Turkish Miles & Smiles has an incredibly generous award chart which includes deals such as 7.5K one-way from anywhere in the US to Hawaii (or 15K in business class), 45K one-way business class to Europe, 52.5K one-way business class to central Asia, etc. And you can transfer points to Turkish from Citi ThankYou Rewards (1 to 1) or from Marriott Bonvoy (60K to 25K). Finding these great deals in Turkish’s award chart is easy. Booking these deals is not.
Booking award tickets with Turkish Miles & Smiles is not what most would consider an intuitive process. However, it can be done via email and isn’t all that difficult if you know what you want and how to check the availability in advance. Traditionally, one has had to go in person to a Turkish Airlines ticket office to ticket. However, it is also possible to get an award ticketed without visiting a physical office. Whether you’re trying to book to Hawaii for 7.5K miles each way, Europe for 45K each way in business class, or one of the many other Miles & Smiles sweet spots, you will need to put in a little more effort than with other programs. The good news is that the payoff is worthwhile.
Step 1) Search for availability using United.com or Aeroplan.com
Before you reach out to Turkish, find availability so you can feed the exact flights you want to the Turkish agents. Calling or emailing Turkish about availability in general on a route, rather than reaching out about specific dates and flights, is not always useful in terms of finding available flights. Furthermore, with the extra steps involved here that naturally slow down the process, you would be smart to find and verify availability in advance.
United and Aeroplan tend to be your best bets in terms of finding Star Alliance award availability. If you use United.com, make sure that you are not logged in to your United account. United credit card holders and elite members will see expanded award availability when logged in and this expanded availability is not available for partner bookings (i.e. you can not use partner airline miles to book that extra award space) Therefore, you’ll want to start your search logged out. United has a more intuitive interface, but there are times when it shows phantom availability. If you’re looking for particularly complex itineraries, it might make sense to double-check availability via Aeroplan.com.
Keep in mind that Turkish has some additional rules for Star Alliance bookings that may also limit your options further from what you see at United / Aeroplan:
- You can only have a single partner in each direction on a Star Alliance award (In other words, you can not fly from New York to Los Angeles on United and then continue from Los Angeles to Auckland on Air New Zealand. However, you could fly Los Angeles to Auckland entirely on Air New Zealand and then fly your return flight entirely on United.)
- You can have a maximum of 4 segments in each direction.
- While backtracking is allowed, you can not pass through the same airport twice in a single direction.
From what I’ve read, Turkish does not seem to impose a maximum permitted mileage (something that Aeroplan does do, so there may be some itineraries available with Turkish that aren’t available with Aeroplan).
2) Email a ticket office to inquire about availability and confirm the price
Turkish Airlines operates ticket offices in 9 US cities and 2 Canadian cities. They publish contact information for these offices on their website here. Be sure to choose “Ticket Sales Office” rather than “Airport Sales Office” or something like that.
Here is an example email very much like some I have recently sent.
Hello,
I’m emailing to inquire about a Star Alliance award booking. As it is not possible to price this award online, I’m hoping you can confirm the number of miles required and any associated taxes or surcharges on the following itinerary:
Passenger: [Name]Miles & Smiles Number: XXXXXXDate: November 12, 2019Class: EconomyOrigin: IADDestination: LASSegments:1) UA 632 12NOV IAD-LAX 1230 14562) UA 2365 12NOV LAX-LAS 1631 1745
Again, I’m looking for both the number of miles required and the total cost of any taxes, surcharges, or booking fees.I really appreciate your assistance!Sincerely,[Name]
I find the response time to vary a bit but it is decent overall. You’ll need some trial and error: one office did not email me back at all while another generally emailed me back the same day if I emailed before 2pm Eastern. Keep in mind that most of the ticket offices are open 9am-5pm Monday through Friday, so you will not get a response after hours / on weekends.
3) Transfer miles and wait
When an agent responds, they will typically confirm availability and price and ask if you would like to proceed with the booking. At this point, you’ll want to transfer miles as the agent will not be able to move forward with the process until you have miles in your account. Note that transfers to Turkish Miles and Smiles are not instant. You will need to wait 1-2 days for miles to post, which can be an issue for high-demand awards. If availability is limited and your dates / route is of particular importance to you, you may consider booking with a different program.
I let my agent know that I would be transferring miles and she proactively reached out with the necessary paperwork once the transferred miles posted to my account. You may alternatively keep an eye on your Miles & Smiles account and email again when the miles are deposited.
4) Fill out paperwork
Turkish will next require all of the following paperwork:
- Miles & Smiles redemption form: This is a form that includes the basic route and price information and asks you to indicate the type of award (i.e. an award ticket on Star Alliance Flights). You’ll sign this form.
- Credit card authorization form. This form has your PNR and fare information. It also asks for date of birth, email address, phone number, driver’s license number, credit card information, and signature.
- Photos of your credit card (both front and back). Be aware that you may need to crop / resize your photos (my email kept bouncing back saying that the ticket office box was full and the message was undeliverable, but it turned out that my files were too large).
- Photo of your ID. I provided both front and back.
- Miles and Smiles card front and back copy. I didn’t have a physical card and couldn’t find a digital one on the desktop website. However, you can get your “Digital Card” in the main menu of the Turkish Airlines app when you are logged in and that was sufficient.
The above steps may seem a bit tedious and excessive compared to other programs, and it is certainly more information than most programs will ever request. However, if you’re comfortable passing on the information, I can confirm that the ticket offices are capable of ticketing an itinerary once they have the above documentation.
5) Receive confirmation
After the Turkish ticket office has received your documentation via email, they will let you know when your booking is complete and the system will send you a ticketing email as soon as the journey has been ticketed. You’re done!
Bottom line
Traditionally, you had to call Turkish Airlines to put an award ticket on hold and then visit a physical ticket office (one of the nine in the US or others in different major cities around the world) in order to fill out the required paperwork. Being able to complete this process via email means that an award can be ticketed without speaking to anyone or making an unnecessary visit to a ticket office. Note that it is possible (and indeed likely) that some ticket offices will be unwilling to ticket via email. If you receive a response telling you that you must first call Turkish Airlines to set up an award, you may want to try a different ticket office. Keep in mind also that Turkish may require some members to ticket in person and/or change this process at any time. However, for the time being, ticketing via email is fast, friendly, efficient, and easy.
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Flailing away trying to find “Ticket Sales Office” searching numerous country/city combinations. Is “City office” the way to go?
Either that or the Airport Sales office. Just look in the description for each and see if they mention “ticketing” or “reservations” and choose that one.
I too am having issues with Turkish. I did my due diligence, found flights contacted them about availability prior to tfr the needed points. tfrd the points and called within 5 minutes to complete, been told repeatedly there is no availability. I am 11 mos out, also spoke with Lufthansa (the metal for booking) and they definitely have availability. So frustrating. I filed “feedback form” to get miles back to my cards…
I’m a little confused. You contacted them to verify availability — did you not get a hold on the award then? You should have gotten a reservation with a confirmation number on hold for 72 hours so you could transfer points. If you’re being told that there is no availability, it sounds like you either skipped that step — or perhaps you do have the tickets on hold and you just need to call back and give them your existing PNR so you can pay the miles and taxes to ticket it?
Or did you just ask someone if it was available and not get a hold on it initially? If that’s what happened, that’s a huge bummer.
I did ask about a hold in the chat box, even gave her the information with our names etc. Not sure if she held them or not? She didn’t give me anything. Is there a way to view past chat conversations?
I sent a feedback request form (per their agent on the phone earlier today) he suggested it as a way to get my points returned.
I just used your form to send something an office in Chicago – several are listed, not sure if they are “real” or not…we shall see
It seems we can’t book any Star Alliance with this airline…
Oh, I don’t think chat agents can even see availability no less book anything. I’ve never advised anyone to try to book via chat box. This post is about booking via email (which tends to be your best bet) and we’ve written about booking over the phone (usually an exercise in frustration), but I’ve never even floated the idea of booking over chat.
Sadly, you are probably more likely to win the lottery than to get them to return your transferred points. Points transfers are a one-way street with all programs. In my decade or so of doing this stuff, I know of two times when someone was able to get a points transfer to an airline program reversed. Neither was with Turkish.
You certainly *can* book Star Alliance awards with Turkish — I’ve done it myself plenty of times (including in the not very distant past). But it helps to follow the steps outlined.
Have you tried booking online? Does the itinerary show up on the Turkish website under the Star Alliance search tool? Might be able to book it yourself without any hassle if you’re lucky.
If you’re going to try via email, you want to pick out the “ticketing” or “sales” office — and don’t just send it to one office. Copy and paste that email and send it to a bunch of offices. Some will respond, some won’t, but it only takes a few seconds to copy and paste and send that email to a lot of offices. I usually send an email request to at least a dozen different offices (and don’t limit yourself to those in the US). Once you get the email about the hold, they’ll tell you to send back pictures of your ID and credit card and blah blah blah. That’s not necessary, just call the customer service phone number and give them the confirmation number from the email hold and tell them that you want to pay to ticket it and you can do that over the phone. If the agent says you can’t, say thank you and hang up and call again. It is absolutely futile to argue with a Turkish Airlines agent about what you can or can not do — just hang up and call again. You’ll get it done.
thank you I will do that (various offices) yes it was available online but because 1. I was new to them and 2. I needed to book 3 tickets so I did have to call to complete the booking and then got nowhere…
Nick, thank you for this article! Thanks to the guidance from this article, I was able to book two economy tickets from the US East Coast to Honolulu for 7,500 points each. My experience in April 2023 was quite similar to yours here.
I enjoy the podcast you and Greg post each week. You guys are 2nd to none when it comes to providing relevant information relating to traveling via points. Keep it up!
I sent an email to the Atlanta office 4 days ago and didn’t hear back from them. I then called their ATL office and was told the flights were full for the dates I was trying to book. I wish they would have emailed me back.
I just booked 2 flights from Washington DC to Honolulu and back using Miles and Smiles points. Here is my experience.
I found several United Saver award flights for my dates but the Turkish Airline website indicated there were none available. Next, I called Turkish Airlines several times but they said there was nothing available even when I pressed them United had Star Alliance flights, and gave them the flight info. Next, I emailed multiple US sales offices but the few that responded only said to call flight reservations. Finally, I went back to their website and found a much better flight (only one stopover) by trying a different date. Interestingly, this flight was not available as a saver award flight on United.
After getting the award flights, I confirmed United had my reservation but I have no baggage allowance even though I used my United Explorer’s credit card to pay for the fees. This is because Turkish Airlines does not share what credit card you used with United. No one can avoid baggage fees by just bringing carry-on luggage since United Economy flights charge you a handling fee of $25 plus the $30 check luggage fee each way. It’s cheaper to just check a bag ($30) but you run the risk of getting delayed or lost luggage. The next day, after getting my reservations, I logged into the Turkish website and they did not have my profile information anymore…. The Turkish App still had my profile information. This company is a hopeless wreck. Yes, you can book a great deal with very few award points but you are going to have to treat the search as a game. Can you outwit outlast outplay the Turkish incompetence?
Hi,
It looks like there are no more US-based “Ticket Sales Office” listed online to email. I also saw none in Canada, Australia, Singapore, Ireland, or the UK. The rest of the primarily English-speaking countries didn’t appear available among the options with Turkish. There was one recently listed for Boston in the past week, but after I emailed them a few times in the past week (never getting an answer) spread out by a business day or more each time, they took that email down. With that in mind, is there another kind of office where it works?
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Nick, I can’t find any of the United States ticket office email addresses, the link in the article just provides a single phone number. Do you know if the email option is still available?
I haven’t tried to book via email since the pandemic began, but you’re right that the info is no longer there on the Turkish site. Nonetheless, a google of Turkish Airlines Ticket Office [Enter City name] seems to yield contact results / email addresses still, though not on the Turkish site. Keep in mind that THY means Turkish Airlines. I don’t know the origin of the three letter code, but charges on a statement from Turkish code as THY.
Okay, thanks for the info!
Did you have any success booking via email? I tried emailing the Boston office 4 days ago, but still haven’t heard back. Incidentally, when I booked with the Boston office about 9 months ago, they got back with a reservation 3 days later. Curious to know what you found.
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This was a great guide. I did everything exactly as it was laid out above right to up emailing the ticket office in BOS. from there they replied via email and told me to call in. the agent on the phone confirm everything, took my CC info and issued me a ticket within minutes. Thanks Nick!
Nick,
I followed the template you laid out and have run into issues today. I found saver award flights available on United.com, and emailed the Chicago Ticket Sales office. The representative directed me to call the miles and smiles department because my miles and smiles account didn’t show that I had any miles in my account (I haven’t transferred my Citi thank you points yet because I want to make sure I will be able to use them in advance). I called the miles and smiles number (800-874-8875), provided the exact dates of travel that the United.com site showed saver award flight availability, but the miles and smiles department representative told me they have no award flight availability for my dates of travel. Any advice? Thanks!
The story I’ve been getting from Turkish agents over the phone today is that they can see the flights but they cannot “select a fare”. I’ve been instructed to email. Looks like we could end up in an endless circle.
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