Hi everyone,
I need some travel advice from the experienced. For semester break, I am flying home, I was able to get frequent flyer miles redeemed from Istanbul to the US, but I live in Ankara. Hence my delima.

My outbound flight is at 5:25 from Ataturk airport. I have to get there from Ankara. THY flies into Ataturk, but I would be arriving at midnight. Can I spend the night at the airport and is check in open or would I have to baby sit my luggage all night?
Pegasus flies into the other airport, but I don't know how easy it is to transfer from one airport to the other.

The other option was to catch a bus, but then I'm not sure where to get off and how to get to the airport at the wee hours of the morning ( does the metro run 24/7?).

thanks for any advice you may have,

If you fly THY on both legs you should be able to check your baggage in all the way to your final destination from Ankara. At Ataturk, you'd just have to carry your hand stuff from the domestic terminal, and over to international, where you'd do the passport formalities.

edit: ah, re-reading I see you're probably not flying THY to the states, in which case my advice is not very helpful. There may be a chance if your US carrier's part of the "Star Alliance", but others probably know better.

Why don't you stay in the airport hotel for the night which has access both from the terminal and air side?

now there's an idea I hadn't thought about!
thanks guys

Mafzal

How you are going to manage. bear with me for being nosy.

Why? did you have a great idea?
Anyways....I decided to make it easy on myself and booked a diff. ticket flying from Ankara. All my rewards point don't apply to this tick. unfortunately, I had to pay 300, but I can live with that as it offsets some of the costs of going to Istanbul and possibly having to spend the night in a hotel...

Thanks mafzal. Just like that. curiosity.

Have a great time. Bon Voyage.

Spine, that is nonsensical, you are confusing interline with alliances. One can check a bag through like this on TK onto Delta, or probably 80% of IATA carriers irrespective of alliance. In any case judging by the exact flight time I surmise that it is on LH and that it is Star Alliance - although you should note that TK is not yet a member of Star Alliance but DOES have a reciprical arrangement with LH. Also, yes one could potter around the airport form midnight until 4AM or so. Considering the way this person has framed his question, I would assume that he doesn;t want to blow $200 or so on four hours in the transit hotel.

Tallpony,

For my own future ref. can you please clarify the interline/ alliances issue -
Also TK /LH???

and you're right, I don't want to blow money on 4 hours of sleep...

by the way my flight was on KLM /Delta... Damn Delta for not operating out of Ankara!

TP, I stand corrected. As the son of an air traffic controller and a stewardess, I am crimson with shame.

Wow, Spine, where and how did your parents meet. At an airport (wild guess, I know)?

LH is Lufthansa, TK is Turkish Airlines, KL is KLM. What a strange connection, so you are doing ANkara-Amsterdam-NY, I had thought based on the time that it was LH as DL does operate nonstop to NY, however only 4-5 times a week in winter. In any case don;t worry too much about what interlining means, just that you will be able to check your bags through TK-KL-DL as TK interlines with the others.