Travel period: 7 December 2020 to 15 June 2021 (blackout: 25 March 2021 to 26 April 2021 for international flights)
• Applicable carriers: Turkish Airlines only
• Award types: One-way or Round-trip

Award tickets booked under this promotion are refundable with the usual US$25 refund fee. 

Changes are also permitted, provided they are done within the timelines shown above. For example, I can make changes to promotional award tickets up till 31 December 2020 while keeping the same 30% off discount. If I make changes after 31 December 2020, I’ll need to top-up the miles to the usual rates. 

The discount will be automatically reflected when you search for awards using Turkish’s website. As the screenshot below shows, a one-way ticket from Singapore to Frankfurt in Business Class normally costs 45,000 miles; but with the 30% off it becomes 31,500 miles. 

The full T&C of this offer can be found below:

How much do Miles&Smiles awards cost?

Turkish Airlines uses a zone-based award chart, which is identical for Star Alliance and Turkish Airlines award redemptions. Since travel must be on Turkish Airlines, I’m only going to show the zone pairings that make sense (e.g no Oceania).

These are some very competitive rates indeed; for context, KrisFlyer would charge you 92,000 and 95,000-99,000 miles for a one-way Business Class award to Europe and North America respectively. To put it another way, you could fly to Europe 1.5 times with Turkish Airlines for the same number of miles you’d need with Singapore Airlines!

There’s one caveat though- KrisFlyer does not impose fuel surcharges on Singapore Airlines flights, while Miles&Smiles will add them to Turkish Airlines flights. These can be quite hefty, as the table below shows:

For a round-trip flight between Singapore and Europe, you’d have to pay almost S$700 in fuel surcharges, on top of airport/government taxes. While I’d say the miles you save more than justify that, it’s still worth taking note of. 

Travel dates will be an issue

While 63,000/94,500 miles round-trip Business Class to Europe/USA sounds amazing, the timeline is going to prove problematic.

Travel must be completed by 15 June 2021, and even though we’re seeing COVID-19 vaccines start to be rolled out worldwide, you’d have to be a brave man to bet on leisure travel opening up to Europe/USA by then. Realistically speaking, I’d be happy enough if the Hong Kong ATB were a regular thing by June 2021, much less long-haul travel. 

Which cards support transfers to Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles?

If you’re looking to earn Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles miles, the only bank in Singapore which offers transfers is Citibank. 

	Citi Miles	ThankYou Points
	1:1	5:2
Ratio refers to bank points: miles. For a full list of transfer partners by bank, refer to this post

Points can be transferred to Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles at the same ratio as any of its other frequent flyer partners, with a transfer fee of S$26.75 applicable. 

Conclusion

There are some excellent award opportunities available with this sale, but it’s unlikely that we in Singapore will be able to take advantage of it. Our best bet for travel in the next 6 months is Oceania/East Asia, neither of which lends itself to a Turkish Airlines routing.

That said, if you need to travel for essential reasons on your own dime, it’s still worth being aware of. 

(HT: Loyalty Lobby)