Points Reckoning
Updated January 26th, 2020
Turkish Airlines has one of the most reliable loyalty programs anywhere outside the US. Thanks to their two-tier award system, one is rarely left searching for availability.
Turkish Airlines’ 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, it’s 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 0.90¢ to each Turkish Miles&Smiles point. Sadly, this represents an 8% decline in value since last year. Fortunately, our non-zero average, an un-discounted metric that only looks at flights with availability, improved. It currently stands at 1.54¢, or, an increase of 9%.
| Current | Previous Period | $ Change | % Change | |
| International Value | 0.90¢ | 0.98¢ | -0.08¢ | -8% |
| International Non-Zero Average | 1.54¢ | 1.41¢ | +0.13¢ | +9% |
| Award Availability | 78% | 93% | n/a | -15% |
| Average Fees | $236.69 | $261.39 | -$24.70 | -9% |
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 our non-zero average by 50-75%. With this in mind, Turkish would have a “flexible” non-zero average of 2.31-2.70¢, 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. It’s nearly as polished as Delta’s.
| Redemption Count | ||
| Exceptional | >6¢ | 0 |
| Great | 4-5.99¢ | 1 |
| Good | 3-3.99¢ | 3 |
| Respectable | 2-2.99¢ | 8 |
| Acceptable | 1-1.99¢ | 17 |
| Terrible | <1¢ | 13 |
| No Availability | 0¢ | 12 |
| Award Availability | 77.78% | |
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 found on a business-class limited award seat between Houston(IAH) and Dar es Salaam(DAR). It was bookable for just 72,500 miles + $251.00 in fees. The lowest-priced cash alternative was $3,917, providing a redemption value of 5.06¢. We consider this value great. However, it was also the only data point in excess of 4¢. Furthermore, we only had 3 “good” redemptions, the majority hanging out in the respectable/acceptable tiers. Sadly, there were 13 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.
Compared to It’s Geographical Peers
[wpdatatable id=19 table_view=regular]For more information about how we value airline/hotel and other award currencies, please visit our valuation method and changelog pages.