milemantis

In general is it more value to use my miles on my home FF program (i.e. Turkish Miles & Smiles; currently 70k Miles and Classic Plus status till 2023) or should I be exploring using them on Star Alliance partners as well? I am not very picky about the destinations i.e. it's not a particular city that I want to visit. For buying Star Alliance (non Turkish Airlines) routes using miles do I have to do this via the phone call center or is there a way to do this online as well?

Also, I see that the miles usage is only 2x more for Business than Economy. If I were a fare paying passenger this is typically 3x to 5x I feel. So in that sense is it always a better deal (relatively) to use miles for business than economy purchases?

Also, is it worth purchasing business directly using miles or to purchase a regular economy ticket and then use miles just to upgrade class (based on availability).

Finally, I see that the number of miles needed is sort of a flat rate agnostic to exact date and most destinations seem to be in certain bands (e.g. all of EU is approx. 30k miles for me with home airport BOM and connecting via IST). So are there any particular destinations which tend to be expensive to buy usually but relatively cheap using miles?

Since my miles don't expire till end of 2021 (TK recently extended the expiry) is it worthwhile waiting i.e. are there offers on miles from time to time that make them go further? Or not really?

craigthemif

The only relevant non-TK use of TK miles is for partners that don't have fuel surcharges. (not a long list) Sometimes you can book online. More often a lot of work is required - highly motivated and experienced members only...

Spending TK miles to upgrade TK flights costs the same as booking an award ticket in Business Class, so you only really want to do that in certain specific situations.

Most of the time, I just spend TK miles to book Business Class award flights on TK. The surcharges are reasonable enough such that the convenience and generally exellent TK hard/soft product make this work for me.

Maux

The best use of Turkish Miles is to buy business class award tickets.
There are good possibilities to buy economy class tickets with partners. One of the best for me is e.g, HNL-MXP via SFO and MUC/FRA ecc. paying 30.000 miles and only 5 dollars

milemantis

Wow! That sounds pretty awesome. Which airlines did you use for that and did you book online or via the Turkish call center?

milemantis

Are there special offers that get you business class awards for less miles etc.? Or is it all pretty much the same so no point waiting for a good deal etc.

craigthemif

TK used to do discounts on awards to/from specific destinations, even in J. However, they worked best to/from IST, rather than with a European connection that could screw up the whole discount calculations.

But until things are completely back to normal and TK really needs to fill some airplanes, we won't see those discounts.

Maux

No, you can do it on the turkish website:
Miles transactions ----> Star alliance award ticket

I was wrong with the stopovers. Only one in EWR

ISTFlyer

Exactly, pre-COVID, there were always award & upgrade discounts to specific destinations ( mostly secondary and not popular ones ), however, they were limited to TK flights.

craigthemif

That would appear to be a layover - i.e. less than 24 hours in EWR. The distinction between layover and stopover is VERY important with TK award tickets (and most other ffps) ...

Jaenks

There was -30% redemption discount for business class flights in December 2020. My friend booked from Europe to Mexico. TK has been doing this -30% promo during the last few years. Same promo is expected in December 2021.

ISTFlyer

As a datapoint, the 30% promo in December was released 2-3 days after they extended the validity of miles expiring in December 2020. If TK is serious this time about miles expiring in 2021, IMO, they would definitely wait for people to book tickets with the standard rates and release the promo after miles have expired.

Jaenks

Not agree. TK released the promo after extension, that members can use extended miles with discount. That was an awesome timing and showing that they do care. Now, in the end of the year, they may or may not extend the miles again, depending the travel recovery but the heavily discounted promo will be in December if at all. In December 2020, TK announced three weeks ahead the extension, now a week. Plenty of time to book and it is worth to pay the cancellation fee when no schedule change has been occured.

milemantis

I got an email just a few days ago saying they have again extended expiry to end of 2021. Maybe a discount will follow?

ivanwmc

Is there a list of airlines who don't 'carrier imposed surcharge' (YQ/YR) their economy (X), business (I) (and first class (O)?) award tickets when booked with M&S bonus miles?

source:
United Airlines (UA)
Avianca (AV)
Singapore Airlines (SQ, only X available to M&S)
Ethiopian Airlines (ET)?

Any more?