Turkish Airlines recently relocated from Istanbul Atatürk International Airport to the newly built Istanbul International Airport. Along with the major move of operations from one airport to the other, Turkish Airlines received a brand new Turkish Airlines Lounge. We would get the opportunity to fully test out of the new lounge on our recent travels through the region.

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This post is one chapter on our trip to Jordan, Israel and France during the end of the pandemic. This trip was enhanced through Marriott Bonvoy Elite Status, Hertz Gold Plus Rewards and Alaska Mileage Plan. For more information on how this trip was booked, please see our trip introduction here. For other parts of the trip, please see this index.

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Review: Turkish Airlines Lounge Miles & Smiles, Istanbul International Airport, Turkey

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This visit was to the Turkish Airlines Lounge Miles & Smiles in Istanbul International Airport; the airlines frequent flier version of their elite lounges.

For a review of other lounges and amenities in the Istanbul International Airport, please see our review of the Turkish Airlines Lounge Business Istanbul, The iGA Lounge Istanbul Airport and The iGA Sleep Pod – Istanbul Airport.

For a review of the old Turkish Airlines Istanbul Atatürk Business Lounge, please see our previous review visits here and here.

Locating the Turkish Airlines Lounge Miles & Smiles:

The new Turkish Airlines Lounge Miles and Smiles was built along with the new Istanbul International Airport. The new Istanbul International Airport is massive space that requires substantial amount of time to connect in between gates.

As reported in my other review of the Turkish Airlines Lounge Business Istanbul, Turkish Airlines elected to put all of it’s lounges in the central bank of retail and concourse shopping zones. This means that if you are a connecting passenger, you’re not going to find any lounges out on each concourse. Rather, you’re going to have to make the trek into the central portion of the airport to access any lounge facilities.

The Turkish Airlines Lounge Miles and Smiles was located just off the Center of the retail concourse with an access entry point just next to Gate C1. At first, it wasn’t all to easy to find. However, we quickly got used to finding the location of the lounge entries on future visits to this lounge.

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After arriving off of Turkish Airlines Business Class Tel – Aviv – Istanbul, we connected through the new Istanbul International Airport. We were connecting onwards to Turkish Airlines Istanbul – Paris, and had just under two and half hours between our flights.

The new Istanbul International Airport space offered beautiful tall ceiling concourses, spacious moving sidewalks and an interesting retail concourse.

We eventually found ourselves in the middle of the retail concourse zone at Istanbul International Airport. It’s fair to say that there were many more retail outlets at the new airport, than at the old congested Istanbul Atatürk airport.

Today’s review was for the purposes of checking out the second Turkish Airlines Lounge; the Miles and Smiles Lounge. I eventually located the Miles & Smiles lounge access located off Gate C1.

Similar to the Turkish Airlines Lounge Business, the Turkish Airlines Lounge Miles & Smiles has a host located at the bottom of the escalators to assist with access information. The host didn’t ask or challenge dedicated travellers and I just past them on my way up the escalators.

I took the escalator up to the first upper concourse floor. Much like the Turkish Airlines Lounge Business, there was a reception area at the top of the escalators. The reception area featured a large desk with available reception agents.

Accessing the Turkish Airlines Lounge Business:

With the new Istanbul International Airport, Turkish Airlines has introduced the concept of tiered lounges. This is similar to Lufthansa who offers three different levels of lounges consisting of Business, Senator / Star Gold and First Class.

With Turkish Airlines making this move, Turkish Airlines now provides one lounge for Business Class travellers (the Turkish Airlines Lounge Business), and another lounge for Turkish Airlines elite Members called Turkish Airlines Lounge Miles and Smiles. Today’s review was of the Turkish Airlines Lounge Miles & Smiles that is designed for their elite members of their Turkish Airlines frequent flier program.

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As described, once we arrived to the top of the escalators, there was a small reception area. Most of the lounge entry was on the basis of scanning a bar code on your boarding card, which would open a turnstile allowing for automated access.

There were several ways to get into the wonderful Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles Lounge.

The Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles Lounge access is provided for Turkish Airlines Business Class travellers at this lounge or the Turkish Airlines Lounge Business. No guests are permitted.

Access is also granted for those travelling on Star Alliance Business Class. No guests are permitted.

As a Star Alliance Gold Lounge, those that have Star Alliance Gold level status are invited into the lounge as long as they are departing on a Star Alliance flight in any class of service. One guest is permitted.

Elites from the Turkish Airlines Frequent Flier Miles and Smiles Program are invited into this lounge. Their spouse and children are also afforded access, or one guest.

At the time of writing, paid access is not provided on a walk up basis.

By moving to a tiered lounge system, the clientele in the Turkish Airlines Lounge Miles & Smiles consists of mostly families travelling together as a result of Turkish Airlines Generous Miles and Smiles access program that allows spouse and children in to the lounge. This has resulted in a more boisterous and engaging lounge experience.

Inside the Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles Lounge:

Much like the Turkish Airlines Lounge Business, Turkish Airlines has delivered on it’s past reputation of having a world class Turkish Airlines Lounge. The elite traveller Turkish Airlines Lounge Miles & Smiles mirrors many of the features found in the more upscale Turkish Airlines Lounge Business.

Immediately after entering the lounge through the automated entrance gates, you come face to face with a large wall sized media screen. The screen features a variety of scenes throughout Turkey which is a clever branding exercise for Turkish Airlines.

Like in the Turkish Airlines Business Lounge, the screen is anchored by a display of cut red roses, which are set out in a beautiful display vase. We would find cut red roses at various locations throughout the lounge.

To the immediate left of the entrance gates, there is a functional area that is mostly used to compliment the main features of the lounge.

The first feature I came to was a series of distanced relax chairs. These were separated from each other, presumably for some peace and quiet and so that you weren’t seated on top of each other.

Similar to the Turkish Airlines Business Lounge, adjacent to the relax chairs were a series of desktop iMac computers that were available. They were on a project style conference table. I didn’t see anyone actually using them while I was in the lounge. There was also a reception desk for the office facilities located at the end of the lounge.

Turkish Airlines Lounge Miles & Smiles also featured it’s usual storage lockers. We had used these in the past at the old Istanbul Atatürk Airport for the Turkish Airlines E-tour Istanbul. These can be great and super handy for dropping your bags off for a long day layover, and not actually having to pay for “left luggage” fees.

Moving back into the main part of the lounge, we came across a grand piano that was a little reminiscent of the piano located in the Asiana First Class Lounge in Incheon, Seoul.

Passing the piano, the central vertebrae of the lounge had the lounge aligned against a food station that ran down the centre of the lounge. It was almost identical to the Turkish Airlines Business Lounge.

As in the previous lounge, the Turkish Airlines media centre also made an appearance. This consisted of multiple television screens so that travellers could catch up on their news and sports. I didn’t see to many people actually sitting in this area. Instead, it became a spot that people paused as they were walking by in order to get the latest headline.

Much like the Turkish Airlines Business Lounge, the balcony styled mezzanine lounge seating was the most popular place to sit. It’s location isn’t exactly obvious when you first enter the lounge, but it also marked the most amount of open space lounge chairs. The familiar white lounge chairs appear to have been imported from the old Turkish Airlines Lounge Istanbul Atatürk, as some are showing a bit of wear and tear.

There were a few tables and chairs set up near the food service areas of this lounge. This made for a convenient pit stop in the event you had limited time.

The familiar Turkish Airlines race car track made a re-appearance at the Turkish Airlines Lounge Miles & Smiles. Familiar Turkish Airlines lounge visitors will remember the race track from the Turkish Airlines Business Lounge in Istanbul Atatürk International Airport. Race Track fans will be happy to see a version of the race track in both the Turkish Airlines Miles and Smiles Lounge and the Turkish Airlines Business Lounge.

The mezzanine area was anchored by large upright drink stations where you could enjoy (or take away) sodas, bottled water and other speciality non alcoholic drinks.

Like in the Turkish Airlines Lounge Business, the mezzanine seats have a retail landscape view over the concourse of the Istanbul International Airport.

In addition to the outdoor mezzanine seating, there was additional seating under the covered space towards the rear of the concourse hall. The décor for this space was similar to the “Ottoman’s Lounge”; ornamental in appearance and reminiscent of Turkish royalty.

While this space was similar to the Turkish Airlines Business Lounge, the Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles version seemed a lot smaller and a lot less glamourous.

Like in the Turkish Airlines Lounge Business, the area was made very modern looking by wall sized media displays that contained high resolution images of Turkey. As an executive, the last thing I want to be doing in my off time is looking at another screen or computer monitor, so I gave this area a miss entirely.

The seating zone did feature additional food and drink stations, which were occasionally located throughout the lounge.

In addition to the “Ottoman’s Living Room”, there was also a men’s study seating area. This zone contained the usual black leather short back chairs you might expect to find in a men’s study.. The walls were decorated with books and oil painting replicas to provide that elegant and quiet look and feel. I found the men’s study to be a little dark itself so I didn’t plunk myself down here during my stay.

The wifi in the lounge required sign on through your flight, name and seat number. While it worked well inside the lounge, the sign in process by providing this information was a little more cumbersome than expected. The Istanbul Airport wifi system is no better, requiring a code needed from a concourse kiosk, and is limited to one hour of complimentary use. Turkish Airlines and the country of Turkey could easily improve this bureaucracy by eliminating some of the collection of this information in order to get to a faster sign on process.

Overall, the lounge seating was much like the Turkish Airlines Business Lounge. The only difference was that there were many more groups travelling together in the Turkish Airlines Miles and Smiles version of the lounge, courtesy of it’s generous access policy for Turkish Airlines elites. This made the lounge a bit of a busier place, and perhaps a little less exclusive than the quieter Turkish Airlines Business Lounge.

Additional Features:

The Turkish Airlines Lounge Business was known for being a sort of over the top place. In this case, the Turkish Airlines Miles and Smiles Lounge offers slightly less features than it’s big brother Business Lounge.

Missing from the Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles Lounge is the golf simulator, and the virtual reality flyer. Despite this, the Turkish Airlines Lounge Miles & Smiles offered a children’s play area.

In summary, despite being in the lessor frequent flier Turkish Airlines Miles and Smiles Lounge, there is no shortage of amenities found within the Miles & Smiles version of the Turkish Airlines lounge. While there isn’t a golf simulator or a virtual reality simulator, the travellers passing through this lounge aren’t likely to miss many of these features.

Food and Beverage:

Much like the Turkish Airlines Business Lounge, the Miles & Smiles version has outstanding lounge food and among the best in class for an international business lounge. As a country, Turkey is known for it’s food. It’s great to be able to try out some of the foods that Turkey has to offer.

Most of the salads and food are set up in a central buffet styled square located at the end of the long central vertebrae or reception hall. There is more than enough choice of cold salads and food, with this zone being a very popular area of the lounge.

Dependent on when your visit time occurs, there are also various hot stations located along. theTurkish café, or towards the end food zone near the salads.

As I indicated earlier, the lounge drink section is offered from large wall sized coolers. This is super convenient from a self serve variety. I did find that these coolers often tend to get cleaned out during period of peak capacity. As a result, when the staff restock them, they don’t tend to get very cold in temperature before they are cleaned out again. The result is a drink that usually just a little bit below room temperature, or perhaps has been in the fridge for maybe one hour. Still, it’s super convenient to be able to collect a bottle of water for your onward flight and not have to worry about consuming the whole thing in the lounge itself.

Turkish Airlines doesn’t seem to put a premium on wine in their lounges. As a result, wine is served off the trolley in a self pour format. These trolley take up spots around the lounge and it’s a little easy to miss them if you don’t know what you’re looking for.

Despite the concept of tiered lounges, there appeared to be no obvious difference between the food and beverage offerings between the two lounges.

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We had a comfortable two hour stay, prior to heading off to our Turkish Airlines Business Class Istanbul – Paris flight.

My Thoughts on the Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles Lounge:

Turkish Airlines has clearly made efforts to maintain its position by offering a leading Miles & Smiles Lounge for its connecting travellers who pass through Istanbul International Airport. The Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles lounge is a virtual copy of the Turkish Airlines Business Lounge, with a few less extra features such as the golf & flight simulator.

I am happy to report that the Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles version is just as nice as the Turkish Airlines Business Lounge. While the lounge offers almost just as many features, despite having more families and group travellers, the lounge is just as good as the business version.

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If you fly through the Middle East Region, does the Turkish Airlines Miles and Smiles Lounge give it a competitive advantage over the other Middle Eastern Three carriers of Qatar, Etihad or Emirates?

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