Farce as Turkish Airlines closes the ‘one million miles for six continents’ challenge

Last weekend we covered the Turkish Airlines ‘one million miles for six continents’ challenge.

It did what it says – you would receive 1,000,000 Miles&Smiles miles if you flew to all six continents by 27th October.

‘Would’ is now the operative word.

The challenge was due to run until 27th October.

However, yesterday afternoon, it was cancelled.

The Turkish Airlines website for the challenge now says:

Route: 6 Continents Has Ended

Thank you for the great interest you have shown in our Route: 6 Continents campaign.

In line with recent updates, the campaign has officially concluded as of July 8, 2025.

Members who purchased at least one ticket or completed a flight across six continents by July 8, 2025 will retain their eligibility. If these members complete their all flights across six continents by October 27, 2025, they will be earned 1 Million Miles.

Tickets purchased after July 8, 2025 will not be considered within the scope of the campaign.

Thank you for being part of this inspiring journey with us!

This is, clearly, a farce.

Was Turkish Airlines overrun with people taking part? In truth, it is difficult for them to know because the promotion did not require registration.

It can only guess, based on booking patterns, how many people were planning to do it.

The promotion wasn’t hugely generous either. It SOUNDS generous, because you think that one million miles goes a long way, but thanks to a heavily devalued Miles&Smiles reward chart and high taxes and charges, they don’t.

Turkish Airlines miles also have a ‘hard’ three year expiry. If you hadn’t used them in three years, they would expire, irrespective of your activity in the meantime.

On our maths, the best you could do would be to spend £5,000 flying to all six continents on Turkish Airlines (which, including hotel costs, was realistic) and then redeem your one million bonus miles for £5,000 of Amazon gift vouchers.

You’d effectively have got a free trip to all corners of the world in economy, but it would be ‘free’ if you had a strategy for using up the Amazon credit or whatever gift vouchers you took.

Do partly booked trips count?

On the face of it, people who have already booked tickets are not being left high and dry.

The announcement says:

Members who purchased at least one ticket or completed a flight across six continents by July 8, 2025 will retain their eligibility.

However, the terms and conditions for the offer now state:

The campaign ticketing dates were changed from June “27, 2025 – October 27, 2025” to “June 27, 2025 – July 8, 2025”. 

There is no mention of people who add flights later, who already have one qualifying flight booked, still qualifying.

It would be shocking if Turkish Airlines tried to stop people who had booked part of the trip but were waiting on booking the rest from qualifying. Let’s see what happens.

You can find out more about the challenge cancellation on this page of the Turkish Airlines website.

It’s also worth checking out the dedicated challenge thread at Flyertalk.