DC to Ankara Help
 

Hi everyone.

I'm planning a trip from Washington, DC to Ankara, Turkey in August. I wanted to depart around August 7th and return around August 14th via economy saver level. Using United miles I've easily been able to find flights available for the departing flight, but the return flight is proving to be quite a challenge.

With the United and ANA search tools, I haven't been able to find any economy saver level flights several days before or after the 14th. Any tips? Help would be greatly appreciated! My preference was Star Alliance, but I have other points available.

UA: 130,000
AA: 70,000
SPG: 42,00
BA: 20,000

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

If you can get to IST for your return trip, I would search united.com for IST-WAS Saver space.

If you want to use your AA/BA miles, I would explore the cost of a cash flight on Germanwings or Pegasys ESB-TXL/DUS, and then redeem either AA miles or BA Avios for DUS/TXL-JFK/ORD/MIA-WAS.

You can get from Ankara to Istanbul via a paid positioning flight on Pegasus for under $50 (right now there are some for under $30 for that date - go straight to their website). You would have to transit from SAW to IST but I would imagine that you could do it fairly cheaply if you take a shuttle into the city and then the metro to IST. Other FTers can give you more precise information on that I suspect.

Thank you for the suggestions

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

"You would have to transit from SAW to IST but I would imagine that you could do it fairly cheaply if you take a shuttle into the city and then the metro to IST."

The OP might not even have to transit from SAW to IST. TK flies to several European cities from SAW. ;)