Hello everyone! I've been looking at plane tickets for my summer getaway to Istanbul. So far, the best fare I've found has been British Airways-Chicago ORD to Istanbul Ataturk departing May 24: $1092. Obviously, buying far in advance is best. I've also heard Tuesday at 12am is a good time to purchase...not sure how reliable that tip may be. Any suggestions/secrets I should know before purchasing my ticket? Thanks!

There is no advantage in buying anything at a randon Tuesday at 12am, other than that is probably the slowest time of the week for call centers, so the chances of being on hold long is little.

regarding fares, that seems about right at the moment for that time of year, however generally in early March US carriers generally post late spring/early summer fare sales to Europe and IST fares normally are in the $600-700 range at that time.

get the cheapest fair to berlin, and fly with germanwings to sabiha gokcen for about 150 dollars.

Thanks Tallpony! I think I'll wait a couple weeks before I book my ticket. Hopefully I'll be able to grab one of the sale fares. RSA- thanks for the info...I'll keep that in mind next time I fly to Berlin.

I don't think you got my point.
Sabiha Gokcen is the second airport in Istanbul, it's located on the Asian side and it has mostly domestic and European charter flights.

I don't know what the prices to Berlin (or London) are, but if you can get them, for example: half the price, you can get a very cheap flight to Istanbul.

Yes, of course that what your point. I apologize- it's been a looong day. Will definitely check that out.

There is a direct flight from O'Hare to Istanbul on Turkish Airlines. They fly 4(?) days a week. If the prices are close, I suggest going with Turkish Airlines. Be sure to sign up for the frequent flyer program as it is a pretty generous one.

I looked at the THY for that date and abouts, its a couple hundred more expensive.
If this is the only flight she's going to do on THY for the foreseeable future then she is better off with a FF account on an airline that she actually will fly with as 12k in orphan miles on THY alone is just useless.
Yes London is an option and could be done for perhaps $2-300 cheaper, but is absolutely false economy if you ask me. Why? Flights from ORD generally go to LHR, so you're talking about a hell of a commute to get to Luton or whatever, plus the cost, then the cost of an EZJet ticket, then getting from SAW to wherever she neds to go. So maybe at the end of the day $50 will have been saved and the trip will have taken twice as long with a hell of a lot of ground movement necessary. As for Berlin, forget it, there are few good goct effective flights from the US to Berlin.

I remembered from her intro that she's considering living here.

Also, I flew for 10,000 frequent flyer miles roundtrip to Antalya from Sabiha Gökçen on a Miles & Smiles promotion. Such promotions pop up every now and again.

I'm looking for good deals too so I will watch this thread.

I've racked up some miles on Turkish Airlines but they expire within 3 years if unused. Half of mine expired at the end of 2006!

I tried to use my 120K points accumulated via my VISA card (over many years) to convert into a ticket for travel to Istanbul at the end of June but they said it only has a $600 equivalent so I need 200K points. How ridiculous! Don't be fooled when credit card companies say you can earn miles that can be redeemed anytime without any no blackout dates, etc. You'll be better off using credit card issued by airlines since they are actually converted to miles VS just points where they later assign the value. But of course airline miles earned have doubled for ticket redemption too if traveling outside of the US. They are just getting us one way or another is my point.

Don't forget that if you actually land in London, there is an airport tax of around $100 (tacked on to the ticket price) and no other European airport charges that much.

Actually I had a pretty good connection from NY JFK to IST via Milan Malpensa last summer. It was my first time flying Alitalia too. They were quite decent. I flew to SFO via Paris on Air France on the way back and that was an even better experience. I flew both ways using my Delta miles but obviously used their partner airlines which had better service than Delta albeit the two stops VS just one.

You think that AZ and AF have better service than DL? Maybe you got lucky, but that is definately not normally the case.

I was lucky indeed. Actually I got a better experience with AZ (and AF too) maybe because I kind of hit it off with the crew and some were extra nice to me. I don't usually sleep well in airplanes (and trains for that matter even if I'm occupying a wider, bigger seat) so I tend to walk around. In both legs of the trip I struck up conversations with some flight attendants during my water runs to the galley and they were friendly. Also the planes definitely newer, bigger and better-equipped than Delta's aging fleet.

Alitalia suck. Particularly when they cancel your flight, overbook the later one and then shift you around Rome airport from desk to desk without ever checking you in. Bonus points for paying no attention to established queues meaning that people from the front end up at the back and tempers eventually get frayed. Oh yeah and this is all done at their home base where thing (should be) at their most efficient.

Personally I found Lufthansa and KLM to provide the best service to the States from Ist. The former because the planes were brand new and the latter because the staff were good.

My two favorite airlines are Cathay Pacific and Singapore Air. They are of course Asia-based carriers and don't fly from the US to Europe. Cathay Pacific used to fly from Hong Kong nonstop to Istanbul but they discontinued their service a couple of years ago due to low demand.

In my experience, Turkish Airline's service actually sucks even on Business Class. I fly with them on domestic routes in Turkey and I took TK to and from Frankfurt on C class as well. The crew aren't attentive.