Turkish Airlines launching its own 1,000,000-mile contest…is it a delight?

What hath SAS wrought?

Last year, the Scandinavian airline made worldwide news (and a Frequent Miler Challenge) with its gamified contest, which allowed participants to earn 1,000,000 Eurobonus points by flying fifteen SkyTeam partners and crediting the flights to SAS. Almost 900 folks became Eurobonus millionaires as a result, including Greg, Nick, and Stephen.

Etihad then tried to upstage SAS with its own contest, but limited it to only three winners. The first person to travel to 15 different destinations using the airline earned 5 million miles, while the second and third place people earned 3 million and 1 million miles, respectively. And the fourth? A hearty thanks for all that business. Not surprisingly, it wasn’t nearly as popular.

Earlier this week, the much-beleaguered JetBlue announced its own game, called “25 for 25.” This one gives folks 350,000 TrueBlue points and 25 years of Mosaic 1 elite status for flying the airline to 25 unique destinations before the end of 2025. A nice promo for sure, especially if JetBlue manages to stay in business for even close to the next 25 years.

Now, Turkish Airlines has thrown its hat fez into the ring, announcing its own, “fly us a bunch of places and we’ll give you stuff” promo: “The Six Continents Challenge.”

The Deal

• Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles members who use the airline to fly to six continents in the next four months will earn 1,000,000 Turkish miles.
  • Flights must be booked and flown by 10/27/25.
  • Miles earned are valid through 2027 if the contest is completed in economy, or 2030 if in business class.
  • In order to be eligible, a flight must either originate in or transit through Turkey.
  • Only destinations count as continents; origin and transit points do not. The airline provides the following examples:
    • New York–Istanbul–Tokyo counts only as Asia.
    • New York–Istanbul–Tokyo–Istanbul–New York counts as both Asia and North America.
    • New York–Istanbul–Tokyo–Istanbul–Cape Town completes Asia and Africa.
  • Award tickets are not eligible.
  • Codeshare flights are not eligible.

Terms and Conditions

• Miles&Smiles members who fly to 6 continents with Turkish Airlines will be awarded 1,000,000 Miles
• Ticketing and travel must take place between June 27, 2025, and October 27, 2025
• The list of countries and their corresponding continents is published in the campaign table.
• Only arrival destinations will be considered for campaign completion. Departure points and transit stops will not count toward completion.
• Award tickets, corporate agreement bookings, staff tickets, and special passenger segment bookings (e.g., medical, seafarer, student) are excluded from the campaign.
• Tickets purchased using a promo code are excluded from the campaign.
• Miles will be credited to members’ accounts between November 1–15, 2025.
• Only itineraries originating from or transiting through Türkiye are eligible. Intra-regional direct flights are not eligible.
• The promotion is valid only on scheduled flights operated by Turkish Airlines. Codeshare flights and flights operated by Star Alliance partner airlines are not eligible.
• Flights must be credited to the member’s Miles&Smiles account before travel. Retroactive mileage claims will not be accepted.
• Only tickets issued during the campaign’s ticketing period are eligible for changes.
• Tickets may be issued through Turkish Airlines’ official channels: turkishairlines.com, the mobile app, sales offices, call center, or authorized agencies.
• Turkish Airlines does not guarantee that all listed destinations will remain active during the campaign period. Routes may be subject to suspension due to operational reasons.
• The Miles awarded under this campaign are not Status Miles and cannot be used toward membership tier upgrades.

Quick Thoughts

At first glance, this seems much easier to complete than JetBlue’s current promotion since it only requires six flights, but there’s few quirks that will make it a little more cumbersome.

First, each continent must be visited on a flight that either originates or transits through Turkey (which primarily means Istanbul). No fifth-freedom flights that go from one city to another without touching Turkey are allowed. That means that you have to fly from Istanbul to Europe, Asia, Africa, North America, South America and Australia.

Europe, Asia, Africa and North America are easy. South America and Australia are going to be the most difficult. There’s not many options that Turkish provides to either continent and the airline just started flying to Australia.

Award flights don’t count, so everything must be paid for in cash, which can be expensive for some one-way Turkish longhauls, even for the 99% of the people who try to complete and who will be doing it in economy. In contrast to the JetBlue promo which provides ~six months to complete travel, this one only gives you four.

Lastly, if flying in economy, the miles you earn seem to have a hard expiry of 12/31/27, about a year earlier than Turkish’s normal policy of 3 years from the date that they’re earned. So, you’ve effectively got ~2 years to burn through the whole stash, or face a $20 per 1,000 miles fee to extend them.

Turkish has devalued its miles a ton over the last couple of years, and it no longer has the sweet spots that it used to. That said, there are still a few, including 10K domestic economy flights on United or 15K in business (when you can find availability).

Given all that, and the logistics of trying to manage flying into and out of Istanbul, this will probably be much less popular than either the current JetBlue promo or the SAS million-mile challenge from last year. But I’m sure there will still be plenty of takers.

I’d love to hear from any readers who are tempted by this one. Leave a comment and tell us about what you’re planning!

Want to learn more about miles and points? Subscribe to email updates or check out our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.