Turkish Airlines has always had some fantastic Star Alliance redemptions, but this is quickly coming to an end next week. The Turkish Miles & Smiles award chart is going "kaboom" with some awards increasing nearly 100% in cost... Furthermore, Turkish seems to plan on pricing each flight segment separately, meaning a flight is no longer priced based on origin-destination, but now includes all the intermediaries along the way.
Let's just say this isn't looking great. This change is expected to take place within 1 week, meaning you have until February 14, 2024 to get the most out of your Capital One, Citi, and Bilt points.
Turkish Airlines' Old (Pre 02/14/2024) Award Sweet Spots
The Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles program has historically been known to be one of the best ways to maximize the value of your points/miles. With their published award charts, some savvy folks identified some high value "sweet spots" that allowed you to fly for insanely cheap (and these will only be around for about one more week):
- U.S. <> Europe business class 45k miles each way
- Intra U.S. economy travel (including to/from Alaska + Hawaii) 7.5k miles each way
- Intra U.S. business travel (including to/from Alaska + Hawaii) 12.5k miles each way
- U.S. <> Central Asia (e.g. Nepal, India) business class 52.5k miles each way
- U.S. <> South America (e.g. Aruba, Brazil, Turks & Caicos) business class 35k miles each way
This list definitely doesn't capture all of Turkish's amazing offerings, but these are some of the top ones available. It is worth noting that booking these flights is not easy as Turkish is known to have significant difficulties with showing availability parities between the website + phone agent support. Usually, you have to email in, but those exchanges can sometime takes weeks.
However, given the impending doom, it may be worth trying to wade through the Turkish Miles & Smiles water to try and score a booking before it's too late.
Turkish Airlines' New (Post 02/14/2024) Award "Sweet" Spots
If you navigate to the Turkish Miles & Smiles website now, you'll be greeted with an updated, prettier award chart. Unfortunately, while it looks pretty, it is not a good sight for our point wallets.
- U.S. <> Europe business class 45k miles each way → 85k miles each way (89% increase)
- Intra U.S. economy travel (including to/from Alaska + Hawaii) 7.5k miles each way → 10k miles each way (33% increase)
- Intra U.S. business travel (including to/from Alaska + Hawaii) 12.5k miles each way → 15k miles each way (20% increase)
- U.S. <> Central Asia (e.g. Nepal, India) business class 52.5k miles each way → 100k miles each way (90% increase)
- U.S. <> South America (e.g. Aruba, Brazil, Turks & Caicos) business class 35k miles each way → 50k miles each way (43% increase)
Safe to say this looks pretty ugly. This is an enormous devaluation for Turkish and really impacts the value of Capital One and Citi points, which don't really have many unique, valuable partners elsewhere (excluding EVA air?).
While intra U.S. travel is also getting devalued, being able to fly 10k miles one way to Alaska/Hawaii is still a fantastic deal. So, there are some "lights at the end of the tunnel" but for a lot of other options, award redemptions aren't looking great.
Does This Get Any Better?
Unfortunately, no. In the past, Turkish priced its award flights based on the origin and destination. Now, they released some new, 1+1 content to help you understand just how bad things are going to get.
From the website:
For flights departing from abroad - connecting in Türkiye – and arriving abroad, the sum of the Miles for flights arriving and departing from Türkiye is taken as the basis.
Which effectively means that they're going to price the sum of the segments required to fly in and from Turkey, even if your stop in Turkey is just a layover.
This also does not look great, suddenly increasing the price of awards once again.
What Does This Mean For Our Credit Card Points & Miles?
If this devaluation ends up going through, it's going to cause a huge rippling effect for the value of certain card's points and miles.
American Express
Chase
Capital One
Citi
Bilt
Does not transfer to Turkish
Does not transfer to Turkish
Transfers 1:1
Transfers 1:1
Transfers 1:1
In essence, mainly Capital One and Citi are going to take a huge hit because they don't have many other "unique" and valuable transfer partners that would make them stand out anymore. Capital One's key partners are all transferable from other programs (excluding TAP + EVA air, which are not considered the highest value redemption partners out there). Citi is in a similar boat. The loss of Turkish puts these two programs in awkward positions moving forward.
Conclusion
Turkish Airlines is set to introduce a massive devaluation that is going to have dire consequences. With rates going up by almost 90%, it's pivotal to start looking at how you can redeem your Turkish miles before it's too late. Folks with Capital One miles and Citi ThankYou points are set to lose the most here, as Turkish miles are extremely valuable (but no more after this expected devaluation). While nothing has been finalized by Turkish, these devaluations are in line with standard award pricing by other Star Alliance carriers.
