Turkish Miles&Smiles is giving us frowns again. Last year, the airline took a scimitar to its award chart, slicing and dicing almost every sweet spot that it had. One of the few desirable uses left was the ability to book any available US domestic flight on United for 10,000 miles in economy or 15,000 miles in business – including to/from Alaska and Hawai’i.
Alas, those awards are now significantly less delightful: Turkish has raised the cost of most domestic United awards by 50%. Flights to and from Hawai’i are even worse, and will now cost 25,000 miles in economy or a whopping 40,000 in business class each way.
The News
- Turkish Miles&Smiles has raised the price it charges for domestic United awards (all prices one-way):
- Domestic US Economy (ex. Hawaii) – old price 10k/new price 15k (50% increase)
- Domestic US Business (ex. Hawaii) – old price 15k/new price 22.5k (50% increase)
- Domestic US First (ex. Hawaii) – old price 20k/new price 30k (50% increase)
- To/from Hawaii Economy – old price 10k/new price 25k (150% increase)
- To/from Hawaii Business – old price 15k/new price 40k (167% increase)
- To/from Hawaii Economy – old price 20k/new price 50k (150% increase)
Quick Thoughts
Well, this stinks. Turkish Miles&Smiles was already a shell of its former self. Now it’s a…broken shell?
Some folks might (reasonably) argue that it doesn’t matter what the old pricing was; United awards were seldom available via Miles&Smiles anyway. Perhaps this increase means we’ll see more of them. Awards to Hawai’i, in particular, were unseen unicorns; whispered about but never seen.
15k for continental, domestic economy isn’t terrible; in my experience, that’s around the midpoint of United’s own pricing for domestic flights. However, my guess is that, in the vast majority of cases, the flights available via Miles&Smiles will be either about the same cost or less than when purchased directly from United using its own miles… and that seems to be precisely what United wants. The airline has seemingly been on a warpath to minimize US customers’ ability to book its awards through partners at a value.
There isn’t a lot left that’s exciting with Miles&Smiles these days for US-based travelers. Non-stop from the US to Istanbul for 65k in business class is a good deal; Air Canada awards within Canada seem unchanged, and there are sometimes sales that can make Miles&Smiles’ pricing more attractive. But, given the headaches of dealing with Turkish, there probably isn’t much reason to mess around with domestic awards any longer.
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To add insult to injury the star alliance award ticket booking has been inaccessible for some days now.
Tim, maybe you should eat some baklava.
This sucks, but it doesn’t matter to me because I was never able to find availability anyway
I am really sad to hear this news. I was able to snag the 7500 miles from Hawaii twice on 2 separate trips in 2023. 10k miles from Hawaii on 2 separate trips in 2024. And one last time this year in 2025 for 10k to Hawaii the weekend after Thanksgiving. Thanks for all you do FM Team, it’s because of your posts and podcasts that helped us fly to visit our college kids and extended family in other states.
RIP. The availability between Denver and Kona was fantastic in economy and I booked it probably more than 25 times over the years. There used to even be reliable business class availability at the last minute (although that had largely dried up in the last couple of years.) I was just getting online to book another ticket when I found this article. So sad, but it lasted a long time.
Major bummer. I loved this sweet spot.
For ALL on the partner inventory that United releases, this will be devastating.