Points Reckoning
Turkish Airlines has one of the most reliable loyalty programs anywhere in the world. Thanks to their two-tier award system, one is rarely left searching for availability. Their Miles&Smiles program has two levels of award travel, “limited” and “seat guaranteed”. The first, limited, is very akin to what many would consider a normal award seat. There are a limited number of them, and redemption values are normally very good. The second option, seat guaranteed, is something of a hybrid. It is in-between their limited tier and a pay-with-points scheme. Booking under this award chart, you’ll always find availability, but it will be at a lower value than a true award seat. Actually very similar to Southwest’s “if we have a seat, you have a seat” promise. Unfortunately, guaranteed seats are far more common than limited ones. When the dust settled, we assigned an ACRV of $0.0098 to each Turkish Miles&Smiles point.
| ACRV | $0.0098 |
| Non-zero Average | $0.0141 |
| Award Availability | 92.59% |
It’s worth noting that “limited” award availability is much more common mid-week. As we only search for Friday departures, it didn’t help us. However, if one were willing to be flexible with their travel dates, one could reasonably increase the non-zero average by 50-75%. This is the rough premium that guaranteed fares command over limited ones. With this in mind, Turkish would have a “flexible” non-zero average of $0.02115-0.0282, that’s just great.
In addition to excellent availability, Turkish’s award booking portal is just simply great to use. It’s functional and beautiful. Very often, an airline will have a fantastic UX for their cash customers and a barely functional one for their award-travel ones. Not so when booking with Miles&Smiles points. Almost as polished as Delta’s.
| Redemption Count | ||
| Exceptional | >$0.06 | 0 |
| Great | $0.04-0.06 | 1 |
| Good | $0.03-0.04 | 2 |
| Respectable | $0.02-0.03 | 6 |
| Acceptable | $0.01-0.02 | 21 |
| Terrible | <$0.01 | 20 |
| No Availability | 4 | |
Although we’ve thus far been smitten with Turkish Airlines’ loyalty program, it’s not all roses. What one gains in reliability they lose in high-value award availability. Our best for the month was only $0.0478/mile. Furthermore, we only had 2 “good” redemptions, the majority hanging out in the respectable/acceptable tiers. Sadly, there were 20 in the sewer that we consider terrible.
As of this reckoning, Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles is primarily on the radar of those who hold Citi’s ThankYou points. We consider it a shame that neither Amex nor Chase partner. They would be a valuable addition to either program.
For more information about how we value airline/hotel and other award currencies, please visit our valuation method and changelog pages.
