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I recently booked an award ticket on Turkish Airlines using Avianca LifeMiles. While booking award tickets with LifeMiles generally ranges from difficult to impossible, I thankfully managed to book my award flight without too many issues. However, I realized I only had an Avianca record locator but not a Turkish one. After several fruitless attempts looking for an answer on Flyertalk & other sites, I finally figured out how to get the Turkish Airlines record locator for an Avianca LifeMiles award ticket.
Getting the Turkish Airlines Record Locator from Avianca LifeMiles
If you’re like me, you want to get your seat assignments as soon as you book your flight to have the best selection. There was only one problem. I only had an Avianca Airlines record locator, which wouldn’t allow me to add Turkish flight seats. For that, I would need to get the Turkish Airlines Record Locator.
Over the years, the methods for getting the Turkish Airlines PNR from Avianca have changed. I tried putting the Avianca PNR into both the Turkish Airlines website and their app, but neither worked. Then I tried using my Avianca PNR on other Star Alliance websites to get the information, but this didn’t work either.
I also called Avianca’s call center. This customer service rep confirmed my Avianca record locator & ticket number, but they said they did not have the Turkish Airlines record locator.
This is what finally worked for me (as of this writing in September 2023).
You’ll see this little chat icon on the bottom right corner of the LifeMiles website.
Click it, and you’ll be taken to a live chat. Well, not quite live yet. At first, you’ll interact with Mia, the LifeMiles virtual assistant.
Mia can only help you with limited basic requests, but it’s possible to contact an actual person through the chat.
The exact wording I used to get a live agent via the LifeMiles chat was, “I need to get the confirmation number for an award ticket.” Within a couple of minutes, I was connected with a live agent.
Vivian, the live agent, requested my name and LifeMiles number and confirmed my flight info. After about 5 minutes, she returned with my Turkish Airlines record locator. Success!
Theoretically, this should also work for getting the record locator for other Star Alliance award tickets booked through Avianca LifeMiles, but I only had a Turkish booking.
Booking Turkish Airlines Seat Assignments for an Avianca LifeMiles Award Ticket
There was still one last step I needed to complete: Booking the seats for my Turkish Airlines flights.
I tried using the Turkish Airlines PNR on their regular website but got an error message saying, “Dear passenger, This reservation cannot be viewed due to the sales channel in which it was formed. You can apply to the channel where you have made your reservation to make a transaction.”
Don’t panic. The Turkish Airlines website can be as temperamental as Avianca’s. However, their app works much better. Download the Turkish Airlines iOS or Android app, and you should be able to use that record locator to finally book your desired seats.
Hopefully, this method works for you. Let me know in the comments if you have success!
Hi Jonathan! Thank you so much! The information you provided was very helpful for my booking on Turkish Airlines (via Avianca). I was able to chose my seat for my flight YUL-IST next September. However, on Turkish Airlines app if I want to print my e-ticket and invoice it does not work because I only have a ticket number from Avianca starting with 134. I called Turkish Airlines and been told my ticket was issued and everything was ok. But I’m still uncertain when I will want to check-in if it will work with Turkish Airlines PNR only or if they will require a ticket number starting with 235. From your experience will it work with only TK’s PNR? Thanks!
Hi Lise, I’m glad you were able to get your seat assignment! As far as check-in, I haven’t actually gone through that process for this specific booking, so I can’t say for sure. However, I can’t recall ever needing my ticket number when checking in with any airline. The PNR should be sufficient for that. It sounds like that printing issue might be due to Turkish not being the original issuing airline.