Turkish Airlines’ Miles & Smiles loyalty program review

Airline loyalty programs are designed to make frequent travellers feel rewarded for willingly spending long hours in airports and aircraft cabins of the same airline every time. After flying multiple long-haul routes with Turkish Airlines, joining the Miles & Smiles program started to make practical sense rather than just being another account password to forget.

Miles & Smiles is the airline’s official frequent flyer program. It allows travellers to collect miles, access benefits, and potentially reduce future travel costs through flights and partner networks. This post breaks down how Miles & Smiles works, what benefits stand out, and whether it is actually worth joining for occasional or frequent travellers.

After several long-haul flights with Turkish Airlines, I started paying closer attention to Miles & Smiles. Miles & Smiles is the frequent flyer program of Turkish Airlines. With Miles & Smiles you will earn miles. You can use these miles you earn to buy award tickets (free tickets), in-flight service, cabin upgrades and extra baggage allowance. As well as, you can use your miles for Shop & Miles offers and special services from Turkish Airlines’ program partners.

Turkish Airlines is part of the Star Alliance network, together with 26 other airlines at the moment. With this alliance they cover 90% of the world. This means, with codeshare flights you can reach almost all of the world. They say they are present at 1150 airports across 190 countries. That makes connections and flying long-haul a bit easier and less stressful.

Star Alliance was the first global airline alliance, it was founded on 14th of May in 1997. The Alliance does not have its own Frequent Flyer Programme, only the member airlines have individual loyalty programs. These loyalty programs are operating independently.

You can join several programs simultaneously, but maybe it is not worth it, unless you travel frequently with various airlines. Unfortunately transferring miles from one program to another is not possible. It is because the frequent flyer programs within Star Alliance are operated independently by the member airlines. But, let’s see how Miles & Smiles work.

You need to register to the Miles & Smiles frequent flyer program. The registration is free. After registration, whenever you fly with any Star Alliance airline, you can add your Frequent Flyer membership number in the booking. The Miles will be credited to your account automatically and your Miles will be valid for 3 years in the Miles & Smiles program.

You can earn Miles with various options if you are a Miles & Smiles member. Most importantly, with flights if you booked in an eligible booking class. Furthermore, you can earn Miles with bank and program partner purchases.

• Flights: there are two types of Miles which you can earn on flights: miles and status miles. According to the airlines’ website the miles can be used for various benefits such as award tickets, cabin upgrades, Cash&Miles, and Shop&Miles and are valid for three years. You can use your Miles to reduce the price of your ticket you want to purchase and you will still earn Miles from your flights. While status miles determine your status. These cannot be redeemed or spent for any award. You can check the Mileage Accrual Table here.
• Bank partnerships: you can earn miles when you shop with the Miles & Smiles credit card. The more you use this card, the more miles you can earn with it. Unfortunately, this is only available in some countries. You can read more information about it here.
• Program partners: there are several world leading companies, where you can use your Miles & Smiles membership to earn miles. E.g. finance, hotels, energy, car rental, airport services, shopping and living, tourism and online booking. Here you can see who these program partners are.
• Promotions and bonus campaigns: can add more miles to your account. These offers can grant you extra miles or you can get discounts on spending miles. The actual offers can be found here, or if you are subscribed to the airline’s newsletter, you will get these promotions into your e-mail account.

When you suspect that some of your miles are missing, you can check how to claim these here. Besides, you can buy, gift or transfer miles. Here you can see how.

There are four statuses: Classic, Classic Plus, Elite, Elite Plus. When you join, your membership begins with Classic status. With the Status Miles earned from your flights, you can upgrade your status. After status upgrade you can have additional benefits such as extra baggage allowance, access to private lounges, or upgrade your Economy class ticket to Business class.

You can read all about statuses here and see them compared side by side here. I try to keep it simple here:

• Classic: this is the most basic status. After joining the Miles & Smiles program, you will get a 1.000 miles for start. You can earn miles, purchase award ticket if you have enough miles or get a cabin upgrade. As a Miles & Smiles cardholder you can get a discount at partner vehicle rental services.
• Classic Plus: you will reach this status above 25.000 Status Miles or with 40 flights. You will have all the benefits of Classic status, plus you will have additional baggage allowance of 10 kg, have Star Alliance Silver card privileges. Moreover, you can check-in at the Business Class counters for domestic flights or access CIP passenger lounge for domestic flights.
• Elite: when you reach 40.000 Status Miles you will become elite. Besides, the privileges of Classic Plus, you can have an additional 20 kg baggage privilege, you can select seat for free on Turkish Airline flights, have Star Alliance Gold card privileges, lounge access with one person plus for international flights, as well. You can use the exclusive passport control counter at Istanbul Airport or access dedicated concierge.
• Elite Plus: above 80.000 Status Miles. Beyond the Elite status privileges you can have additional 25 kg baggage, guaranteed seat on certain cabin classes, you can gift Elite status for 3 people or you can have 2 free of charge cabin upgrades.

Your status is valid for two years and is checked on a day to day basis. That means your status miles can change daily. Your Status automatically upgrades if you reach the Status Miles needed for the next status counted in the previous 12 months. You will continue to earn Status miles, so you can further upgrade your status.

There is no Star Alliance membership card. Once you have reached Gold or Silver status with Miles & Smiles, you automatically will have Star Alliance Gold or Silver status. Star Alliance Gold and Star Alliance Silver are recognised by all Star Alliance member carriers. This allows you to obtain additional benefits. These benefits are available on any of the Star Alliance member airlines in the network (where available):

• Star Alliance Silver: priority waitlisting and priority airport standby.
• Star Alliance Gold: beyond Silver privileges priority check-in, priority boarding, priority baggage delivery, extra baggage allowance, worldwide lounge access and Gold Track (Priority Security & Immigration).

Each Star Alliance member airline defines their own tier status levels, which equate to Star Alliance Gold and Silver.

Award tickets: On this page you can see how many Miles you need to issue an award ticket. This means you will pay for your ticket with your accumulated Miles.

Upgrades: you can upgrade your cabin class on Turkish Airline flights with Miles. On this page you can see how many miles you need to upgrade from Economy to Business Class.

Lounge access: You can use your Miles to receive service in the selected lounges for Classic Plus, Elite and Elite Plus members. You can see the lounge rules here.

Extra baggage allowance: you can buy extra baggage with Miles. Moreover, you can bring an extra baggage of 10, 20 or 25 kg if you have Classic Plus, Elite or Elite Plus status.

Seat selection advantages: you can pay with Miles when selecting seats.

Hold the price: if you need a little bit more time, you can hold the ticket price with Miles.

Priority services: when you earn higher statuses (Silver or Gold), you can get priority services.

I already have travelled with Turkish Airlines three times now. Before that I only had flown short-haul. At first, I researched a lot with which airline to fly. In the end, my choice on my first long-haul flight was Turkish Airlines. I knew that with flying long-haul you can earn miles, which can be useful when you travel more. So, I immediately registered to Miles & Miles, and started to accumulate Miles.

After my first flight when I received my first Miles, I started to pay more attention to what this program really is and what the benefits are. It was basically the reason why next time I also chose Turkish Airlines.

After two transatlantic flights and some Miles gathered from partner programs, I had a decent amount of Miles. I had a couple of choices: buy an award ticket, accumulate a little more to reach the next level or use a part of it to lower the price of my next flight. In the end I chose this latter option, so, my third trip with Turkish Airlines I already could use my miles to lower the price of my ticket.

The miles you earn depends on a few factors: on which class you fly and how far. I think I made a good decision, when I chose Turkish Airlines and their loyalty program. They fly to a lot of the countries I visited and want to visit in the future. Also, the Miles accumulated are valid for three years.

Pros:

• free and easy to join
• good for long-haul travellers
• access to Star Alliance network
• useful travel perks at higher tiers
• the miles do not expire after one year, but valid for three years

Cons:

• award availability can vary
• elite status requires significant flying
• program rules can feel complicated for beginners

Miles & Smiles is best for frequent international travellers, but the program is still useful for occasional long-haul passengers, like me. Besides, it is better than ignoring loyalty programs entirely and funding airport sandwiches at full price forever.

Moreover, when you fly with Turkish Airlines and you connect in Istanbul, you can benefit from the TourIstanbul program, as well.

Miles & Smiles works best for travelers who regularly fly internationally or frequently connect through Turkish Airlines and its Star Alliance partners. While the program is not the simplest loyalty system in the aviation world, the benefits become increasingly valuable over time, especially on long-haul routes.

For casual travellers, joining still makes sense because registration is free and miles can accumulate faster than expected. At minimum, it gives future trips the possibility of upgrades, rewards, or added comfort. And in modern air travel, even small comforts start to feel surprisingly luxurious after enough overnight flights and delayed boarding announcements.

Disclaimer: I am not supported by Turkish Airlines by any means.