Can You Book Turkish Airlines Awards Online? Yes, You Can!
If you’re an award travel geek, you’re more than likely aware of the new Turkish Airlines sweet spot that Nick over at Frequent Miler wrote about within the past couple weeks. It’s the newest hotness. Turkish Airlines moved Hawaii from the Oceania region to the North America region, allowing these awards to price at the domestic award price. You can fly from the continental U.S. to Hawaii for:
- 7,500 Miles & Smiles in economy
- 12,500 Miles & Smiles in first class (Turkish prices it as business)
The Turkish Airlines rules previously stated that Star Alliance awards must be booked at one of their ticket offices, which really puts a damper on most people’s plans. But that is now not at all the case.
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How to Book The Turkish Airlines Hawaii Sweet Spot
First, the method was to email. I can tell you from my own ongoing saga that email isn’t exactly ideal. Most of the offices I emailed told never responded. Finally, the good folks in Toronto, Canada decided to at least do me the courtesy of getting back to me. They instructed me to call.
Which was the new method suggested by Nick and others. Overall, it sounds pretty painless. But I’m in the position of needing to use my wife’s miles (as I no longer have any Citi ThankYou points of my own), and potentially needing to get her on the phone is another layer of complexity I don’t want to deal with.
But after poking around on the Turkish Airlines website, I discovered that you can book online. Sorta. Maybe. It’s possible, but with some caveats.
Playing with the Turkish Airlines Online Award Search
My previous Turkish Airlines website experiences have not been so hot. Many months back while I was looking into their program for the first time, I managed to pull up their own awards online. However, they were not pricing at the rates published on their award chart. This caused me to suspect that a devaluation was imminent. Fortunately, this has not been the case.
The website has changed since then. Besides being more stable and way less buggy, it allowed me to sign my wife up with ease. I hoped to transfer her ThankYou points to Turkish Miles & Smiles to book this Hawaii sweet spot. When on the profile screen checking to see if the miles had posted yet, I noticed a box labeled “Star Alliance award ticket”. Of course I want to “Book now”!
My test route was ACV -> SFO, round-trip, in September. The Arcata-Eureka airport is my home airport, although I often drive long distance to avoid the sky-high prices. Lo and behold, there were options. And everything is pricing at 7,500 miles each way!!
Next I tried Denver, but something odd happened: the price jumped inexplicably to 11,250 miles each way.
There is a nonstop flight from ACV-DEN, so this route should be simple to find. The flights I was presented connected through SFO, though. This at least told me that the Turkish engine can handle connections. Maybe 11,250 is the one-way price with a connection.
But when I tried ACV-LAX, I was presented options with connections, yet the price was back to 7,500 miles. I guess the issue is not the connection. Now…time to try Hawaii.
Booking the Turkish 7,500-mile Hawaii Sweet Spot Online
When I finally started searching flights to Honolulu, I was saddened: nothing was coming up for an origin of ACV and destination of HNL. I tried numerous dates where the United site showed space. Nada. Turkish can’t seem to process this routing. But from San Francisco I struck gold: there are awards for 7,500 miles per person.
I did some more digging and found Turkish Airlines Hawaii sweet spot awards priced from the following cities to Honolulu at the expected 7,500-mile level:
- San Francisco
- Los Angeles
- Las Vegas
- Portland
- Seattle
- Denver
- San Diego
- Houston
- Chicago
At some point, though, roughly between central time and eastern time, the awards switched to 11,250 miles each way. I also had trouble pricing out many routes, but Detroit, Atlanta and Washington Dulles were offered at this rate. If you can get these for 7,500 miles each way by calling, that’s the better way to go.
Live in Canada? You’re still in luck. I found space from Vancouver to Honolulu via San Francisco. A routing I very much expected. All for 20,000 Turkish Miles & Smiles round-trip. This is less than United charges you one-way.
One issue I ran into was trying to search one-way awards. Things work (relatively) fine for round-trip. But it wouldn’t present any options if I changed to one-way. None. There also isn’t a button to select business class, nor a multi-city option. It’s just origin, destination, dates and number of people. That’s all you get to work with.
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What is this Madness?!
The most puzzling thing of all was how Turkish Airlines wanted to send me to Honolulu from the west coast. If I started in San Francisco, I was routed via Los Angeles. I found this odd at first, since there are United non-stops with saver space on the day I searched.
But when I search LAX to HNL, I was routed via San Francisco!! Insane. Both airports have nonstop flights, but Turkish will not route you on those. You must connect.
Another oddity: Newark (EWR) isn’t an option in either the origin or destination boxes. You’re presented with JFK (no LGA), but no Newark. Considering that this is a major United hub, it’s a terrible oversight. Especially for anyone looking to book from the NYC area.
But you can connect through EWR. Just be prepared to run. This itinerary only gives you 28 minutes!
So, just be aware, the routing you want and the flights you want will likely not be available. Personally, I don’t really care about a connection or not. I connect almost every time I fly. But if you’re really looking for a nonstop, you may be out of luck booking these Turkish Airlines sweet spot awards online.
Problems Finalizing the Booking
I had to wait about 36 hours for the miles to be deposited in my wife’s Turkish Airlines account after initiating a transfer of 15,000 Citi ThankYou points. I took the time to add myself as a companion in her account, something I figured would help the booking process.
When the miles posted, I immediately went to book online. I found the same space out of SFO, and then proceeded to select the flights I wanted. The Turkish website actually gives you quite the good visual of your itinerary.
I was taken to the next screen where I expected to select or enter passenger details. However, this is where I ran into the next problem: I could only select my wife. The radio button next to my name was grayed out. Addtionally, even if I had been able to click it, my birth date was showing one day off. I checked the details, and I did enter it correctly. You can’t enter passenger details manually, either, which is maddening.
By choosing my wife as the passenger, I was taken to the final payment screen which was about to charge me 15,000 Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles and a mere $11.20 to fly from SFO to Honolulu via Los Angeles. I’m assuming things would have gone through, but it looks like I will have to fall back on the phone call method if I actually do want to ticket this. Sigh.
If booking for more than one passenger, it is possible the site would let you select companions. I don’t know. I don’t want to transfer more miles to try.
Bottom Line
In a nutshell, here are the things to be aware of if you attempt to book any United Airlines awards online using the Turkish Airlines website:
- A good number of cities have availability at 7,500 miles each way to Hawaii. Booking at 7,500 miles each way across the country is good as well.
- The options presented will be far fewer than what you see at united.com
- You will often and inexplicably be presented with options with connections when a nonstop exists. But sometimes not.
- Some airports are not loaded into the web search. Notably EWR.
- Some awards will price at 11,250 miles one-way. Others at the expected 7,500 miles. There is little rhyme or reason.
- If not booking a ticket for just the Miles & Smiles account holder, you may have trouble.
- It’s possible this Star Alliance booking functionality is in beta and Turkish didn’t mean to release it. It sure feels like it.
- You will probably want to punch your computer in frustration.
But, if you really don’t want to call (or are a glutton for punishment), try booking these Turkish sweet spot awards online. You’ll probably sorta maybe be able to do it.
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[…] written multiple times about the unbeatable Hawaii sweet spot, my adventures trying to book a ticket online, and why the Turkish juice is worth the squeeze. Not everyone agrees, as the Miles and Smiles can […]
i have been trying to book sfo to ewr or sfo to phl, with turkish miles about to expire at year-end. no success. blank screen. united shows lots of availability. so i fill out a trouble ticket. they respond after 3 days saying “call the call center”. i call the call center and they say there are “some technical issues” and send email to the local sales office which is 40km away at cdg, and no i don’t want to go there. the sales office does not respond to repeated increasingly urgent emails. what a bunch of frustrating clowns. it’s byzantine.
It has been a mess for the last month or so. No one is sure what is going on exactly.
Same, I’ve traveled internationally many times on Turkish premium and booked online. However, I’ve been searching for up to 6 months out lax to hnl and sfo to hnl in econ and bus and nothing just a message saying flight not found. Any ideas?
Are you sure you’r using the partner/Star Alliance search engine? It’s still working for me. Make sure you login, go to Miles Transactions, and click “Book Now” under Star Alliance Award. You *cannot* use the normal Turkish award ticket search.
If there aren’t any flights, literally nothing comes up. Not even an error message.
I’m so sorry I just saw your reply and am so grateful. I wasn’t trying through star alliance book now. However now I am and instead of staying no flights it just keeps showing the same screen when I click the enter button. I’ve tried a million different destinations and it’s always the same, just goes back to the screen below.. Help please
Star Award Ticket
1. Flight search 2. Availability 3. Flight details 4. Passenger details 5. Payment
Card level
CLASSIC
Total Miles
1000
TK
Ms TERRY KAISER
Interesting. Two things:
1) After calling a couple days ago, I was unable to even book with an agent over the phone. They stated that their system is currently not working, so maybe this is an IT change that is affecting this, too?
2) Are you searching a one-way award? One-ways never pull up anything.
I have been trying to use the Turkish site and can find no flight requests that work at all. I mean, nothing. Have they shut this down?
[…] the good news kept rolling in. Ian Snyder at Miles To Memories wrote: Forget Calling In: Book Turkish Sweet Spot Awards Online. Sorta. Maybe. This is exciting news. Hold times and the customer service experience aren’t always top-notch […]
[…] Another Hawaii Sweet Spot: Hawaii is one of those destinations that many dream of going to but don’t because it’s too expensive. With points and miles you can make the trip a reality. With sweet spots you can even save on miles! […]
[…] the weekend, Ian Snyder at Miles to Memories posted some great news about Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles: some domestic United Airlines flights can be booked […]
I need to book for my daughter, but Citi points are in my name. Can I transfer Citi points to a Turkish account in my daughter’s name? Thanks!
No, you cannot transfer miles to her account. But you can book for her just fine by phone (since booking for another person online appears to be glitchy). Just tell the agent you want to book a ticket for your daughter.
[…] Citi transfer partner Turkish Airlines now lets you book Star Alliance awards online? It’s glitchy, much of the time you’ll still want to call, but remember that you can […]
Are there any other options other than Citi Thank You points for transferring into the Turkish Miles & Smiles Program?
You can transfer Marriott Bonvoy points at the 3:1 rate. Make sure you always transfer in batches of 60,000 points to get the 5,000 miles miles (effectively 60,000 Marriott points to 25,000 airline miles).
Wyndham is technically also a transfer partner, but the rate is terrible.
What other domestic award sweetspots are there (for booking through partners on these US carriers — either online or over the phone). I’m familiar obviously with Lifemiles, Turkish, and British Airways which all start at 7,500, but curious if there’s any other solid options?
Those three are the consistently lowest I know of. American Airlines runs web specials, which can be of good value, and also offers short-haul awards. Their award program is in flux, though, with the roll out of dynamic pricing.
Delta can be as low as ~5,000 SkyMiles one-way, on the cheapest routes. Air Canada also offers short-haul awards for 7,500 miles, but this is between specific provinces and other provinces/states.
Isn’t the 7,500 mile price only for flights with a layover of less than 4 hours?
Yes, that is a restriction. I doubt any itinerary with a layover greater than this will show up online. If you try to price these out over the phone, Turkish Airlines will charge you for two awards.
Finally got it to display. It seems like if you select something with no available flights, it just does not say anything and reloads the search. When I found something (took forever) it gave me the same screens you show above with flights listed.
Well no matter what I input, I get the same screen as shown but a blank bottom space. No flights or anything show up, it just reloads the search.
Are you selecting round-trip? Have you confirmed there are a number of X-class itineraries available at united.com? I had issues with a lot of airports and flights just not showing that I saw with United. But I was able to price out 20+ different itineraries.
How do you find these alleged premium seats to Hawaii? I checked my home airport with a connection for months next year on United’s website and got nothing for all of next year. Ditto for Chicago.
They are mostly alleged. United is great about saver availability for many/most economy routes, but can be really stingy on the most popular premium routes. This has been an ongoing struggle.
Looking for cross-country Polaris myself. Not available unless I book *really* close in. Like for this coming week.