Citi has added Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles loyalty program as a transfer partner from Citi ThankYou points, the transfer rate is 1:1 (minimum of 1,000 miles at a time).
Citi has been continually adding new transfer partners with the most recent before this Jet Airways JetPrivilege. A full list of Citi’s transfer partners is below and you can view a full list of the previous transfer bonuses they have offered here.
| Emirates | EVA Air Infinity MileageLands | Malaysia Airlines Enrich |
| AirFrance-KLM Flying Blue | Etihad Guest | Qatar Airways Privilege Club |
| Asia Miles | Accor Hotels (1:0.5) | Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer |
| Thai Airways Royal Orchid Plus | Virgin Atlantic Flying Club | Qantas |
| JetBlue (1:0.8 rate, 0.5 with Preferred) | Sears SYWRP (1:12) | Jet Airways JetPrivilege |
| Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles | Avianca LifeMiles | Club Premier Aeromexico |
| Choice Hotels (1:2) | Leading Hotels of the World (5:1) |
What You Need To Know About Turkish Airlines
- Turkish Airlines has two types of awards:
- Capacity controlled/Limited capacity (basically saver awards with other programs)
- Guaranteed seat
- Award charts:
- Booking Star Alliance awards isn’t an easy process. You need to call in on 1-8008748875. This Flyertalk thread details the process.
- Stopover rules (via shipitkthx83):
- On Turkish Airlines: One stopover is permitted where award tickets are used for flights on Turkish Airlines.
- On Star Alliance Member Airlines: Our Members Are Allowed to Have One Stopover for Awards with Values from Min.60.000 Miles for Economy Class, From Min. 90.000 Miles for Business Class and from Min.135.000 Miles for First Class
- Best value/sweet spot seems to be business class flights from North America to  Europe (including Turkey) for 90,000 points round trip, middle east for 94,000 and middle asia (including India) for 105,000. These are partner awards and need to be booked via phone.
Hat tip to VFTW & /r/churning
Anyone know if they allow Open Jaw??? Would like to fly from NyC to Moscow and then St Petersburg to NYC
just book 2 one-ways if needed.
Can I get TK elite status by transferring points?
TIL I can transfer all of my Thank You points into Sears SYR points! Woohoo! 240,000 SYW points, here I come! Just think of all the Kmart goodies I can get with those!
What fuel charges to expect on Business class seat on Partners and TA?
Should be similar to whatever shows up on ITA Matrix (http://extrapackofpeanuts.com/finding-the-fuel-surcharge/).
TK displays their fuel surcharges as “YR” instead of “YQ”, so watch out for that.
I just entered a sample date for business class IAH-IST and the fees come to about $450 RT.
Thank you!
Is the list of airlines having fuel surcharges up-to-date?
I literally just picked the first Google result for a site that described the ITA Matrix technique for estimating award ticket fees- I have never browsed that site before.
But a good rule of thumb is that if any list of airlines includes US Airways it’s not up to date.
Does turkish airline charge fuel surcharge on awards?
Yes, fuel surcharges will be passed on for all carriers that assess them.
>Best value/sweet spot seems to be business class flights from North America to Turkey for 90,000 points round trip.
I’d say the biggest sweet spots are business class to Europe (including Turkey, 90k), the Middle East (94k) and “Middle Asia” (including India, 105k). Fuel surcharges/fees will be similar to what SQ and ANA would charge.
You also have US domestic Y/J for 20k/30k, but the main issue with that will be actually getting ticketed for such a flight.
Regardless, for someone who likes flying TK J and has some TYP to burn this is a very welcome addition.
Thanks, added those sweet spots to the post!