GUIDE: How to Earn and Spend Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles: The Best Value Options

There are still some great earning and redemption opportunities with Turkish Airlines miles (despite the 2024 devaluation), particularly for non-stop redemptions and routes where taxes remain low. While flying Turkish is the obvious way to earn and redeem miles, the programme offers many more options than you may realise. From credit card transfers and hotel partnerships to Star Alliance flights and cabin upgrades, there are hundreds of ways to earn and spend your miles.

But which redemptions are worth spending your hard-earned balance, and which are best avoided? Here’s everything you need to know.

Make sure you also read part 1 of this article, which goes into detail about the Miles&Smiles status levels and how the loyalty programme works.

Earning Miles with Turkish Airlines

Flying is the most obvious way to earn miles (but not the only option). The number of miles you’ll earn depends on:

• Fare Class
• Miles&Smiles Status (International Business flights only)
• Flight Distance (International flights only)

Interestingly, Miles&Smiles only rewards elite status holders with bonus miles when flying international Business Class. Most airline loyalty schemes offer mileage bonuses to elites, no matter the cabin. So, if you tend to fly short-haul Business or long-haul Economy, don’t expect any extra miles just for holding status.

If you’re a regular international Business flyer, this won’t be a problem, but it’s worth knowing before you commit to crediting your flights to Turkish.

Flying with Turkish Airlines

Domestic flights within Türkiye: Miles are fixed based on fare class, no matter your tier:

• Economy: 150 to 600 miles

• Business: 1,000 to 1,250 miles per flight

For international flights in Economy, earnings vary by fare: 

• Full-fare Economy earns 125%, with a minimum of 1,250 miles
• Discounted Economy earns 50% (min. 500 miles)
• Promotional Economy earns just 25%, with a minimum of 250 miles

International Business Class: 

• Classic members earn 135% to 150% of miles flown, with a minimum of 1,350–1,500 miles

• Elite/Elite Plus boost that to 160%–175%, with a floor of 1,600–1,750 miles

For example, the number of miles earned on a flight from Heathrow to Istanbul varies hugely depending on your status and cabin class:

If you’re wondering, Promotional Miles in the Miles&Smiles programme are bonus miles awarded on top of standard flight miles, based on your elite status level.

You can use the Turkish Airlines miles calculator to see how many miles you may earn for your flight.

Flights with Partner Airlines

You can also earn Miles&Smiles miles when flying with any Star Alliance airline, simply by adding your TK membership number to the booking. You can read more about the airlines in the Star Alliance in our airline alliances guide.

Flights with partner airlines are based on fare class and distance. Earning varies by airline, and some fare classes earn zero miles (especially in Discounted Economy). Each partner airline has a separate earning chart, which is available to view on the Turkish Airlines website.

Here are some examples:

Flying with Non-Alliance Partners

Turkish Airlines has a handful of non‑Star Alliance airline partners where you can still earn (and occasionally redeem) Miles&Smiles miles. These include:

Here’s an example of the miles you would earn when flying with Olympic Air:

Credit Card and Bank Account Points Transfers

Turkish Airlines does not have a branded credit card available in the UK. I hope there will be one rolled out in the future, as there is already one in the US. Despite this, a range of UK credit cards allow you to convert points into Miles&Smiles miles, including:

• American Express Membership Rewards Points (2:1)

• HSBC Premier (2:1)

• Revolut RevPoints (1:1)

• Marriott Bonvoy (3:1 + 5,000 bonus per 60,000 points)

Always confirm availability first before transferring any credit card points. Transfers are one-way and can’t be reversed.

Miles&Smiles as Your Earning Choice for Hotel Stays + Converting Hotel Points into Miles

You can earn miles by either:

• Crediting stays to Turkish (via your hotel loyalty profile), or

• Transferring hotel points into TK miles

Most lists you’ll find online are extremely outdated.

• Marriott: You can set your account to earn Turkish Airlines miles directly: 1-2 miles per $1, depending on the brand. In most cases, it’s better to earn Bonvoy points and then transfer them to Miles&Smiles.
• IHG One Rewards: Choose Turkish Airlines as your earning preference in your IHG profile (direct transfers are not permitted) and earn 1-2 miles per $1 depending on the brand.
• Wyndham Hotels & Resorts: 1-2 miles per $1, depending on your status level. You can also transfer points at a 1:1 ratio, with 6,000 Wyndham points equal to 1,200 Miles&Smiles miles.
• Hilton: Automatically convert Hilton Points to Miles&Smiles miles.

Some Turkish hotel brands offer up to 25,000 miles for a stay. You can view the full list here.

You can earn with the following:

• Booking.com: Use Turkish’s branded versions of these platforms and earn 2 miles per €1 spent. 
• Turkish Airlines Holidays: Now available in the UK! 1,000 miles per 10,000 TRY (approx £183.40) spent on your holiday packages. With the current promotion, you can earn up to 100,000 miles!
• Royal Caribbean: 2 miles per €1 spent
• Get Your Guide:  2 Miles per €1 spent

There are also plenty of other, less-used or Türkiye-based options.

You can also earn up to 500 miles per stay at a variety of Turkish hotel brands.

Car Rental

Like many airline loyalty programmes, Turkish has partnered with a range of car rental providers, but they all offer varying mileage rewards. Here’s a quick look at what you can expect:

• Avis: Up to 4,000 miles depending on the number of days you hire for + 35% Discount in Türkiye

• Budget: Up to 2,500 miles:

• Sixt: 500 miles per rental. Discounts depending on TK status level.
• Hertz: Up to 1,000 miles, depending on the length of rental
• Enterprise: Up to 4,500 miles in for Türkiye rentals and 500 internationally.
• Alamo: Up to 1,000 miles per rental in North America or Europe
• National: Up to 1,000 miles per rental in the US and Europe

When crediting to Turkish Miles&Smiles, you won’t earn points within the car hire company’s loyalty programme. Avis is the best deal here, especially if you’re renting a car in Türkiye. Enterprise, Alamo and National offer up to 1,000 miles, but check if crediting to a hotel or another airline programme might give you better value.

Other Ways to Earn Miles with Turkish Airlines

• Bicester Collection: 1 Mile per £1 spent.
• You&Friends: Invite friends and earn up to 2,500 miles
• Your First Flight: 1,000 miles
• Smiling Doctors: 5,000 bonus miles after your first qualifying flight and 1,000 miles each year on 14th March, provided you’ve flown with TK that year.

Spending Miles with Turkish Airlines

You can still get plenty of value from Turkish Airlines miles. Turkish continues to offer standout Business Class rates and comparatively low taxes. There are many ways to spend your miles, from cabin redemptions and award tricks to taxes, upgrades, and partner redemptions across the Star Alliance network.

Flight Redemptions

To view rates, log in to your account and click on spend miles when searching for a flight.

You’ll need to log in and select ‘Award Ticket’ from the dropdown menu next to your name to start redeeming. From there, you can toggle between Promotional and Regular awards, or switch to Star Award Ticket to access partner airlines.

Be warned: the booking engine can be painfully slow for some routes, and availability may not always reflect what’s shown on other Star Alliance sites. Sometimes it’s quicker to call.

Here is the current flight redemption cost table:

Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles provides two distinct levels of award availability on Turkish-operated flights: Regular Award Tickets (the saver fare) and Promotional Award Tickets (the regular fare). Turkish also regularly runs targeted Miles discount campaigns, offering up to 30% off promo awards on selected routes. Despite many airlines moving to a revenue-based model, some great value redemptions are still available. 

When booking a cash flight, you can also pay for your flight with up to 50% miles.

Some great value Business options include:

• Istanbul to South Asia at the promotional fare of 50,000 miles (promo) and 60,000 (Standard)
• Europe to the Middle East at 28,000 Miles (promotional) and 45,000 miles (regular) 
• Domestic flights in Türkiye starting at 15,000 miles one way
• North America to Türkiye for 65,000 miles one way (promotional) 

One of the best value tricks to get a good redemption is to find long segments. TK charges redemptions per segment. For example, 

While this can work out similarly if you’re booking two short segments, you can get better value by booking one long segment, such as a flight from the US to Istanbul. 

Here’s an example of the pricing from London to Istanbul vs London to Bangkok (2 segments):

Cancellations and Refunds

You can cancel or change award tickets for a $70 (approx £52.11) fee each way on international flights, or TRY 150 (approx £2.75) for domestic bookings.

Fuel Surcharges and Air Passenger Duty

When deciding whether your flight is good value, you need to take carrier-imposed charges into account. These fees can add a noticeable cash element to your redemption. Flights departing from British airports also attract Air Passenger Duty, whether you pay with cash or miles. However, fuel surcharges with TK are modest compared to those of many other Star Alliance airlines, although they are always passed on.

Partner airline surcharges can vary widely. For example, Lufthansa Group flights often come with high taxes and fees, whereas flying with United or LOT typically incurs much lower surcharges.

Other Things to Note When Booking Award Flights

• Turkish allows open-jaw itineraries (e.g., flying from Istanbul to Berlin outbound and returning from Hamburg to Istanbul), but only once per round-trip. 
• You can upgrade Turkish-operated award tickets using either miles or vouchers.
• An airport can’t appear more than once on the same directional leg. So you can’t backtrack or route through the same hub twice.
• One-way redemptions can’t include stopovers. Turkish defines this as any layover longer than 24 hours. If your planned routing involves an overnight or extended wait, you’ll need to book it as a separate ticket.

Cabin Upgrades

With TK, Cabin Upgrades are one of the best ways to redeem miles. Here’s the current redemption table:

Elite Plus members receive x2 cabin upgrades per year. This can be on paid or award tickets. You can read more about this in part 1.

Last Minute Upgrades

There are also last-minute upgrades available. Upgrade your ticket to Business Class by using Miles or a voucher upgrade within the last 24 hours before the flight, subject to availability.

Redeeming a Flight with Another Star Alliance Airline

Due to the devaluation, you can often get better value booking via Star Alliance partners.

Flat per-destination pricing, not segment-based like Turkish-operated awards. Each airline has its own unique award pricing and redemption rates. You can view the redemption table here.

To start a search, log into your Miles&Smiles account and head to the “Miles Transactions” section under your profile. From there, look for the Star Alliance Award Ticket option—this brings up a dedicated booking engine that mirrors the one used for Turkish-operated flights, but with “Star Award Ticket” at the top.

Availability can be hit and miss. Even if a partner like United shows award space via Aeroplan or LifeMiles, it may not always appear on the Turkish website. In these cases, you may need to call Turkish Airlines to book over the phone. The website often has errors, especially when booking partner redemptions.

Award tickets can be reissued and refunded within one year from the original ticket issuance date, without any limitation on the flight date.

Getting the Best Value:

Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles can still offer excellent redemption rates, particularly on long-haul non-stop flights and well-priced partner awards, as long as fuel surcharges are factored in. Here are some great value partner redemption options:

• Flights within the same country often offer excellent value for money. For example, United operated routes from North America to Hawaii for 15,000 miles in Business class one way, with no fuel surcharges.
• Swiss and Austrian long-haul Business Class from 90,000 miles, although a large fuel surcharge.
• Europe 2 to the Far East (e.g. Frankfurt to Bangkok) – 1 way from 90,000 miles in Thai Airways Business or ANA Heathrow to Tokyo for 90,000 miles.

Flight Extras

You can also opt to spend miles on a variety of flight extras, including:

• Baggage 
• Seat selection and extra legroom
• Sports equipment
• Taxes on your award ticket – a rarity! 
• Turkish Airlines one-off lounge access
• Hold the price of your flight with miles

Shop&Miles

The shop benefits from the presence of numerous UK retailers. 1,000 miles is usually equal to £5. This often offers poor value, but it can be useful in some cases, especially if your miles will soon expire.

Miles Purchases

As with most airline loyalty programmes, there’s the option to purchase miles, which can be spent on redemptions, seat upgrades, and more. Turkish sells them at $30 (about £29) per 1,000 miles, with a cap of 100,000 miles per year.

We generally don’t recommend purchasing miles unless you truly need them for a redemption and believe you can get value for your money. 

Extending Miles Expiry

Miles&Smiles miles expire three years after you earn them, and unlike many other programmes, status or activity won’t reset the clock.

The only option to extend validity for an additional 3 years is to pay  $20 (approx £14.89) per 1,000 miles.

There’s no limit on the number of miles you can extend, and you can carry out the extension more than once. Keep in mind: only miles that haven’t yet expired can be extended.

Final Words

Although not a UK airline, TK has made it surprisingly easy to earn miles for those based in the UK. From hotel stays and car hire to a wide selection of UK-friendly shopping and booking portals, there are more earn opportunities here than you’ll find with many other non-UK carriers. 

Aside from flying, there are also plenty of ways to earn miles, whether it’s booking hotels or shopping online. Many hotel and credit card options offer transfers, despite the absence of a TK-branded credit card and the associated extra benefits that would typically accompany it.

Despite the shift to segment-based pricing, there’s still substantial value to be found, particularly on non-stop long-haul routes or partner flights with low fees. Star Alliance coverage adds another layer of flexibility, with over 25 partner airlines to book.

Once you hold Miles&Smiles status, you can get real value from flying long-haul Business class, but less so from domestic and Economy flights + short-haul Business. Compare partner pricing carefully and watch for surcharges, and there’s some real value to be found.

Make sure you read our other airline loyalty programme guides:

• Virgin Atlantic Flying Club
• Cathay Pacific
• Finnair Plus
• Earning and Spending Finnair Avios
• Qatar Privilege Club
• Club Iberia Plus
• Air France/KLM – Flying Blue

Is there another airline or hotel loyalty programme you’d like us to cover in-depth? Let us know in the comments below: