Last week, Turkish Airlines announced a very interesting promotion: anyone who flies with the airline to six different continents will receive one million bonus miles credited to their Miles&Smiles account. The travel period runs until 27 October 2025, giving roughly four months to complete all flights. It’s a very tempting offer that could become the deal of the year.
Like we did with SAS last year, we searched for the cheapest routing that fulfils all the requirements. And since our research uncovered several options anyway, we’ve detailed two of them here. In the best-case scenario, we found ticket costs of just under €2,600 for more than 100 hours in Economy Class.
Turkish Airlines has decided to end the promotion early. If you’ve booked at least one ticket before July 8, then you’ll still be eligible to take part in the promotion and earn the million miles. Others, sadly, can no longer participate.
This deal carries a high risk that something might go wrong, and you won’t receive the promised miles:
- Turkish Airlines reserves the right to change or end the promotion at any time.
- If even one flight isn’t credited as expected, the entire million miles would be lost. Based on experience, credits for TK flights usually work fine. But if not, retroactive crediting is excluded under the terms.
- Flights could be cancelled or rescheduled before departure. With separately booked tickets, you have no right to rebook subsequent flights. So be sure to plan sufficient buffer time.
Table of Contents
The Offer: 1 Million Miles for Visiting 6 Continents
The offer applies to flights between June 27 and October 27, 2025. Several details must be noted. For example, your departure region does not count as a visited continent. Each continent must be flown to from or via Istanbul. Numerous 5th freedom flights, such as São Paulo – Santiago de Chile or Kuala Lumpur – Sydney, therefore don’t help.
It’s also important how Miles&Smiles defines the zones. For instance, Kuwait and the UAE count as Asia, making it relatively cheap to tick off that continent.
Combining this with the Turkish Airlines Status Match could be worthwhile. However, we advise against entering someone else’s Star Gold frequent flyer number, as it could result in miles being credited to the wrong account.
Option 1: One Big World Trip (from €2,531)
This first sample routing is for anyone wanting to complete the challenge in a single journey. To keep the trip as short as possible, we’ve planned only 1–2 days’ stopover at most destinations, resulting in a total duration of three weeks. It could be shortened further, but if any flight is cancelled at short notice, the whole plan could collapse.
First, we tick off Colombia (South America) and then return to Europe. The next leg resembles a classic round-the-world trip: first Egypt, then Australia, and via Hawaii to the USA. A big detour is the Los Angeles – New York flight routed via Istanbul, Mumbai, and Istanbul again. There’s no other way, as you need two transatlantic segments westbound. After that, you’re almost done.
A particular bottleneck is the Jetstar flight from Sydney to Honolulu, only available at the lowest price sporadically in August and again from mid-October. Thus, the final Turkish Airlines flight is pushed to 24 October, just three days before the deadline, since all flights must be completed by 27 October.
Total flight costs in this example: €2,506 (if you start and end the trip in Munich). Additional costs include accommodation, airport transfers, meals, plus:
- Egypt visa: US$25 (~€21) (on arrival)
- ESTA for the USA: US$21 (~€18), if not already held
- India visa: US$25 (~€21)
- Australia visa: free
Flight segments in detail:
| Date | Airline | Routing | Price | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🚝 | 06.10. | Train | Munich – Vienna | €25 | |
| #1 | 07.10. | Turkish | VIE - IST - BOG | €671 | South America ✔ Multi-stop with #3 |
| #2 | 11.10. | Turkish | BOG - IST - ATH | – | Europe ✔ Multi-stop with #2 |
| #3 | 13.10. | Turkish | ATH - IST - CAI | €218 | Africa ✔ |
| #4 | 14.10. | Turkish | CAI - IST - KUL - SYD | €595 | Australia ✔ |
| #5 | 17.10. | Jetstar | SYD - HNL | €145 | |
| #6 | 19.10. | AA/UA | HNL - LAX | €140 | |
| #7 | 20.10. | Turkish | LAX - IST - BOM | €595 | Asia ✔ Multi-stop with #9 |
| #8 | 24.10. | Turkish | BOM - IST - JFK | – | North America ✔ Multi-stop with #10 |
| #9 | 29.10. | Icelandair | JFK - KEF - MUC | €142 | |
| Total | €2,531 |
Overall, this routing has 114 hours in planes (plus airport time), spread across 18 flight segments. Standard mileage credit would be 19,500 status and award miles, plus the million from the promotion.
The ticket includes at least a large cabin baggage and a personal item. As almost all flights are with Turkish Airlines, the cost of checking a bag is reasonable. Adding a minimum 20kg checked bag on every segment raises the total by €165.
Option 2: Two Trips with a Break (from €2,616)
A three-week world tour in Economy is exhausting. If you prefer to spread the six continents across two separate trips, this second variant allows for it. First, you visit South America and return via the USA, ticking off only South America. Then a second trip covers the Middle East (= Asia), Egypt, Australia, Malaysia, and again the USA.
We’ve planned a 2–7 day stopover at each destination, adjustable without affecting the overall price. We let this routing start and end in Venice.
Flight-only costs: €2,615, very similar to the first option. We were surprised that a completely different routing resulted in nearly the same total.
Additional costs:
- Egypt visa: US$25 (~€21) (on arrival)
- ESTA: US$21 (~€18), if not held
- Australia visa: free
| Date | Airline | Routing | Price | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | 27.08. | Turkish | VCE - IST - BOG | €571 | South America ✔ Multi-stop with #10 |
| #2 | 04.09. | AA | BOG - MIA - JFK | €190 | 24h stop in Miami |
| #3 | 07.09. | Norse | JFK - FCO | €135 | |
| 🚝 | 08.09. | Train | Rome – Venice | €31 | |
| #4 | 23.09. | Pegasus | VCE - SAW | €134 | |
| #5 | 25.09. | Turkish | IST - AUH | €103 | Asia ✔ |
| 🚌 | 27.09. | Bus | Abu Dhabi – Dubai | €7 | |
| #6 | 28.09. | Turkish | DXB - IST - CAI | €227 | Africa ✔ |
| #7 | 30.09. | Turkish | CAI - IST - KUL - SYD | €595 | Australia ✔ |
| #8 | 06.10. | Scoot | SYD - SIN - KUL | €146 | |
| #9 | 08.10. | Turkish | KUL - IST - JFK | €477 | North America ✔ |
| #10 | 12.10. | Turkish | JFK - IST - VCE | – | Europe ✔ Multi-stop with #1 |
| Total | 2.616€ |
This routing has 112 hours of flight time (18 segments). Besides the million bonus miles, you earn approximately 18,900 status and award miles.
As each trip is around two weeks, hand luggage only is feasible. A checked 20kg bag on every segment adds €196.
The map shows the first trip in red and the second in blue.
Additional Options
Below are a few more examples of “cheap” flights between the individual regions that we came across during our research. All prices are listed as one-way:
| Departure | Europe | Africa | Asia | Australia | North America | South America |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Europe | — | MXP-CAI €210 | ATH-DEL €256 | RIX-JFK €336 | MXP-BOG €388 | |
| Africa | TUN-FRA €153 | — | CPT-MEL €574 | CAI-IAD €383 | ||
| Asia | DXB-FRA €215 KUL-MUC €269 | KUL-CAI €271 BOM-CAI €308 | — | TAS-MEL €559 | DXB-NYC €384 | PEK-SCL €672 KUL-BOG €784 |
| Australia | MEL-FRA €506 | MEL-RAK €690 | SYD-TAS €540 | — | ||
| North America | IAH-MUC €366 | IAD-CAI €357 | EWR-BOM €323 | — | ||
| South America | BOG-MXP €483 | — |
Not shown in the table above:
- Istanbul → Berlin from €68 (Europe ✔)
- Multi-stop Venice – Bogotá | New York – Mumbai for €618 (South America ✔ + Asia ✔)
- Return flight Hamburg – New York for €591 (Europe ✔ + North America ✔)
What to Do with a Million Miles?
Miles with Turkish Airlines are valid for at least three years, so after completing the challenge, they’re usable until December 2028. We estimate each mile’s value at roughly 0.6–1 cent after the last devaluation.
Upgrades for Economy tickets are relatively good value. Availability is better than for (promo) award flights, and there are no surcharges. Award flights with Turkish Airlines often incur high fees, and many Star Alliance sweet spots exist only in theory.
Examples of redemptions:
- Turkish Airlines (plus taxes & fuel surcharges):
- Upgrade Economy → Business Istanbul to Far East: 65,000 miles
- Upgrade Economy → Business Europe to Istanbul: 25,000 miles
- Star Alliance (plus taxes & fuel surcharges):
- Domestic flights worldwide in Business: 15,000 miles (e.g. in North America)
- Business Class Europe → Middle East: 53,000 miles
- Business Class Europe → Far East: 90,000 miles
- Gift vouchers:
- €100 Amazon.de voucher for 15,385 miles (thus 1 million miles = €6,499)
- €100 MediaMarkt voucher for 15,385 miles (thus 1 million miles = €6,499)
Many Star Alliance award flights cannot be booked online with Turkish Airlines. Also, mile values can be changed anytime. Turkish Airlines could also remove the option to redeem miles for vouchers.
Conclusion
When we first reported on this offer last week, we estimated ticket costs at nearly €3,000. Through multi-stop bookings, we managed to reduce that further.
Sadly, the fun factor is lower compared to SAS’s similar promotion last year. Back then, flying around the world with 15 different SkyTeam airlines was an adventure in itself. Plus, using existing miles could significantly reduce costs – I only spent about €1,000 and 100,000 miles (plus hotels) and even had some Business segments.
Personally, I haven’t yet decided whether to take on this challenge again this year. But we hope this article provides some inspiration.
Translated & edited by Ditmar
Cover Picture: Photo by Kevin Hackert on Unsplash
Comments (6)
Successfully assembled my million mile run…
Part 1 (8 days in September): Multi-city SOF-IST-BOG (South America), BOG-IST-ATH (Europe), ATH-IST-RAK (Africa). From there Lufthansa back to Sofia (116 eur).
Part 2 (9 days in October): One-way (multi-city not allowed after Australia) SOF-IST-KUL-SYD (Australia). Positioning flight to KUL (Singapore Airlines, Scoot was also possible, but I chose comfort and better hours for 100 eur more). Then multi-city starting with KUL-IST-EWR (North America), then positioning to MXP with Icelandair, then the multi-city continues: MXP-IST-DXB (Asia), and then one more TK DXB-IST-SOF not because I need it to be with Turkish, but because in the multi-city sequence it was the cheapest (and obviously best) way to get back home.
Total for the TK part: just under 2800 eur. Positioning flights: 380 eur (plus the 100 self-upgrade to Singapore Airlines)
Total: 3180 (3280 with Singapore). Happy to find these. Could have saved 120 eur more by taking a positioning SOF-ATH-CAI with Aegean and then CAI-IST-SYD instead of SOF-IST-SYD, but chose comfort again, because the other combination included 7.5 hours in Athens, 3.5 hours in Cairo and 8 hours in Istanbul – all before a 21-hour flight to Sydney. So my theoretical minimum would be 3080, but it would be way more unpleasant to do.
Other limitations included a very busy travel schedule, so I had no chance of making all 6 continents in one trip, except in August – and then it would be way more expensive than that.
That’s a nice itinerary. I also booked a run for myself.
Hamburg-Bogotá multicity with Bogotá-Athens and Athens-Sharm-El-Sheikh (SSH instead of CAI because the hotels seemed cheaper and SSH is visa-free).
Then Sharm-El-Sheikh-Sydney
Then Sydney-New York multicity with New-York-Dubai. That concludes the 6 continents within 2 weeks for around €2600. Then I fly back to Europe for around €200.
Doing it in October.
Promo ended abruptly July 8th.
Thanks for letting us know
Assuming business class cost say 3x more I would rather do it all in Business and break it up into meaningful trips and call it “free” with the 1,000,000 miles received. Alas I do not have a spare few months to enjoy it. Not at all interested in economy even for 2m miles.
Perfectly understand and totally agree!