You can upgrade your flight with Miles, online now!
 

Email from TK today: "We are glad to make your life more comfortable. Now, you can easily and rapidly upgrade your cabin with Miles, through the manage booking tab, by using our website or mobile application!"

Shuly

It's nice to see TK trying, but with all things IT related these improvements need to be taken with a healthy dose of "will it actually work" skepticism...

Now if only a working version of the E+ upgrades could be implemented...

Already used this for a relative, took me less than 5 minutes to book and upgrade, all online.

Can I ask the benefit of upgrading a relative, instead of just booking them an award ticket?

While it is usually cheaper to book the Award instead of an upgrade (+ base fare to be upgraded) since the same amount of miles is needed, in some cases I'D choose the upgrade, too:

a.) Y-ticket might already have been issued by employer for corporate travel or been bought for vacation while price was low and no C availability at time of booking but fixed travel Dates

b.) miles for base fare might be needed (e.g. to reach Status), full Award = no miles, upgrade Award = miles for base fare

c.) different classes needed for Award vs. upgrade, so you might be able to upgrade even while no Award is available

d.) taxes + surcharges on some Awards might be more expansive than buying the economy ticket...

This is all true... for me or another member with status or serious interest in miles. But for a random relative?!?! I guess my family is just not that close. :D

Did you check if J fares are required to be upgraded? FYI, J fares are scare these days, let alone J fares which can be upgraded using E+ upgrade vouchers.

The link is here in case anyone didn't receive emails from TK

https://www.turkishairlines.com/en-i...siness-upgrade

Tricky one! You did the noble thing by offering your miles for this. Or swapping seats onboard so that you took the Y seat :eek:

A few more data points like this one - upgrading without J available - and this becomes a much more interesting option!

Did you book Y as in full fare Economy Class or just Economy Class? I advise not to use those acronyms unless you specifically mean full fare Y or J as in the booking class J used for upgrade space and not as an acronym for Business Class in general.

If only the could manage even to show the +vouchers attributed to my account, together with expiry date. That would be a revolutionary step forward for TK IT :)

The booking class was V.

Has anybody tried this with an OTA booking?

I'm thinking similar to the E+ upgrade certificates, but using miles. Book with a 24-hour refund policy, upgrade if possible... cancel if not...

It worked for one of my relatives. I was the one booking the ticket ( looking at J class availability first ) and then upgrading.
The process was successful.

Another data point...

Booked a TK flight using a USA-based OTA. E-ticket issued immediately.

Followed the process on the TK website to upgrade the booking using miles. It's quite obvious when managing your booking. It seemed a bit glitchy but actually the upgrade processed without any obvious confirmation. (until you end up back on the booking page and see Business Class instead of Economy)

The all-important pre-upgrade fare bucket information...

1. The one-way itinerary matching mine was only selling as K class on the TK website
2. J class was, however, available as part of a return booking
3. I class was also available at the time

I was also charged an extra 10 miles versus what the upgrade chart says. :confused:

Similar online experience yesterday
 

I had a very similar upgrade experience yesterday on the TK website. In my case, I purchase two one-way Q-fare tickets SKG-IST-BOS via the TK web-site. I then attempted to process the upgrade with miles from manage my bookings. After selecting the flights to upgrade, a window popped-up asking to either 'return to the previous step' or 'proceed to payment' (from my memory, not 100% exact wording). I clicked 'proceed' and that is when the web-site hung! I was thinking the worse, that miles would be deducted and no upgrade processed. I waited almost 3 minutes before deciding to hit the 'return to the previous step' button. The screen didn't initially show any upgrades, but when I logged-out and then logged back-in, I could see miles deducted (which I thought was fulfilling my initial fears), but then under the bookings it was clear both tickets were upgraded (J) with no change to the ticket number. Seat selection in business was also possible at that time.

The fare buckets before and after ugrade (based on EF):

Pre-upgrade:
SKG-IST-BOS J4 I4 (this was the same values on the individual segements as well)

Post-upgrade:
SKG-IST-BOS J4 I3

45,000 per ticket, as per the TK chart.

This SCARES me!!!

similar happens. My name was differently written by travel agent so whennupgrading, vouchers deducted but no upgrade processed since names not matching, vouchers vanished and it was a huuuuuge pain to resolve and took me local contacts to get rectified.

Yeah. TK.

Scared me too! Even though the end result was successful, I think I will phone the call center next time.

This is scary, however, you should have provided the travel agent your name on your passport and you should have been registered to M&S with your name on your passport.

Yep...this is scary. Did you call to apply your upgrade certs, or did you do it online? I have personally never done it online, so, curious to know as to what entails. P.S. Glad to know you got your certs back, even though it took some effort.

I'd say phone, but then, we all know the quality of TK reps. You may luck out and get a great one on your first try, but, you may have to HUACA multiple times: but, I guess it is still better than trying to work the 'BUGGY' website. I really hope they work these kinks out soon.

Upgraded a flight next year with the app and was surprised not to have any issues.

I understand at this time it's only possible to upgrade with miles. I wonder if they will ever introduce cash upgrades as well? This could be very beneficial for those who have to fly coach due to company rules. The only option at the moment is to do it at the airport during check-in.

You can also do it at the sales office. I did that multiple times in the past.

the website shows a cash option as well, it’s just not available. I think they will start pushing cash upgrades as well sometime soon.

However, it shouldn't be confused with the discounted paid upgrades offered at some outstations during check-in.
To clarify, the new ( potential ) website function and upgrades at sales offices via cash could only be made when paid for the actual fare difference.

True. However, the design of the website and the app gave me the impression that TK may push some promotional upgrade offers via the app later, similar to what US-based carriers have been offering.

IMO, it would be like American Airlines where directly the fare difference is requested.

It is a great new feature when it works. In the past month it never worked on all my bookings and I did my upgrades at last minute upon check in at the airport.
I was able to use it few days ago, for the first time, on a ticket that actually was issued by my company travel agency and in a couple of seconds I upgraded my flight.

Using Turkish miles to upgrade other 8A flights
 

How can I use Turkish miles to upgrade a *A flight booked on a partner (SA or UA etc)

Your ticket must be on full fare 'Y' or 'B' fare classes. If so you could do it online via the TK website.

So you say a for example Y booked flight on UA, I can request an upgrade with miles on the TK website?

From this link, yes:

Today, I upgraded my wife's flight using miles at a sales office. The app did not show any availability for an upgrade with miles. However, J-class was available. The sales office agent could process the upgrade, but confirmed that J-availability is no guarantee for an upgrade.

Does anyone have any experience with first upgrading a flight to business class and then downgrading again to economy? Is that possible and will I get the miles back? Is there any fee for that?
Reason: For one of my flights, the website offers to upgrade via miles, but not via ELPL voucher. I am tempted to do the upgrade now using miles, but should J availability appear later for the voucher upgrade, I would downgrade myself again, get the miles back and do the upgrade using voucher.
The T&Cs on the website are not very clear: https://www.turkishairlines.com/en-i...siness-upgrade
Any experiences would be appreciated ;)

If I'm not wrong, when you request a change ( and if applicable pay for the fare difference and change fee ) they refund you the miles back without any charge. However, I am not sure if they give the miles back when you simply don't want the upgrade anymore.

I have myself and my wife on a booking. An upgrade option shows on the app for 110,000 miles for both pax (2 x 55,000)
Whilst my wife has 64,000 on her account and I have 75,000 on my account neither of us have the required 110,000 to process the upgrade.
I visited a sales office and got the shrug of the shoulders to say that they cant process any upgrades and that I will have to do it at the airport.
It doesn't look possible to upgrade 1 pax at a time, it has to be both as on the booking.
Any suggestions around this? Its annoying to know we have the miles for an individual upgrade.