Yesterday, I shared an urgent alert with you because the amazing promotion for 1 million points was ending with (very) little notice, less than 2 weeks after it was announced (instead of October). The official page has now been updated, and, fortunately, it seems that the less strict interpretation was the correct one! At least…
So if you followed my advice and booked at least 1 flight (which was risk-free thanks to their 24-hour free refund policy) before midnight Türkiye time… you’re good!
At least, it’s now clearly stated that you’re eligible for the promotion… provided you trust Turkish Airlines! Admittedly, that’s not as easy to do as it was before yesterday!
Here are all the latest details (and how to easily cancel your flights for free if you need to do it).
Most recent update
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Yesterday, Turkish Airlines announced that the promotion was “now over” on the official page.
But it said that those who booked at least 1 flight or all 6 required flights “on July 8” would be eligible for the promotion. It was really unclear.
There were 2 unclear things:
- Did it require 1 flight or all 6 flights?
- It was explicitly contradictory, depending on where you read it on the page!
- Was it July 8th in its entirety or July 8th before the announcement of the end of the promotion?
- It said “the promotion is over” in the present tense!
As soon as the deadline passed, the page was updated again: now it’s clearer. On both aspects!
(Some might think that leaving a more ambiguous text could have been intentional to discourage participation…)
The modified text now explicitly states that just 1 flight booked before the deadline is sufficient!
The modified text now explicitly states that flights booked on July 8 are valid!
Still, you have to trust Turkish Airlines, the 7th best airline in the world, which is very well rated… but not so much for customer service outside of airplanes and airports.
I’ll share my thoughts on that a little further down.
What this means
If you booked at least 1 eligible flight before midnight (Türkiye time), you’re eligible to take advantage of the promotion! Nothing else has changed for you. It’s now just closed to new entrants. You have until October 27 to book and complete the other flights!
To check the time of your booking, the one that counts is obviously the one on the confirmation email sent by Turkish Airlines.
Like mine here at 11:59 p.m. Türkiye time.
(Okay, that was a 2nd flight to Asia as a backup to give me more options! I was last minute because I wanted to send the alert in our newsletter first, but I wasn’t that last minute; that would have been dangerous! My real last one was booked at 11:50 PM!)
As a reminder, an eligible flight must:
- Depart from İstanbul (IST) or pass through İstanbul
- Land anywhere other than Türkiye or the TRNC
- Be operated by Turkish Airlines
- Have your Turkish number associated with the booking
- Take place before October 27, 2025
All the details are in our guide to the Turkish Airlines promotion for 1 million points; nothing has changed except the requirement to have booked at least one flight by July 8 at the latest!
If you booked all 6 flights yesterday to be on the safe side (like me), you obviously have to keep at least one of them as is. But you can cancel all the others for free within 24 hours, to be able to then find better options. That’s what I’m going to do. I really hadn’t optimized (although at $2960 for all 6 one-way flights, it wasn’t that bad for something done in less than an hour).
If you only booked 1 flight, congratulations on following my recommendation, which was foolproof because worst case you can still cancel it for free. It cost nothing, and there was no risk involved. It wasn’t savvy to not at least keep the option open if you were even just a little maybe interested. If you want to do the promotion however, you have no choice: you have to keep that flight and build the rest of your itinerary around it!
What I think about the promotion moving forward
I could go on and on. What a fiasco on the part of Turkish Airlines, which could hardly have handled its decision to cut the promotion short more pathetically.
It’s clear that they underestimated the number of points and travel fanatics out there… SAS had also underestimated, and yet they still honored the promotion for everyone (and for its entire duration) and gained many new fans!
It’s the complete opposite for Turkish. It’s quite fascinating how they managed to quickly turn an exciting and enjoyable promotion into what is now a very negative memory for everyone who hadn’t booked everything yet. A bitter taste; that’s an understatement.
Even those who can do the promotion clearly no longer have as much confidence in Turkish, and with good reason. Very disappointing for such a premium airline with which I had always had a nice experience in 13 flights.
But hey… on the bright side, they responded quickly to the many requests for clarification and quickly updated the official page to explain exactly who is eligible following yesterday’s confusion!
At least!
Personally, I have a fairly high risk tolerance for just about everything in life, so I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt and continue. I’m still going to take advantage of the promotion.
The conditions are now clear on the website. Nothing is stopping them from changing them again, of course. But I think yesterday’s fairly violent and unanimous backlash will stop them from changing anything now. They got what they wanted: no one else can book from now on; their accountants should be satisfied.
It’s up to you. I completely understand those who no longer trust them. For me, my desire to get 1 million points and go on a very unique adventure wins out. It’s up to you to decide based on your situation.
In any case, just don’t forget to cancel any flights you need to cancel within 24 hours!
How to cancel Turkish flights for free
It’s obviously very simple, as it almost always is.
All travelers should know how to manage flight bookings; it’s important to do it for all flights.
I’ll walk you through it step by step here in the specific case of free cancellation within 24 hours, to give you a concrete example that might help you.
Once you’re logged into your Turkish account, you have lots of ways to manage your booking.
But since you probably have several flights, the simplest way to see them all is to click on your name in the top right corner, then click on “My flights.”
All your flight bookings are listed here.
Unsurprisingly, you click on the big red “Manage booking” button next to the flight you want to manage.
You are now on the booking management page.
This time, we just want to cancel, so click on “Cancel flight,” as you can probably guess from reading the 4 options.
You will be asked to reselect the flight to confirm.
Click on “Calculate refund.”
If you are within 24 hours of your booking, the amount shown is the full cost you paid for the flight.
Check the 2 boxes on the left and click on “Confirm refund.”
Your credit card is already selected, so click on “Confirm refund.”
You may be required to enter a multi-factor authentication (2FA) code for security reasons.
Find the code in your emails or text messages.
Enter the code and click “Continue.”
Your flight is now canceled and refunded.
You will also receive the same confirmation by email.
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Summary
The Turkish Airlines promotion continues for anyone who booked at least one flight by July 8 at the latest (before 11:59 PM Türkiye time). Nothing else has changed. For everyone else, it’s unfortunately no longer possible to participate and earn 1 million points.
What would you like to know about the update on the Turkish Airlines promotion? Tell us in the comments below.
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Featured image: Turkish Airlines plane (photo credit: Kevin Hackert)
