A couple of months back I wrote about the cancellation of Turkish Airlines accounts, perhaps those which used services like AwardWallet to keep an updated balance. Turkish has been out there issuing a status match to Star Alliance Gold level status for everyone who has top-tier status with Star Alliance, OneWorld and Skyteam, something I first wrote about in May.

Now, Turkish ‘suspended’ my own account as well due to the same reason, and I had to work on fixing it. Reason I say same reason, is because my mom’s TK account is not on AwardWallet, so her account survived while mine went.

The first few emails did not work. Then I eventually got a response saying my account was ‘suspended temporarily’. To revive the account, I had to send them the following details on their email customer@thy.com from my registered email address:

• Email Address
• Postal Address
• Mobile/Business Phone
• A scan of my passport copy

At first I was circumspect, but I sent them a copy of my Passport’s ID page only, not the the address one. It seemed to work with them, and I got a new email in a few days sending me a new auto-generated password. Once I reset that password, I was good to go. This should help everyone else who had their accounts cancelled as well. But remember, you might have to email a few times to get a response

Related Posts:

• Turkish Airlines status matching up to Star Alliance Gold
• Did your Turkish Miles & Smiles a/c get cancelled without notice?

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Turkish Airline’s Miles & Smiles program has been becoming a favourite for those targeting Star Alliance status matches to Gold, or getting a quicker qualification to *A Gold due to less miles need to be earned.

Like I mentioned here last week, my kid brother was out on a worktrip, and was going to net about ~18,000 *A miles for his flying. I thought it was a good opportunity to get half way on to requalifying for the TK Gold status he already had. He needed to do about 37,500 miles in 24 months, and this was easy. (To put all the talk about crediting to Aegean instead, the fare classes don’t earn any miles on that program)

Since I use AwardWallet to track my family’s mileage balances, I’ve been noticing a problem with TK over the past few days.

Now, Turkish Airlines’ website is not the best design in the world. You can see the comments section in the previous post to see how hassled people are with this website. However, as per FlyerTalk, it looks like Turkish has also cut off access to AwardWallet, TripIt and other similar services. So, for a few days when I tried logging into the account using the thy.com website, it asked me for a third security check and it wanted a screen code entered as well to ensure I am human.

However, yesterday, I totally lost it when TK told me that the account was cancelled? This is what showed up:

Other members have reported the same problems on FT, and it seems that the accounts which are having a problem are the ones which used a screenscraper for data. First few calls to their call center have resulted in surprise…TK agents have not been able to locate if these accounts ever existed.

However, a member has now received information that this is a system error and the account will be back up on Tuesday. And my brother received emails from TK stating two of his United flights were credited to the program yesterday.

Have you guys checked your accounts recently? And have you heard from TK on cancellations. Do share if you have any experiences with this.

Related Posts:

• Turkish Airlines’ still status matching to Star Alliance Gold
• Turkish Airlines status matching up to Star Alliance Gold
• Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles now offers a Family Club

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In May this year, I had posted about the Turkish Airlines status match offer, where I had written that the top tier members from all three alliances (Star Alliance, oneworld as well SkyTeam). Yes, you read it right, TK is the only airline to status match into Star Alliance Gold tier as well. All you have to do, is send an email to customermiles@thy.com with a scan of your other airline FFP membership card and account statement (this is a requirement to receive both). Turkish is still matching, which means easy status

The status match is valid for 2 years from the date of upgrade, and to renew, all you need to do is bank 25K status miles (on any star alliance airline) on the TK program in Year 1 or 37.5K status miles by the second year. I know it is easier to ‘earn’ status the Gold status in Aegean airlines program, but here I am talking about the status-matched already, and on a better and more stable airline which you may fly someday. To get the full details about how to get status-matched, you should look at the original post here.

Now, lets come to the benefits of Star Alliance Gold. Like I mentioned last week, I had Status Matched my brother on to Star Alliance Gold as well with Turkish. I was trying to decide which program to bank his flights on United and US Airways with, and the options were Jet Airways, Lufthansa Miles & More and Turkish Miles & Bonus. I eventually decided to bank them with Turkish for two reasons:

a) Out of the three options, they were the ones who were providing 100% status miles on low-fare classes booked on UA and US.

b) The travel plan for the brother was such that he was going to make about 18000 status miles on this trip already, which is half way through to retaining Gold Status on TK in two years. Not bad, I’d say.

But there is also a bonus I never knew about and found out of now. On banking miles to the TK program, you also get a 1000 TK miles as welcome miles to the program.

With a non-American program, my brother was also able to access the United and US Airways lounges at Newark and Charlotte since his transit flights were in conjunction with an international flight. Not just that, US Airways was able to get him on a free standby for both the sectors, cutting down his 5 hours transit time between flights (landing of UA49) to the final destination by 2 hours.

There are many benefits of having status in your pocket, and I’m sure it would help you. So, while this opportunity is on the table, why not take it. All the best.

Related Posts:

• Turkish Airlines’ still status matching to Star Alliance Gold
• Turkish Airlines status matching up to Star Alliance Gold
• Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles now offers a Family Club

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