A bit more of a niche program than most, using Turkish miles to book your Star Alliance journey could be both frustrating and rewarding.

Updated December 9, 2025. A rather substantial devaluation hits, targeting domestic flights, especially those to and from Hawaii. We’ve subsequently removed domestic Hawaii flights from our list of sweet spots.

For this post, I’m not going to get into the details of the elite status aspect of the program and instead focus on the redemption side of the program.

Three bank programs transfer to Turkish miles

If you want to pad your balance of Turkish miles, you’ll want to transfer in points from Bilt, Capital One, or Citi. Each of those programs will transfer points at a 1:1 ratio. For years, Citi was the only bank with transfers available to Turkish, which added to the program’s relative obscurity. If you don’t believe me that only being a transfer partner of Citi means no one talks about you, there’s not much chatter about EVA miles…

Yes, everyone knows about you if you’re a transfer partner of Chase or American Express. But having Bilt and Capital One increases your firepower to quickly acquire those Turkish miles.

One thing to note is that while points transfer instantly from Capital One and Bilt, they can take up to a day from Citi. Plan accordingly.

Turkish award flights can be booked 355 days in advance

Just 10 days short of booking a full year in advance, you can book your Turkish award flights (with Turkish miles) 355 days in advance. We’re planners and love the ability to book flights as far out as possible. In general, booking far in advance is the best way we’ve found to get all the award seats we need. Without a doubt, having a couple of extra weeks to book flights before they become available with United Airlines miles helps.

Award cancelation fees are somewhat reasonable

If you want to cancel or change a flight booked with your Turkish miles, expect to pay $70. This isn’t the cheapest award program, but it’s certainly not the most expensive. It’s somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, which isn’t bad. After all, award tickets are more modifiable than tickets booked with cash. Getting a refund of miles after a change of heart or plans for a nominal fee is helpful.

But note that you must cancel before your flight is scheduled to depart or you’re out of luck.

A word of warning: anticipate frustration

This isn’t an award program for novices. If you haven’t gotten the hang of working through problems when things aren’t perfect or how to track down the right person, don’t start with Turkish. There is good value here but you’ll need to do some mining to unearth the gold.

The biggest issue is customer service, which comes into play when you’re looking to book partner awards and sometimes awards for others besides yourself. The website might not let you pay for your itinerary online, and that will force you to contact customer service. I’ve heard that it can be a challenge calling to book. It’s not necessarily because agents aren’t helpful, but it seems like they can’t see all availability the website shows.

So rather than call, you can try emailing, but they don’t let you know that your best odds are to email ticketing offices at specific airports to get that help. Of course, you can email them all and hope that someone responds (some don’t). Through word of mouth, I’ve heard the LAX office gets called out the most for being helpful. But expect this process to take time as email is slow and this can mean your preferred flight disappears before you can book it.

As I said, expect frustrations.

Stopovers, hotels, and tours are allowed with Turkish miles

If you’re booking a roundtrip award, you could book a stopover in Istanbul once. Of course, given the way the Turkish award program works, you’re not going to get any miles savings doing this. Instead, the real benefit is taking advantage of a free stopover hotel. So let’s talk about the different options available.

For avoidance of doubt, these options are available both on Turkish awards and with cash.

Free Touristanbul experience

If your layover in Istanbul is between 6 and 24 hours and flying Turkish Airlines, you are eligible for a free tour. To take advantage, you’ll need to head over to one of two Touristanbul desks at the airport or apply online. Either way, you’ll need to be at the desk 30 minutes before it’s scheduled to depart and you’ll want to be back at least 90 minutes before your next flight will leave.

These tours will include transportation (shuttle bus), an English-speaking tour guide, applicable meals, and museum fees. Even if your stay is lengthy, you can only sign up for one tour.

Free layover hotel

As an alternative to the tour, you could instead opt for a free transit hotel if your itinerary qualifies. While you might be tempted to always choose the hotel over the tour, the rules are a bit tougher.

• Economy passengers need a connection time of at least 12 hours. Business class passengers need a connection time of at least 9 hours.
• For the purposes of this definition, “connection time” doesn’t mean the flights you booked. It means the shortest theoretically-possible connection between your origin and destination on that day.
  • If there are multiple flights you could have taken after arriving in IST, the one that departs soonest after your arrival is the magic flight that determines if you qualify. That’s true even if the flight was fully booked when you bought your ticket.
• A maximum of two nights will be provided.
• You cannot take advantage of both the free tour and the free layover hotel.

The rules are tough to qualify, but if you do, just head over to the Hotel Desk at IST to discover what’s available.

Free stopover hotel

On a roundtrip itinerary with at least 20 hours in Istanbul? You might be eligible for a free stopover hotel if your travel started from the right country.

• Economy passengers get a one-night stay in a 4-star hotel, or a two-night stay if originating from the countries listed below.
• Business class passengers get a two-night stay in a 5-star or boutique hotel, or a three-night stay if originating from the countries listed below.
• These certain countries include: Australia, Canada, Chile, China Mainland (PVG, CAN, PEK) , Chinese Taipei, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, and the USA.

Award booked with Turkish miles are zone-based

Chart for flights operated by Turkish

One thing that stands out the most is that Turkish does what most programs used to do back in the day. It still maintains the ability to book the last available seat on a plane with a reasonable number of miles. Sure, paying 135,000 miles for a one-way business class flight between North America and Türkiye isn’t attractive straight up. But it’s far better than what other programs charge for the last seat on the plane (ahem, Delta).

Star Alliance award chart

Wanting to book a flight on Star Alliance partners with your Turkish miles? Below are the award charts that apply. Unfortunately, Turkish has devalued many of these awards but the best value will be for flights that are considered domestic. Below are the rates for international flights between two countries.

Domestic flights have now suffered a massive devaluation

Let’s start by showing the old rates that are no longer available. You’d find some pretty awesome value if using this to fly United Airlines, especially, within the United States. In particular, it was a great way to get to and from Hawaii.

But look at what happened to the rates. We start with the rates for most domestic flights, not just within the US but for travel wholly within any country:

All pricing is jumping up a massive 50% in points required. To be fair, getting a flight in United’s transcontinental business class at 22,500 points one-way is still a great price. It’s not quite as phenomenal as before, but it’s still a good value.

But Turkish also introduced a new award chart for domestic flights that touch Hawaii:

Now, if you want to fly United business class to Hawaii, the price skyrockets from 15,000 Turkish miles to 40,000(!) — that’s well over a 150% increase in price. Economy jumps 150% to 25,000 miles. Is it still a good price? We’d say not good enough to go out of your way to engage with the program. The difficulty of dealing with Turkish Airlines customer service will no longer be worth the effort for some.

What are the sweet spots?

Booking the last available seat on Turkish using miles

I’ve mentioned it elsewhere in this post but it bears repeating. Booking the last available seat with a reasonable price enables you to get excellent value for your points.

North America to India for as few as 100,000 miles in business class

If you’re flying to India, there can be great value if you happen into saver awards on Turkish for the journey. Ringing up at just 100,000 miles per person, it’s a reasonable price for flying halfway around the world. Prices will jump up to 185,000 miles per person if saver awards are not available.

Flights between the Maldives and East Asia in business class

Turkish doesn’t give as good a value going to the Maldives from North America. That’s because they classify the Maldives as “Far East”.

But what that does mean is you’ll find good value flying between the Maldives and, say, Tokyo. Flights will cost you just 35,000 miles in economy or 50,000 miles in business. Of course, flying Air India’s business class isn’t exactly an aspirational experience, but it’s better than flying economy.

We love visiting the Maldives and finding affordable pricing to get there helps offset the high cash price that always comes along with staying there. This particular routing appeals to us because we love stopping off in Asia along the way to extend the trip.

Domestic business United flights for less than United charges

Why overpay for the same flight? It can be challenging these days finding reasonable pricing for domestic flights on United given how common variable award pricing is. So it’s refreshing to find fixed awards that offer great value. For most living in the United States, this might be the single best use of your Turkish miles.

Previously, we would have considered flights in all cabins to be worth the hassle of using Turkish miles. With the devaluation, we’re thinking it’s best to just stick to business class flights on long routes. If you can find the transcon flights available, take them in a heartbeat. But, realistically speaking, you might struggle to find the saver award space.

The cheapest price for Hawaii — No longer a sweet spot with the December 2025 devaluation

I have to point out that it will be tough to find saver award space to and from Hawaii. It’s an extremely popular destination within the United States. This is even more true for business class flights, which might be considered a unicorn at this point. Book in advance and continue to monitor for award space.

If you do find award space, paying 10,000 miles one way for economy isn’t that bad of a deal and much less than what United charges for the same flight (17,700 miles). And if you’re one of the lucky ones who found business class award space, paying 15,000 miles for the route is an absolute steal. Yes, for less than what United charges in economy, you could be flying up in the front of the plane. If only we were so lucky as to find plentiful award space on the route…

And before you ask, USA to Guam is not considered a domestic flight.

Infant awards are 10% of the points price

Back when we flew internationally with an infant, we ended up sometimes paying a pretty penny to allow our child to sit in our lap. Without getting into the debate on the safety of the lap child, I can say it sometimes got expensive.

With most airlines, you would be forced to pay 10% of the cash price of the ticket. Say you found a flight for 75,000 miles in business class one-way. But if you want to bring your lap infant, you’d have to pay 10% of the cash fare, which could be thousands of dollars. A one-way flight is painfully priced high, and you might pay less if doing a roundtrip, but it’s still quite a dent. I’d say the rough average of what we paid for an infant was around $600 for the ticket.

Turkish Miles & Smiles, on the other hand, charges 10% of the price in miles. That makes it an effective use of points if you’re looking to bring along a little one with you on the trip. In theory, you could potentially book the award online, but don’t be surprised if you need to contact customer service if that fails. And remember that you need to successfully book an award ticket for yourself before unlocking the ability to book for others (including a lap infant).

How to Best Search for Availability?

The most obvious answer is to use the Turkish Airlines website to book your award flights. The site does a decent job at showing you award space in large part because you can book all the way up to the last seat on the plane with points. That means as long as a seat is available with cash, you’ll find award availability on that flight. If you’re looking for a flight on Turkish, this is probably your best bet.

But what about a flight that involves their Star Alliance partners? I’d probably suggest looking at the United Airlines website given the calendar feature or the Air Canada website if you’re looking for United flights. There unfortunately isn’t a useful calendar feature on the Turkish site, making it tougher if you’re fishing availability over a wide range of dates.

Another consideration is using the free Bilt point.me tool to help search for awards.

Do Miles Expire?

Yes, after 36 months. If you want to extend the validity of your miles, the only way to do it is to pay $20US per 1,000 Turkish miles. The miles would then be valid for another 36 months and they could be further extended if needed. You must extend them before they expire or you’re out of luck.

Of course, this is certainly considered expensive (you’re paying 2 cents per mile just to keep them valid). You should only move in the correct number of miles needed to book your award. If you do come across an instance where miles will expire, some might it cheaper to instead sacrifice those miles and transfer in new ones if the cost of acquiring miles is cheaper than 2 cents each.

Suggested reading:

• Destinations we’ve visited
• How to Travel with Kids
• How to Book Award Travel Like a Pro