The Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles program has eliminated what I’d consider to be one of the last sweet spots of the program…
As flagged by LoyaltyLobby, unfortunately the program has now devalued its single best partner award redemption opportunity, impacting domestic redemptions within any country.
Prior to the change, you could fly one-way domestically within any country for 10,000 miles in economy, 15,000 miles in business class, or 20,000 miles in first class. Being able to spend just 15,000 miles for a domestic United first class flight (since it uses the “I” fare class, which is for business class) was an astonishingly good value, especially when you consider that it could get you as far as Hawaii.
Unfortunately that pricing no longer applies. To start, award costs for domestic travel have been increased by 50% across the board:
So if you’re going to partner with transferable points currencies, it seems silly to essentially encourage people not to participate in “your” program.
With that in mind, I was a bit surprised that Turkish didn’t immediately devalue its sweet spot partner awards at the time, so it’s also not surprising to see that happening now. Obviously I hate to see it, but it was also going to happen sooner or later.
I think what’s even worse is that the program hasn’t even announced this change — it simply updated its award chart, without even any note of the pricing having been updated. Also, as a percentage increase, this devaluation is brutal, going from requiring 15,000 miles to 40,000 miles. Then again, even at 40,000 miles, that pricing is still fairly competitive.
Bottom line
The Turkish Miles&Smiles program has devalued its domestic award redemption rates for travel on partner airlines. The sweet spot of being able to book any one-way domestic award for 10,000 miles in economy or 15,000 miles in business class is gone. Costs have gone up by 50%, and on top of that, Hawaii now has its own award zone, and is even more expensive.
A great solo travel tip spotted this week on One Mile at a Time.
