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Update 6/14/24: This terrific transfer bonus (that Greg took advantage of during the recent “Flying by the Seat of our Points” Challenge) will be ending tomorrow. If there’s an award you have your eye on, now’s the time to transfer.
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Turkish Miles & Smiles is currently offering a 50% transfer bonus when transferring Citi Thank You points to Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles. Note that the maximum bonus is 50,000 miles and the bonus miles will not post immediately but rather after the promotion ends on June 15, 2024.
The Deal
- Turkish Miles & Smiles is offering a 50% transfer bonus when you transfer Citi ThankYou points to Turkish Miles and Smiles from May 15, 2024 to June 15, 2024 up to a maximum of 50K bonus miles.
- Direct link to this deal
Key Terms
- Campaigns will be planned to be valid for a maximum of 1 month.
- Campaign will provide 50% additional Miles to Miles&Smiles members who convert their ThankYou® Points into Miles&Smiles Miles.
- Within the scope of the special offer, 50% additional Miles will be awarded to members. No additional Status Miles will be awarded.
- Miles&Smiles members can earn Extra Miles up to a maximum of 50,000 Miles.
- The Miles earned during the campaign will be credited after the campaign has ended.
- This offer is only valid to Miles&Smiles members. To benefit from the offer, non-members must first register to Miles&Smiles Program.
- This campaign cannot be combined with any other Turkish Airlines campaign.
Turkish Airlines reserves the right to take legal action against the related parties found to have contravened any rules. - Turkish Airlines reserves the right to change terms and conditions, definitions and other information pertaining to the special offer and to cancel the offer at any time.
- Full ThankYou® Points Transfer Terms & Conditions can be found on thankyou.com/transfer
Quick Thoughts
Turkish Miles & Smiles completely overhauled its award chart a few months ago, and it wasn’t pretty. Many (most?) awards became far more expensive under the new award chart.
However, some decent values have persisted. For instance, a one-way business class award between the US and Istanbul now costs 65K miles one way. With this transfer bonus, you’d only need to transfer 44K ThankYou points to book a one-way business class award. That’s a solid deal.
Unfortunately though, a single round trip business class award would almost hit the maximum number of bonus miles you can earn from the promotion, meaning that you can’t get enough bonus miles to fly a family of even three members to Instanbul at an average price of 44K per passenger since you’ll max out the bonus at 2.5 one-way tickets.
That said, this offer might be most exciting for those who would use their Turkish miles to fly domestically on United Airlines. That’s because Turkish offers one-way Star Alliance domestic redemptions, including from the mainland US to Alaska and Hawaii, for just 10,000 miles each way in economy class. In other words, just 7,000 Citi ThankYou points transferred to Turkish would give you more than enough points for a one-way domestic economy class award on United, even if it covered a span like New York or Boston to Honolulu as in this January 2025 example:
A family of four could theoretically fly round trip to Hawaii for about 54K ThankYou points. That would be an amazing deal, except . . .
- United has been very stingy about releasing award space to partners, even when they have what they label as “saver” space available.
- The 50% bonus from a transfer to Turkish is only scheduled to post as at the end of the promotion window, which is June 15, 2024.
Those two factors could limit the utility of using this deal considerably. On the other hand, if you know and can accept the limitations, this could work out to be a great deal.
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Should I be worried that my bonus miles have not posted now that the promotion period is over? I have seen several people post that they have already received their bonus points which makes me wonder if they are having issues. I called their customer service and he said I need to send in a feedback form and wait a week for a response. I was hoping on booking a trip for next year and am worried that the seats will no longer be available in a week. Do you have any insight whether others are still waiting and I should just be patient?
Update 6-17
I received a response from customer service that Turkish Airlines could not do anything to resolve this and I should contact Citi Bank. Don’t know if I just got a clueless rep or if Turkish Airlines is going to renege on its offer. Quite frustrating since I had planned to use these miles to book flights yesterday.
“As per your feedback, we unfortunately cannot meet your request.
We recommend you contact with Citibank on this matter.
Thank you for your understanding. We look forward to flying with you soon.
Sincerely Yours,
Irem C.
Customer Representative”
Oh no. I’m also waiting for my 50% bonus. Transferred June 14. I checked that it’s before the promo deadline Turkey time before transferring. It went through instantly, just the bonus is pending. I tried to call them, the agent was clueless. I submitted a Feedback Form today (messaged them via X and that’s what they told me to do). The bonus is on them though, so the agent that replied to you sound like they’re clueless too.
Please update this thread if you receive the bonus. I did my transfer at around 2:38AM PST on 6/15/2024 so it would have been 12:38PM Turkey time well before the 11:59PM deadline. So far no bonus.
6/18 update
I resubmitted the feedback form with a screenshot of their promotion T&C’s and received the following response.
“We hope this message finds you well.
Miles transactions are generally reflected in our members’ accounts within a few business days, but this period may take a little longer due to various verification and control criteria .
For more information on the benefits of shopping with your Miles&Smiles credit card, please visit our Miles&Smiles credit cards page.
We hope you enjoy traveling with the benefits of Miles&Smiles soon.
Sincerely Yours,
Rana G.
Customer Representative
TURKISH AIRLINES INC.
Customer Contact Center”
Sounds like a standard response, but at least they are not telling me it is Cutibank’s fault. So hopefully it is just backlog issue and not a systematic problem. I was also wondering if the fact I transferred 150k points is the issue since the max bonus is 50k miles and therefore part of my transfer is not eligible for the bonus. Maybe their IT team didn’t take this into account and these type of transfers have to be done manually?
Atleast you’re getting semi relevant replies. The reply I got didn’t make sense at all. I replied to the Feedback Form and also messaged them via X. I told them I already tried to call and the agent didn’t understand what I was talking about.
PS I transferred around 7:30am PST June 14.
I got the exact same canned statement. My transfer was completed at least a full day before the promotion ended. This is frustrating.
Got the same response again today after resubmitting the feedback form and trying to explain that this is not a standard issue and their canned responses are not at all helpful. I asked for a direct contact number of a customer service manager – will pass on anything useful I get back. Also, did you transfer more than 100k points? I’m trying to figure out if the people not getting their bonus have some common denominator since I have seen multiple people claim they received their bonus on the 15th.
I transferred 87000 Citi Thank you points on June 15, 2024 at 02:38AM PST, which would have been 12:38PM in Turkey since it is 10 hours ahead of Pacific Stanard Time. The points hit my Miles&Smiles account instantly. But as ot to date, no 50% transfer bonus show up in my Miles&Smiles account. I sent Turkish Airlines the screenshot of the promotion as well as the link to the landing page of the promotional campaign, I received the same canned response you all did.
I am wondering for those who have already received their 50% transfer bonus. When exactly did you make the transfer? Let’s see some data points. (1) provide the date and time you made the transfer as well as the amount of Citi points transferred. (2) When did you see the 50% bonus post?
I only transferred 62k points. June 14 7:30 am PST. Transfer was instant too. No bonus yet.
Transferred 54k points. On June 14th 9:35 PM EST. No bonus yet. Canned responses.
If we are trying to pinpoint things, I’ll add that I only created a Miles and Smiles account the day before.
My account was created in August 2021 and last year I did a transfer from capital one. This is my first-time transfer points from Citi but I don’t think it has any relevance on the bonus point since my 87000 Citi points hit my Miles&Smiles account instantly.
My Miles and Smiles is a few months old. And already booked a ticket before.
Potentially some good news – I just received the attached and seems to indicate that people that transferred points on 14/15th will get their bonus “after the 20th”. Hopefully that means tomorrow.
“Thank you for reaching out again! We apologize for the misinformation provided.
For Miles transfers from Citibank performed on June 14 and 15, %50 extra Miles will be credited to our members’ accounts after June 20th.
Thank you for your understanding and patience in this matter.
Kind regards,
Furkan A.
Customer Representative”
Awesome. Thanks for the update. Haven’t received a reply yet to my updated Feedback Form and was kinda losing hope. Haha.
Can you share with us the message you sent to the Turkish Airlines? Just want to know what specific language you used to get them to actually read your message without providing a canned response. Thank you.
Unfortunately I can’t figure out how to access my previous message, but essentially I said – please don’t send back a standard response since this is not helpful since this is not a standard issue and requires some intervention to resolve. I asked for a direct contact number of a customer service manager who could investigate this issue. I didn’t get the number, but at least I got a more specific response that actually addressed our concern of the 50% bonus not posting (vs the concern that miles from a previous flight or credit card purchases did not post, which their canned response appears to be designed for). Unfortunately, while “after June 20” is a positive development, it is still not very specific. It appears they are backlogged and working through it (maybe manually?), although I don’t know why this wasn’t just automated to process on June 15th for all transfers. It may be they are doing some validation and fraud detection that has delayed transfers made at the end of the promotion period. This is all speculation on my part, but at least now it appears we will get are points, but just not in a timely manner.
Any news on the bonus miles? As of to date 6/21 at 7:00PM PST, I have not received the bonus miles.
Unfortunately, none on my end yet either.
Nothing for me either. Quite frustrating.
I just sent a reply to follow up on the previous inquiry. Hopefully I will get a better response this time. See below.
“Again, you did not review my question but instead provided me a standard scripted response. My question has nothing to do with Miles&Smiles credit card mileage earning. My question is specifically about Turkish Airlines promotional campaign that offered 50% transfer bonus from Citi. This is not a Citibank promotion. Citi is not responsible for 50% transfer bonus. It is a Turkish Airlines promotion and Turkish Airlines has the sole responsibility to fulfill the promotional offer. I transferred 87000 points to my Miles&Smiles account on June 15, 2024. As of to date 6/23/2024 (8 days after the end of the promotion campaign) I have not received the 50% transfer bonus as promised, which should have been 43500 Miles&Smiles bonus miles. Please have your customer service manager and marketing team responsible in the Miles&Smiles 50% transfer bonus campaign promotion review my inquiry and provide a specific answer to my request. I need to know the date of when exactly I will receive the 50% promotion bonus. I am again attaching a screenshot of the campaign details and my mileage statement showing that I transferred 87000 points to Miles&Smiles on June 15, 2024.
Not sure if it was because of my follow-up email, but when I logged on to my Miles&Smiles account, the 50% bonus just got posted. Check yours!
Just refreshed my account and my bonus points have posted as well! After this experience, I don’t think I will take advantage of any future Turkish Airlines promotions !
So I just tried to book my flights and got all the way to entering my credit card info for the taxes and it tells me I don’t have enough points because it has added the taxes into my point total; so with 200,000 miles and $689 in taxes/fees for two business class seats, it tells me I don’t have enough points because I have only 200,000 points and I need 200,689 points (200,000 points plus $689 taxes)! Unbelievable. It’s as though they don’t want you to be able to use your points to book a reward flight. Guess I have to call in to complete this since their app is worthless.
Got mine today too. Yey!
Note that the actual Turkish offer states:
“ The campaign is valid between 15 May and 15 June 2024, and will end on June 15, 2024 at 23.59 Türkiye time (UTC+3).”
In other words, it ends 11:59 pm Turkey time, not US time. Turkey is 7 hrs ahead of EDT and 10 hrs ahead of PDT, so keep an eye on the time.
Also, I’m already seeing the 50% bonus show up in our 2 Turkish accounts, so you might want to call a rep and confirm it’s still going on before you transfer.
Thanks, this was helpful. The other thing to note is that it takes 1-2 days for the transfer to hit. I skipped the transfer, as I wasn’t sure if the bonus would trigger if initiated on June 15th but arriving in Turkish miles & smiles one day later.
We were fortunate in that our transfers were almost immediate, but we may just have gotten lucky. Still waiting for the 50% bonus to appear in my mother-in-law’s account.
Shoot. Thanks for calling this out. I shouldn’t have waited til the last minute.
would be helpful if you also pointed out fees in this article A flight from ORD-IST for 65K Turkish miles also has fees of over $600
Details say campaign “will end on June 15, 2024 at 23.59 Türkiye time (UTC+3)” so I think this ends 4:59pm US East Coast time Sat June 15.
I was worried that this offer is not listed in their campaigns page, nor is it listed in their campaigns in the app. But I just called a Turkish rep, and she confirmed this offer is indeed valid. Just transferred 86K in my account and 70K in my wife’s account. Fingers crossed!
[…] to Turkish Airlines: Citi has a 50% transfer bonus to Turkish Airlines through June 15, 2024. See this post on Frequent Miler for all the details. I’ve updated the May 2024 Transfer Bonuses post to reflect this […]
how much of a ticket can you defer with points
Is that a targeted offer, or they’re offering it to anyone?
Good information on the uses of the miles. Personally, I’ve never used the program, but maybe I need to look into it.
Sorry if this is more of a theoretical question, but if the bonus is from the Turkish airlines side of the equation why does the issuer even matter? Why not bonus any points transferred into miles and smiles, from any issuer – ie C1 – too?
Please consult a mental health professional before you transfer your hard earned points to this POS program.
I’m sorry you’ve had such a bad experience. My spouse and I have used Turkish miles about a dozen times to fly business class to Istanbul and beyond, with always excellent service, from start to finish.
The travel experience is fine. I was talking about the FF program itself.
So, if I don’t see the transfer bonus on my transfer screen, do I just trust that the extra will show up in Turkish miles and smiles?
You won’t see it on the transfer screen. This bonus is being offered by Turkish Miles & Smiles, not by Citi (I know that’s not common, but every once in a while a loyalty program offers the bonus on their side instead of the issuer side and that’s what’s happening here). And as it says in the post, you won’t see the bonus miles until the end of the promotion (June 15th) according to the terms.
That’s a lot of trust. But, if it works, I’ll have enough points to fly my family to Hawaii. Crossing my fingers…here goes nothin’!
I can understand some nervousness given that working with Turkish isn’t always smooth. I obviously can’t say for sure that they won’t bungle anything, but this isn’t the first time a loyalty program has run the bonus from their end. Asia miles does it pretty frequently:
https://frequentmiler.com/cathay-pacific-asia-miles-10-transfer-bonus-from-credit-card-partners/
Avianca LifeMiles also does this periodically:
https://frequentmiler.com/15-transfer-bonus-from-amex-to-avianca-lifemiles/
We’ve also seen British Airways do the same from time to time. It’s more common to see the bonus being pushed on the card issuer end, but a bonus on the loyalty program end happens at least a couple of times a year.
The bonus showed up in our accounts, but I’d call a rep and confirm the promo is still in effect. They do reserve the right to end it at any time.
Please remember that United has drastically limited partner access to domestic saver awards recently and only a subset of X class is available to book through Turkish (or any partner). Personally I don’t think it’s worth it for domestic anymore.
https://frequentmiler.com/united-blocking-award-space-from-star-alliance-partners/