The Points Guy believes that credit cards can transform lives, helping you leverage everyday spending for cash back or travel experiences that might otherwise be out of reach. That's why we publish a variety of editorial content and card comparisons: to help you find a great card to turn your goals into reality.
Our site may earn compensation when a customer clicks on a link, when an application is approved, or when an account is opened with our partners, and this may impact how or where these products appear. While we don't cover all available credit cards, our editorial team creates and maintains all of the analysis of these cards, and our content is not influenced nor subject to review by any credit card company, bank or partner prior to (or after) publication. Please view our advertising policy and product review methodology for more information.
Advertiser disclosure
The Points Guy believes that credit cards can transform lives, helping you leverage everyday spending for cash back or travel experiences that might otherwise be out of reach. That's why we publish a variety of editorial content and card comparisons: to help you find a great card to turn your goals into reality.
Our site may earn compensation when a customer clicks on a link, when an application is approved, or when an account is opened with our partners, and this may impact how or where these products appear. While we don't cover all available credit cards, our editorial team creates and maintains all of the analysis of these cards, and our content is not influenced nor subject to review by any credit card company, bank or partner prior to (or after) publication. Please view our advertising policy and product review methodology for more information.
Guides
Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles program: Complete guide to earning and redeeming miles
Richard Kerr is a veteran naval officer and founder of the Award Travel 101 Facebook community. He’s one of the foremost experts in points and miles strategy, featured in Forbes, US News, Money Magazine, Kiplinger Personal Finance and presented at #SXSW 2017. Richard has visited over 45 countries, lived in England and Japan, and spends his spare time dissecting loyalty program award charts to maximize the value of points and miles. Richard holds a BBA in International Business and has his wife and two small children in tow for his travels as often as possible.
Ben Smithson is a senior writer for TPG and is based in London. Originally from Australia and a qualified lawyer with a financial services background, he has almost a decade of experience writing about a broad range of travel and loyalty topics.
also contributed to this story
May 6, 2025 • 10 min read
The cards we feature here are from partners who compensate us when you are approved through our site, and this may impact how or where these products appear. We don't cover all available credit cards, but our analysis, reviews, and opinions are entirely from our editorial team. Terms apply to the offers listed on this page. Please view our advertising policy and product review methodology for more information.
Editorial note: This is a recurring post, regularly updated with new information and offers. Citi is a TPG advertising partner.
Editorial disclaimer: Opinions expressed here are the author's alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, airline or hotel chain, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.
Comments
By commenting, you agree to our Community Guidelines to help create a positive space for conversation. The responses below are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser, our partners, or The Points Guy (“TPG”). They have not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by any of these parties. All responses are submitted by individual contributors, and neither the bank advertiser, our partners, nor TPG are responsible for ensuring that all posts and/or questions are answered.
Related stories
Quick summary
Turkish Airlines' Miles&Smiles loyalty program offers competitive redemption rates for both economy and business-class travel, despite recent increases in 2024.
The program features three elite tiers, each with progressively valuable benefits such as lounge access, bonus miles, and additional baggage allowances.
Miles&Smiles partners with several transferable points programs and hotel loyalty schemes, making it accessible for U.S.-based travelers.
Award bookings can be made for Turkish Airlines and Star Alliance flights, with standout options like flights to Hawaii or Alaska at attractive mileage rates.
What to consider
Miles expire three years after being earned, but can be extended for a fee per 1,000 miles.
The website is known for being difficult to navigate, with strict login requirements and potential issues for non-Turkish phone numbers.
Award availability, especially for the lowest rates, can be limited and may require persistence to find.
What you'll miss from the article
A detailed guide to navigating the Miles&Smiles website, elite status benefits, and maximizing award redemptions for the best value.
Generated by AI with support from our editorial team.
Comments
By commenting, you agree to our Community Guidelines to help create a positive space for conversation. The responses below are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser, our partners, or The Points Guy (“TPG”). They have not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by any of these parties. All responses are submitted by individual contributors, and neither the bank advertiser, our partners, nor TPG are responsible for ensuring that all posts and/or questions are answered.
Turkish Airlines' Miles&Smiles program is known for being a hidden gem of a loyalty program that offers an award chart with some attractive redemption rates for economy and business-class travel.
Despite rates having increased significantly in 2024, some options remain relatively well-priced. You can also still fly relatively cheaply on domestic flights within the U.S., and the program is a 1:1 transfer partner of three popular transferable currencies.
The Miles&Smiles program has three elite membership tiers (aside from its basic membership, Classic):
Classic Plus: Earned after accruing 25,000 status miles or on 40 flights. Benefits include priority check-in, lounge access for domestic flights, 25% bonus status miles on business-class flights and an additional baggage allowance of 22 pounds.
Elite: Earned after accruing 40,000 status miles. Benefits include all of the Classic Plus perks, dedicated phone support, free standard seat selection, lounge access for domestic and international flights with one guest, Star Alliance Gold status and an additional baggage allowance of 44 pounds.
Elite Plus: Earned after accruing 80,000 status miles. Benefits include all of the Classic Plus and Elite benefits, as well as two free cabin upgrades, gifting an elite card to three people, a guaranteed seat in certain cabin classes and an additional 55 pounds of checked luggage.
A great benefit of earning status in this program is that it is valid for two full years after you earn it. Some other programs only offer elite status for one year after earning.
You earn status miles through flying; frustratingly, there is no clear information on the Miles&Smiles website regarding how many status miles each flight earns.
Here are some of the best welcome bonuses available that you could transfer to Miles&Smiles:
Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card ($95 annual fee): Earn 75,000 bonus miles after spending $4,000 on purchases in the first three months from account opening, plus receive a $300 credit to use on hotel and vacation rentals booked through Capital One Travel in the first cardholder year.
Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card ($395 annual fee): Earn 75,000 bonus miles after spending $4,000 on purchases in the first three months from account opening.
Capital One Venture X Business ($395 annual fee): Earn 150,000 miles after spending $30,000 on purchases in the first three months from account opening.
Citi Strata Premier® Card (see): Earn 60,000 bonus points after spending $4,000 on purchases in the first three months of account opening.
Transfer points from hotel programs
You can transfer Marriott Bonvoy points at a rate of 3:1 (so 3,000 Bonvoy points would become 1,000 Turkish miles). For every 60,000 Marriott Bonvoy points you transfer, you’ll receive a bonus of 5,000 Miles&Smiles miles.
You can also convert 5,000 Choice Privileges points to 1,000 Miles&Smiles miles.
You can fly Turkish Airlines-operated flights to earn reward miles based on your fare class, Miles&Smiles elite status level and flight distance.
TURKISH AIRLINES
Turkish Airlines is a member of the Star Alliance. As a result, you can also earn miles by flying Turkish’s partner airlines — like Lufthansa, United Airlines, Air Canada and Swiss — then crediting those miles to your Miles&Smiles account. For many U.S.-based travelers, the most likely partner to fly and credit to Miles&Smiles would likely be United Airlines.
You’ll earn Turkish miles based on the fare class and distance of your United-operated flight.
TURKISH AIRLINES
The program also partners with the following airlines outside of the Star Alliance:
Azul
IndiGo
Olympic
GOL
There are different earning charts for each partner airline. So, check if your fare class can earn miles, and see how many miles you’ll earn before putting your Turkish frequent flyer number on a partner reservation.
Earn miles through other partners
The Miles&Smiles program has a comprehensive list of other earning partners that you can find here. It includes (but is not limited to):
Hilton Hotels
Kaligo
The Bicester Collection
Avis
Hertz
Enterprise
Sixt
IHG One Rewards
Booking.com
Turkcell
Finally, Turkish miles expire three years from the time they’re earned. You can pay a fee of $20 for every 1,000 miles that are about to expire to extend them for another three years.
How to book a Turkish Airlines-operated award flight
If you want to book an award ticket operated only by Turkish Airlines, you can get to the award booking engine from the Turkish homepage by clicking the “Award Ticket” checkbox.
TURKISH AIRLINES
This will require you to log into your Miles&Smiles account and then go to the award ticket booking engine. There, you can enter your origin, destination, dates, class of service and number of passengers. This first search screen is only for Turkish-operated flight itineraries.
TURKISH AIRLINES
After selecting a flight, you’ll see the flight details, the aircraft type and the award space labeled as promotional or regular pricing, which will match the published award charts.
TURKISH AIRLINES
The following page will give you the total flight cost, including taxes and fees, even if you don’t have the required miles in your account.
How to book a Star Alliance partner award flight
You must find the Star Alliance award search engine to search for Star Alliance-operated award flights.
To access Star Alliance award searches, log into your Turkish Miles&Smiles account. On the drop-down menu (below your name), select “Miles Transactions.” You’ll see the link that will take you to the Star Alliance award ticket booking engine.
The Star Alliance search engine looks identical to the Turkish-operated award search engine, except it says “Star Award Ticket” at the top.
You can then follow the same process to book partner flights.
The best way to redeem Turkish miles is for award flights. While other options may exist in the program, booking Turkish Airlines- or Star Alliance-operated flights will get you maximum value.
With that in mind, here are a few of the most important rules and nuances of Miles&Smiles:
The Miles&Smiles website is glitchy, complicated and frustrating. You'll need plenty of patience and persistence to navigate it. For example, when choosing a login password, it can only be numeric, must be exactly six digits, cannot have the same number more than twice (whether consecutive or not) and will not be remembered by your Google password manager. You must then receive a text message code to log in, which may or may not arrive, especially if you have a non-Turkish cellphone number.
The membership number the program provides to you may not work if you don't delete the first two "TK" letters.
There are two levels of award availability for Turkish-operated flights: regular and promotional. Regular doesn’t technically have a name. It is just labeled “award ticket” when you see it in the search results. “Promo space” (still referred to as “limited space capacity” in the terms and conditions) means fewer seats are available at a much lower mileage cost than the regular “award ticket” space.
You can book one-way awards for half the price of a round-trip journey.
You can redeem miles for someone else, but you must register them in your Miles&Smiles account first.
If you need additional miles to purchase an award ticket, you can buy them at a rate of $30 (including value-added tax) per every 1,000 miles (up to 50,000 miles per calendar year).
Fuel surcharges are not charged on United flights and are somewhat reasonable on Turkish flights, but they can be problematic on some Star Alliance carriers like Lufthansa and Swiss.
Award tickets can be canceled or changed for a fee of $70.
One open jaw is allowed on a round-trip ticket. An open jaw is an itinerary when you fly into one city and out of another.
One stopover is allowed on the outbound or return of a Turkish Airlines-operated award itinerary. A stopover is when you stay in a city along the path of your itinerary for a period of time.
Best uses of Turkish Miles&Smiles
ZACH GRIFF/THE POINTS GUY
Note that while you can book Turkish Airlines-operated flights and most partner-operated flights online, it is difficult to find the cheapest promotional award tickets operated by Turkish Airlines without clicking through day-to-day. You may wish to use an external tool like Seats.aero to easily find the cheapest rates across 12 months.
SEATS.AERO
Bottom line
The game of chasing the best frequent flyer programs and redemptions is always changing. No single program is the best at everything, but the Turkish Miles&Smiles program is worth investigating — especially if you have the patience and persistence to navigate its frustratingly customer-unfriendly website.
Logging into your account on their website is a challenge, especially with a registered non-Turkish phone number.
Some great value redemptions are still available, especially if you can find the fairly elusive 65,000-mile business-class tickets to Istanbul.
