Before October 7th, Turkish Airlines flew between 10-16 daily flights between Istanbul and Tel Aviv, making them one of the largest airlines to fly to Israel. Israelis used Turkish as an inexpensive way to travel the world via its Istanbul hub.
Turkish Airlines has not flown to Israel since that date, and 2 months ago, they relinquished their slots for landing and takeoff rights in Tel Aviv.
Before last year’s devaluation, using Turkish miles for travel to Israel on Star Alliance partner United was a mileage bargain at just 32K miles in coach or 47K miles in business class:
But now, Turkish Airlines has removed the ability to book Star Alliance award tickets to or from Israel.
If you search for Tel Aviv on the Star Alliance award search page, nothing comes up at all:
And if you click through to see all Star Alliance airports worldwide, you can see that Israel has been removed as an option:
I decided to see if I had better luck via the Turkish Miles and Smiles call center, so I found availability on United to Tel Aviv using fellow Star Alliance carrier Air Canada miles and called Turkish to see if I could book it.
The first agent chastised me for not using the Turkish website, but after I explained that the website didn’t let me search for TLV, she tried and said she also was unable to search for TLV and suggested I contact my local Embassy. Huh?
So I called back again, and another agent also chastised me for not using the Turkish website, before acknowledging that he, too, was unable to search for TLV. He suggested calling United and asking them to use my Turkish miles. I got a good chuckle out of that and said thanks for the tip.
I suppose that means that Turkish Airlines is not just boycotting Israel, they won’t even allow their miles to be used to fly to Israel on Star Alliance partners, as per their contractual obligations.
DansDeals contacted Turkish Airlines and Star Alliance media contacts for comment on this and whether it’s in violation of Star Alliance policy, but we haven’t received a response from either.
Consumers can contact the Star Alliance here.
You can also complain informally to the DOT here.
Turkish Airlines was recently fined $1.3M by the DOT after a DansDeals reader filed a formal complaint against them.
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How is this legal? @TurkishAirlines is boycotting Israel!
Turkish is a @staralliance member, and its miles can be redeemed for any other Star Alliance member airline route.
But they just deleted Israel from their Star Alliance award flight booking system, and it's no longer… pic.twitter.com/vABK8cdzPB
— DansDeals (@DansDeals) June 11, 2025
Turkish Airlines Is Blocking Star Alliance Awards To And From Israel, Should They Be Kicked Out Of Star Alliance?
Before October 7th, Turkish Airlines flew between 10-16 daily flights between Istanbul and Tel Aviv, making them one of the largest airlines to fly to Israel.… https://t.co/Q0151f90y4 pic.twitter.com/2dq9trjbUW
— DansDeals (@DansDeals) June 11, 2025
What do you think of Turkish Airlines blocking Star Alliance award flights to Israel?
HT: Etzion G.
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28 Comments On "Turkish Airlines Is Blocking Star Alliance Awards To And From Israel, Should They Be Kicked Out Of Star Alliance?"
All opinions expressed below are user generated and the opinions aren’t provided, reviewed or endorsed by any advertiser or DansDeals.
Someone should explain to Turkish Air that if they would fly to Israel then they can stop Elal from price gouging.
Let’s see if the comments here will be as nasty as they were in the previous article about Elal scarcity and pricing. Or maybe people are more favorable towards Turkish antisemites than Elal
Call the embassy, and let us know if that resolves the issue.
Not sure if they meant the U.S. Embassy, Israeli Embassy or Turkish one, so better to play it safe and call all 3.
We were the last Turkish flight out of Israel on October 10th. The flight was 70% empty though the website and call center both said the flight was full. Only at TLV did we learn there was plenty of space. When we landed in Turkey there was a camera crew filming people arriving from Israel. I think they thought it would be Arabs fleeing Israel and were quite disappointed when they interviewed us and discovered which side we were on. They cancelled our return and didn’t issue a refund until I just disputed half the charge a few months later. Only then were they like oh yeah here’s your refund.
Qatar Airways does this too, TLV is not even searchable on their avios program, for BA tickets, is that different?
Is that a violation of the terms their OneWorld membership?
Have been wondering this for a while
What about if you use their call center?
It’s really too bad. It used to be my favorite airline to fly from LA to TLV. Great planes and the airport in Istanbul was fantastic.
@dan I think erase the part of the United bargain part, if they reinstate those flights in response to your tweet they might raise the price..
Read that paragraph again…
Aha.
I hope they don’t devaluate again fir the tlv pll. Star alliance is pro isreal?
should Avianca be kicked out for not allowing to search certain airports that are served by star alliance?
Yes
@dan, what about AA they are also Blocking award to TLV?
https://www.dansdeals.com/airfare-deals/israel-flights/is-american-airlines-boycotting-israel/
How is star alliance actually governed?
Since TK is one their largest partners cant imagine they would self sabotage.
You don’t have to go so far
AA did the same thing!
https://www.dansdeals.com/airfare-deals/israel-flights/is-american-airlines-boycotting-israel/
Considering the vile attitude of the Turkish government towards Israel, no Jew should have anything to do with Turkish Airlines.Even if their flights were free. They don’t even pretend to be neutral, they straight out hate us.
Maybe not everyone equates Israel with Judaism.
Whoever hates Israel hates Jews. That’s a fact.
Not me…
We are not talking about Satmar here.
Pretty sure this violates us federal law as it’s discriminatory against national origin.
Turkish Airlines should have all its US landing rights rescinded for this.
They are a private company, they can do what they want.
Unless you can point to a rule in SA that mandates TLV bookings, not sure why they would be kicked out.
Yes it’s political and I’m not defending them, just don’t get your basis to kick them out.
Turkey getting kicked out of NATO might make more sense!
I’ll let chatgpt tackle this one:
https://forums.dansdeals.com/index.php?topic=137500.msg2948772#msg2948772
Turkish – “is expected” “should facilitate” “counter to alliance norm” – So there is no rule. Just AI suggestions.
You proved my point!
If you can find the explicit rule, I would be happy to admit I’m wrong…
You didn’t read until the end.
How is this different from Qatar being in OW but not allowing you to book award flights to Tel Aviv on a partner carrier?
Lets not be the boy who cried wolf. There are enough real issues.