"Stopover in Istanbul" - anybody avail themselves of this? (Turkish Airlines)

We have done this twice. We have stayed in two different hotels both about 15 minutes or so from the airport and far from any sights. We went to a holding location at the airport where many others were waiting. It seemed that they assigned hotels based on the departure times the next day. Our scheduled flights got us to the hotel in time to get ready for bed and we had just enough time in the morning for a quick breakfast before leaving in the van to the airport.

I think this service is for those who have to spend the night due to Turkish Airlines flights and I am not sure you would get a free room if you plan on spending more time in Istanbul. We have visited Istanbul twice for several days each time. It is very interesting with many beautiful mosques, Topkapi Palace, and so much more. If you do want to explore Istanbul this might be a good opportunity to add a few days to your trip, see some sights, and break up the long journey home.

Thanks Carol, it sounds like the free hotel isn't worth it for sightseeing. If we go this route we will likely stay a number of nights and forego the free hotel and find something in town. The flight from Hong Kong would arrive in Istanbul at 05:15.

Andrea, 5:15 pm? That was about the time we arrived in Istanbul. You have lots of time to research and decide on your plans. Have fun planning, and then going!
Carol

Hi Carol,

No, 5:15 am from Hong Kong. We would stay in Istanbul on the return journey. (fly Toronto to Singapore via Istanbul (no stopover), cruise Singapore to Hong Kong, fly Hong Kong to Istanbul - stay a couple of nights- then Istanbul to Toronto)

5:15am. You would probably have time for the excursion offered by the airline. If you want to spend more time in Istanbul I would encourage you to spend three nights there. Since you're getting there so early, that would give you three days to see the sights. We were there for a week in 2011 and five nights in 2013 (I can't believe it was so long ago!). We stayed near the Blue Mosque and walked pretty much everywhere except for a couple of boat rides, one on the Bosporus and one to the Asian side if Istanbul. I think I read that you now have to buy tickets in advance to visit some of the sights so that will require more planning than we had to do. But it's really worthwhile to visit. I hope you enjoy your planning and your trip!

FWIW I have just booked a flight through Turkish Airlines with the stopover in Istanbul so will be trying this out on my journey this fall -- we are flying SEA to ATH with the stopover in Istanbul on the return (for some reason it was significantly less expensive on the return than the departure). I booked a 3 night stopover and it appeared from the program description that accommodations are included for the entirety of the stopover. However when I went to create the hotel voucher once the ticket was booked, they only issued it for the first 2 nights, so I am following up on that with Turkish Airlines because that doesn't seem right. However I will say that they gave me 6 different hotels to choose from, all in different areas of the city. I ended up selecting Armada Hotel which is near the Blue Mosque and is well-rated. This was for an economy ticket, that's reflected on the voucher so my suspicion is that a higher fare class would generate higher class hotels. We'll see how this works out!

As an edit... In reviewing the small print on the terms and conditions, I found this:
Economy Class passengers starting their journey from the United States can benefit from our Stopover service for 2 nights; Business Class passengers can benefit from our Stopover service for 3 nights.

So it appears that the 2 nights on my voucher is correct and I'll have to coordinate with the hotel directly to add a third night. That's disappointing but I paid about $1480 for 2 RT economy tickets SEA > ATH with 2 nights accommodations out of the 3 night stopover in Istabul. So that's still quite a deal in my opinion.

Copperheadpdx, I would have liked two nights on the program, especially since you say you got to choose the hotel from a list of six, alas the fine print says two nights are only available to passengers arriving from US. I guess if we go forward with Turkish Airlines I'll decide if we want to move hotels after one night, or just forego the freebie.

I completely understand. The hotel that I was able to select is well reviewed so I'm contacting them to see if I can add the additional night and not have to move rooms or even worse hotels. I feel like this far in advance that should be doable.

Just want to report back on the hotel voucher and booking experience... As I said, I was given 6 different options to select from: 1 5-star hotel and 5 4-star hotels, all in different areas. After researching reviews and locations for each, I selected Armada Hotel in the Sultanahmet area. Because we are flying to/from the US, Turkish Airlines covers 2 nights, however are staying 3 nights so I reached out to the hotel to arrange an extension. There is a contact email address on the hotel voucher issued by Turkish Airlines

The hotel responded to me very quickly. They have special rates for Turkish Airlines stopover passengers and offered me a standard room for €168 for the additional night. The price offered for online bookings directly through the hotel website is €247.86 for the same room class, same date. I inquired if I could upgrade the room on our voucher to a Superior room (slightly larger and with a view) for an additional cost and they said I could, cost quoted is a supplement of €55/night on the voucher and €192 for the additional 1 night extension. The cost quoted on the booking engine through the hotel website is €297.43 for a superior room on the same date. Room rates are inclusive of breakfast. Your rates may vary depending on time of the year and days of the week you are staying. My voucher nights are Wednesday and Thursday, extension is a Friday night, all in the first week of October.

So I feel like this is a pretty good deal for the area and the hotel class. The gentleman I've been communicating with over email has been very helpful and responsive. I am optimistic this is going to be a great experience!

Sounds like an awesome deal to me. Enjoy.

I have friends going on an OAT tour of Turkey in April, and I believe they're staying in the same hotel. I'll ask them for their impressions after they get back (in May). Cheers.

I just checked back on this post and it sounds like you got a great deal! And the Turkish breakfast is delicious! I hope you enjoy your time there. Istanbul is a beautiful city!

@copperheadpdx thanks for the info, I am pretty much in the same boat, planning on booking a Turkish Airline return ticket to the US , so eligible for 2 nights. I havent booked anything yet but could provide a bit more info on what hotel options you had? I am also planning a 3-night stay. This way I can do my research prior to even booking Turkish and see if it worth going through them or use my Chase rewards. Cause reading on different forums hotels are far from tourist sites, so taxis, transport, time, etc. may end up costing the same.

Hi, All,
We are traveling from Rome to the US on Turkish Airlines in November. I went through a travel agency and I was given the hotel; I didn't have a choice. I opted for two nights rather than three but now may ask if I can extend the stay to three nights because one of the main attractions I wanted to tour was Topkapi Palace which is closed on the day we will be there. I'm very interested to see that when you booked directly with TA, you were given the choice of six hotels. The one I was given was the Renaissance Polat which is about 9-10 miles from the Blue Mosque and Topkapi which are the two main places we'd like to visit. Saw a lot of the other sites when we were there in January. So it's not such a big deal; we can take a train or bus. The biggest expense is from the airport to the hotel. It's a long trip by public transport, so we'll probably take a taxi which will run around $35. I did read about a shuttle bus from the airport but I can't find much information on it. I will research it a bit more because from what I read, it runs 24/7 at a decent price...but I'm not sure of the route in relation to our hotel. If anyone knows more about that, I'd appreciate hearing from you.

I think TA is wise to offer the layovers the way they do. It does pump more money into their economy with tourists staying in Istanbul for several nights, and it gives the traveler the chance to see the city at a much reduced cost. It's a win-win as far as I'm concerned.

I didn't take advantage of the free stopover hotel option, but did stay 3 extra nights in Istanbul flying Uganda to Ontario; as I knew I most likely wouldn't see Istanbul any other way. It was a whirlwind visit even with 3 nights as I had to work around Monday museum/site closures, but so worth it. It was from the old airport and with a 3 night stay, I got one free airport transfer from the hotel. Stayed near the main sites and walked everywhere.

Hello everyone,
We are hoping that TA will pay for 1 night and we will book another night on our expense for our travel in July.

1) Do we need to check out all our luggage if we use the 'Stopover in Istanbul' offer by TA for 2 nights? We plan to have only small cabin bags with us for two days. We will have 8+ checked in suitcases that we cannot lunge around so need to plan.

2) No visas needed for US Citizens anymore, right?

3) USD acceptable? Or should we still carry some Euros?

4) Any other experiences with staying in Istanbul for 1-2 days? Dos and Donts, apart from properly dressing up to be respectful of the culture.

thanks!

You need no visa with a US passport.

Turkey uses the Turkish Lira. Except for a taxi driver on arrival day who negotiated a (too-high) fare in euros, I used my credit card or paid cash in lira. The duty-free shops at the airport priced things only in euros, which was strange, but they took TL currency.

I have to assume folks in Turkey who would rather be paid in hard currency would prefer euros to dollars, but I think there's a risk many (most? all?) of those people will be making a bit of extra money on the transaction by not using a good conversion rate from TL to euros.

Hagia Sophia is now a ticketed sight.

You must remove your shoes before entering a mosque; note where others are doing that, because the no-shoes (imaginary, not physical) barrier will probably be before you reach the doorway. Women must cover their hair and should just stick a large scarf in their purses so they are always free to pop into a mosque (aside from prayer times, of course). I wear full-length slacks when traveling, so I'm not sure whether it's OK just to cover the knees; a lot of local women were in long skirts, but no one raised an eyebrow (that I noticed) at my slacks.

Allow lots of time for the Topkapi complex. You could spend nearly an entire day there. There are many interesting sights in Istanbul, but Topkapi and a few mosques would be good for a day and would limit the amount of traveling you'd need to do from sight to sight.

Public transportation is pretty easy to use, but getting hold of a stored-value card can be tricky. Ask your hotel for advice. Or use taxis. I'm sure the official rates are dirt-cheap for American visitors; I'm just not sure how much luck you'll have actually being charged the official rates.

Google Maps and CityMapper can help with public-transit directions, but be aware that they never seem to advise use of a funicular even when one would be helpful. And as of last October, CityMapper was months behind time on transit fares. In most cases I paid 15 TL per ride. As far as I could tell, except in the Metro system there were no transfers--but I could be misinformed on that point.

Lots of good advice directly above from acraven. I'll just add a couple more bits, and respectfully offer a more nuanced view on one subject: taxis.

Before jumping in a cab and zooming off, always negotiate the fare (you will be amazed at how many taxis in Istanbul have non-working meters...). Hold up a calculator/phone to display numbers, be clear about where you want to go, agree to a number and stick to it. Don't expect much/any English language skills.

Istanbul has some of the worst traffic on Earth. Large sections of the city are often gridlocked, not moving much or at all for long times. A taxi to/from the airport may be a good option (that's what we opted for last time, it kind of worked out...) but hailing a cab on the street to go short or even medium distances within the central city can be a bad choice. We were trying to essentially cross the old city center, going from one side of it to the opposite. We were tired, and had limited time, so we flagged down a taxi, well, actually 4 taxis eventually. The first one just drove away when we asked them how much it would cost to take us to our destination. The next two gave us a price that seemed ridiculous, we tried to bargain for a more reasonable fare but those cabbies would have none of that, they just said no and drove away. Finally we got a guy who was wiling to haggle and agreed to what seemed to us to be a reasonable fare (in Turkish Lira, the equivalent of around 10-15 Euros). The agreed-to fare was higher than it should be, but we were on cab #4 and losing patience. The driver was visibly unhappy, fretting verbally about the price he had agreed to and apparently about...the traffic. We jumped in, drove about 100 meters, and were immediately engulfed by gridlock. And there we sat, stuck, occasionally crawling a few meters but never actually moving very far, for a long, long time. The driver was not happy. He was chain smoking the whole time, too. After about 20 minutes of this, we had gone just a few blocks, and were actually now further away from our destination than we were when we got in the cab. We had had enough, realized we had made a bad choice, and figured it was time to cut our losses. I handed the driver the amount we had initially agreed to, made hand gestures to indicate we were giving up, he nodded, I opened the door and we stepped out in the middle of a large totally gridlocked street. and walked to our destination.

Point being: Even if you are up for the taxi adventure, the traffic can make opting for a cab a poor choice. It depends on the neighborhood, time of day, and more. We had much better experiences with the extensive and (mostly) easy-to-use public transit system. Yes, getting the transit card initially can be a confusing puzzle, (we eventually figured it out).

A couple minor suggestions: If you are referring to Turkish Airlines, it's "code" is TK (not TA - here, many people would read "TA" as "TripAdvisor" another popular travel forum).

Important: The "free stop-over option" that TK offers is not a general, free-for-all, anything-goes, here's-a-free-hotel-night for everyone. Your flight needs to meet some very specific criteria to qualify. You should look at their criteria very carefully and make sure your flights clearly meet them. I am a fan of Turkish Airlines (and the country) and I've never used this benefit myself. FWIW I've not heard before of you being able to choose how many nights you plan to stay there - my understanding is that, if you qualify, you get one free night in a hotel, and the next day you continue your onward flights, with no negotiation about staying extra nights. I have not followed the qualification criteria closely so I could be wrong about that (but I'm not going there expecting a free hotel room). You will want to take a hard look at the rules before making plans.

Good luck, have fun - Istanbul is amazing.

I totally agree with David's observations about the traffic in Istanbul. It's just that I observed it from the vantage point of a pedestrian. I took only one taxi in the city (which did get hung-up in dense traffic); otherwise, I walked a lot or used transit when I was going somewhere many miles away. I took trams or the Metro as much as I could; buses are more affected by traffic, but I only needed them when I got well outside the core of the city. I was in Istanbul for over 3 weeks, so I had time to try multiple IstanbulKart machines and make two trips to the (fortunately nearby) tourist office to ask questions.

I suspect the hotel rooms offered by Turkish Air are not right near Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque and the Topkapi Museum, so most likely a visitor taking advantage of the offer will have to use something other than foot power to get to the key sights. I wouldn't be surprised if some hotels sell IstanbulKarts preloaded with enough money for a few rides to their guests. That would be one of the first questions I'd ask at the reception desk.