italdesign

I haven't looked at TK TATL award availability for a while, but before it became a transferable currency partner it used to be among the most reliable for J. I had a look at next year, throughout the year, from LAX and ATL to Paris and IST in both directions. All I see is 100k+ one-way's. I see nothing at the saver level in J. Has it completely evaporated?

gr8pirate

LAX you can pretty much forget about - I booking class (business ‘saver’) just doesn’t exist. Am hoping, but not holding my breath, that this will improve with the added flights next June.

There’s much more hope with TK destinations/origins not on the West Coast. Do you have an Expertflyer subscription?

craigthemif

EF isn't the best recommendation for TK. People misuse / misunderstand it all of the time, especially when TK are so big on married segments.

max_kolesne

There are usually some available dates on IST-JFK-IST

gr8pirate

True, but what else would you recommend?

craigthemif

There's nothing wrong with using it for alerts, as long as step 2 isn't starting a new Flyertalk thread "I can't book what EF says is available"


I also use the United calendar search tool far more than any other *A ffp, but I'm happy to spend 10 minutes of my day running through a handful of manual searches whilst others aren't...

ISTFlyer

They don't open US availability for Business Saver in advance as they know that people who prefer not to fly in Economy would pay for a paid-Business ticket. At least this is true for %90 of people who do not want fly Economy on a 10h+ flight. And most of these people buy their tickets in advance.

Availability generally opens 7-30 days before the flight. Believe me or not, I have helped a family member upgrade on the IST-LAX route, 4 days before departure via the website upgrade tool while there was no 'J' availability since the flight was booked until that day.

italdesign

This did not used to be the case. I found almost endless advance availability to Chicago, Atlanta, etc in years prior for summer and fall. There was more availability to M&S members than *A, but there were still availability released to *A, while now I see nothing even when logged into my M&S account.

ISTFlyer

Yes, this was not the case before 2017. However, TK is not stupid to open I-fare-class availability on transatlantic routes where now LOT is the only carrier that you could find saver-availability in advance.

Lufthansa, Swiss, Brussels Airlines, Austrian, United does not open saver availability in Business for transatlantic routes except mileage bargains ( I don't know about Air Canada ) in advance unless it's ultra-low-season on that route so why should TK open availability. The reason LOT opening availability is that they want to attract more customers while they are trying to grow up.

johnirvine

In my experience, it has been extremely difficult, if not impossible, to obtain standard I class business award bookings on intercontinental flights over the past year. However, availability on upgrade award J is normally much better - for example, I booked a J class upgrade itinerary TXL-IST-MIA return this week on my chosen dates. The cost of a cheap economy return is rarely much more than the taxes on an I class award ticket so you do not lose much through this approach and indeed gain mileage.

In booking award upgrade J tickets, it is by far preferable to do this via a THY outstation office where the staff know you. I have lost count of the times that helpful local staff (who recognize me) have secured J award space through e-mail requests for a 'special passenger' when it was otherwise not available. Booking J class award tickets has proved extremely difficult for me via both the internet and the THY call centre.

LH4116

NYC, LAX, IAH, SFO is more or less gone.

MIA can be found on some dates, and the same goes for ATL. Award availability is still there but there are far fewer seats available now than there were just a few years ago.

Personally I don't see much value in spending my miles on TK metal when the taxes and fuel surcharges are so high. Much better to upgrade cheap Economy tickets with my Elite Plus vouchers for the same price in cash but zero miles.

johnirvine

Of course, using upgrade awards is a no-brainer but this allows only one return trip. For me, paying €530 taxes and fees to MIA is a good bargain especially if you book in Q class which gives 100% miles. FFP award booking logic depends on how much you fly and what mileage you collect.

northwestair

I checked in September 20202 from ORD to IST many days available. I only do TATL from IST to GRU almost always I can get an I seat if it is 6 months out plus or minus a few days. Booking an upgrade in J seems to be the easiet, especially with the taxes and fuel surchrges being so high with TK.

vincewy

Add YYZ to the list, pretty much nil. YUL is scarce too. Even revenue J (needed for upgrades) is scarce, to a point I have to play around with married segments and make a turnaround at third destination even if I just want to go to IST.

These days I'm pretty much using miles for family members traveling between Asia and Europe.

gr8pirate

I’ve been getting value out of my miles with long haul upgrades, but also intra-European J award tickets with TK via IST. Not the fastest way to travel, but cheap and comfortable compared to buying Y tickets on short notice.

Also: I hope I’ll never need to make use of it, but I perceive the ~100k guaranteed awards as wonderful to have for an emergency.