Deal: Up to 50% off award tickets on Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles

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Sleeping configuration of the Business Class seat

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Turkish Airlines is offering 30% and 50% off award tickets to/from a number of cities departing or arriving in Istanbul. Your flights have to be booked by 2 December 2019 and you have to fly by 15 March 2020.

Only one bank in Singapore has Miles&Smiles as a transfer partner, Citibank. If you have been using a card like Citibank PremierMiles and have some Citi miles or points lying around, this may be the time to use them. You can fly as soon as next week.


Cities included in this offer

You may have noticed that Bangkok is the nearest city to Singapore. Yes, you will need to position yourself to Bangkok to take advantage of this 30% off deal. Flights from Singapore to Bangkok goes as low as $70 on many dates. With a seating configuration of 2-2-2, Business Class seats on Turkish Airlines’ Airbus A330 are not the best out there but they do lie flat for a good rest on a long-haul 11 hours flight like this.


Here are the amount of miles required:

  • One way Bangkok – Istanbul in Economy Class: 21,000 miles + USD 77.40 in taxes

  • One way Bangkok – Istanbul in Business Class: 31,500 miles + USD 170.90 in taxes


Example of Economy flight from Bangkok to Istanbul


Example of Business flight from Bangkok to Istanbul

Conclusion

As I value Citi Miles at $0.018/mile, you will be paying about $900 ($567 + $233 + $100) worth of miles, taxes and positioning flight respectively. That makes it $1,800 round trip. If you consider the fact that this flight usually go on sale for about $5,000, this is a great deal. However, looking at Singapore Airlines’s award chart, you will find that you can redeem your miles for a better Business Class seat with a 1-2-1 seat configuration and not have to worry about positioning for only 49,000 miles + $49.80 taxes. That’s about $883 worth of miles and taxes each way. $17 less for a better seat, direct flight and the ability to transfer from any bank. The high taxes and fuel surcharges (YQ) on Turkish Airlines redemptions kill this deal for me. I will only consider this deal if:

  1. I can’t find availability on Singapore Airlines from Singapore to Istanbul

  2. I am planning to have a stopover in Bangkok anyway

  3. I am short of the 49,000 miles required for Singapore Airlines

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