The Turkish Airlines Miles&Smile lounge in Istanbul’s international zone is very pretty, but in the long run it doesn’t turn out to be as pleasant as you’d expect.

Following the announced delay of my flight to Saigon, I have a connection of over 6 hours waiting for me in Istanbul. Fortunately, Turkish Airlines has two large, beautiful lounges with an excellent reputation. I could have and perhaps should have tried the Yotel, which would certainly have helped me sleep more comfortably, but I simply didn’t think of it at the time.

You’ll find a summary of the articles about this vacation in Vietnam at the bottom of the page.

Location of the lounge

It is located right in the heart of the airport, on the first floor, on the outskirts of the duty-free zone in the airport’s international zone, while the domestic zone has its own lounges.

In the center of the airport doesn’t mean close to all the gates: given the size of the terminal, some gates are a 20-minute walk away.

Access to the lounge

The lounge is open to Elite and Elite plus members of the Turkish Airlines Miles&Smile frequent flyer program, as well as to members of Star Alliance frequent flyer programs with Star Alliance Gold status.

For business class passengers, there is a special lounge which is almost a carbon copy of this one.

Traveling in business class and being a Diamond with SAS, I had the choice between the two lounges and decided to use this one on the outward journey and the business class on the return.

Lounge layout

The Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles lounge is very large, and comprises several areas with different atmospheres and decorations.

As soon as you enter, you’re greeted by a huge screen showing videos about the airline, the country, the destinations…

Then there’s the central lounge area with various stations where hot dishes are prepared on demand.

All around are rooms with different atmospheres and decorations.

The first one is quite cosy, like a library.

A second in a style I would describe as oriental.

A sort of cinema…

A playroom for kids.

Large open spaces with armchairs and tables.

A section with armchairs for reclining.

It’s midnight, my flight leaves after 6 a.m., and this is where I’ll be spending most of my time, sleeping intermittently.

Specially designed armchairs for working in seclusion.

It’s not as good as real closed offices like at Lufthansa or SAS, but it’s better than nothing.

Lockers, very useful for storing bags and suitcases during your stay at the lounge.

A beautiful view of the interior of this superb terminal, very lively even at night.

And finally, a video:

A very beautiful lounge that always impresses on the first visit, but that I don’t find as good as that in the long run, and until this trip I couldn’t put into words what it inspired in me.

There’s lots of space, lots of room, different atmospheres and settings, but in the end I realize that there’s no place where I want to settle.

I can wander around for hours thinking “not there, not there either, I don’t like this corner, there are too many people, I’m not isolated enough….”.

Speaking of the Air France lounge in Roissy’s 2F during rush hour, Olivier used the expression “zoo”, and I think it’s a bit the same here. At first glance, it’s beautiful, but I can’t find a place that makes me want to settle down, and it’s so crowded that wherever I go, I feel like I’m in the way, lacking privacy.

And here, in the middle of the night, as you can see on the video, it’s a bit like “castaways of the sky”: people are trying to sleep as best they can on the benches. I was lucky enough to find one of the 5 or 6 seats designed for this purpose, but for the other passengers it was camping mode, mainly on the benches in the catering area as the stations were closed at that hour.

These reclining seats used to be isolated in curtained booths, but these have now disappeared to give way to the configuration you saw above. It’s better than nothing, but you wake up often and keep an eye on your things all the time…

You may say that most lounges offer little or no space of this kind, but you should know thatIstanbul airport operates 24 hours a day, which means night-time connections that can be lengthy even if Turkish Airlines pays for the hotel under certain conditions. This is a parameter that should have been better taken into account.

In the end, my opinion of this lounge deteriorated with each visit: impressed at first, then less and less at ease. Very good for a short journey, but for a long connection, especially at night, I don’t find it all that comfortable.

In retrospect, I should have gone to the nearby Yotel, but I didn’t think of it.

Catering

The lounge’s catering offer is very extensive, at least during the day.

A large cold buffet to start.

Then there are numerous stations where hot dishes are prepared on demand.

But during the night most of them were closed, so there was nothing to eat apart from the cold buffet and a few cakes.

As for beverages, there’s no bar to speak of, but self-service stations dotted around the lounge, offering traditional soft drinks and a not-so-rich selection of alcoholic beverages, mainly wine.

Facilities

The lounge features work areas, suitcase lockers, toilets and showers.

Atmosphere

Very odd, quiet in the middle of the night without being really soothing.

Bottom line

A very pretty lounge with enormous potential, but it looks rather like a station concourse at peak times and isn’t very pleasant at night.

After the astonishment of discovery, it doesn’t impress that much in terms of experience.

In a nutshell: a lounge that offers plenty of space but where I’m having trouble finding my own.

The articles about this vacation in Vietnam

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