After three weeks spent visiting Dubai, Egypt and Jordan, it was time for me and Shae to return to the US. To get back, I booked us tickets on Turkish Airlines in business class.
Turkish doesn’t fly directly from Amman, Jordan to the US, so our journey took us from Amman to Istanbul, Turkey, then on to Chicago O’Hare. The flight from Amman to Istanbul was short (less than 2.5 hours), so I won’t be reviewing that here. This review is therefore about our longer flight from Istanbul to Chicago.
It ended up being an OK experience and no doubt better than flying in economy, but I wasn’t blown away by it. In particular, the food wasn’t as incredible as I was anticipating it to be considering Turkish Airlines is known for its business class catering.
Here’s a full review of our flight in Turkish Airlines Business Class from Istanbul to Chicago O’Hare.
Flight: Turkish Airlines TK5
Istanbul (IST) – Chicago (ORD)
Scheduled Departure Time: 2:15pm August 27, 2021
Scheduled Arrival Time: 5:40pm August 27, 2021
Aircraft Type: Boeing 777-300 ER
Seats: 7J (me) and 7K (Shae)
Flight Class: Business
The airplane we were on (a Boeing 777-300 ER) has its business class cabin set up with seven rows in a 2-3-2 configuration. That formation could be useful if there are three of you traveling together as you could sit together in the center seats. If you’re not though, ending up in the center seat isn’t ideal as it means having to climb over another passenger to your left or right if both seats are reclined.
I thought that I’d selected our seats ahead of time, but apparently I hadn’t. That meant that Shae was due to sit in 7G (the left of those three seats), with me in 7J (next to her but on the other side of the aisle). The seat next to me (7K) was due to be empty, so she ended up being able to move over next to me.
This set up isn’t ideal either if you’re traveling alone as it means that the person in the window seat potentially has to climb over the person on the aisle side if they’re sleeping and so have their seat reclined.
Having the seats set back so far from the TV and the lack of any kind of screen door meant it felt spacious. The potential downside (if it’s important to you) is that there’s less privacy.
Having said that, there is a short screen that provides some privacy from the person sitting next to you.
Waiting for us on our seats was a blanket which was quite comfortable.
When boarding the plane we were provided with a hygiene kit. This contained a mask, hand sanitizer and antiseptic wipes (we flew at the end of August 2021, so COVID was still a concern). The mask in the kit was the best face mask I’ve worn since COVID started; not only was it comfortable, but it’s the only one that’s never caused my glasses to fog up.
Beneath the TV was a storage compartment with a pair of slippers on top.
The storage compartment was a good size and so had plenty of space for your shoes, as well as a laptop and other personal items you might have.
On the center section by our heads was a small light with a remote for the in-flight entertainment system beneath that. This was attached to a cable that you could pull out; to return it to its place, you pull on the cable a little – similar to how some vacuum cleaner cables work.
The center console had a couple of drink holders, a shared shelf and seat controls.
The center console also stored our tray tables.
I particularly appreciated the design of the tray table. You could slide it towards you when eating…
…while also being able to turn it away from yourself if you want to get up from your seat.
Between the center console and the seat was a power outlet.
On the opposite side was the headphone port and USB port.
Between the power outlet and the headphone and USB ports was a small storage compartment. This was useful for storing my phone when charging it, along with my glasses.
As you can see in the photo above, it’s also the perfect size for storing the headphones that are provided in business class.
The headphones were fairly good, but they certainly weren’t noise-cancelling. The seat on the aisle opposite me where Shae was originally due to sit was taken by a child whose dad was in the center seat. The child spent several hours watching videos on his phone with the volume turned up. Despite repeatedly asking for him to turn it down or wear headphones so that he could still listen to his videos, he’d turn the sound down for a few seconds and then back up shortly after. It was so loud that I could hear his videos even when wearing the headphones provided in business class and having my movie’s volume turned up.
Flight attendants sometimes came up our end while he was watching videos, but they didn’t do anything to ensure the rest of the cabin didn’t have to listen to whatever he was watching.
Turkish Airlines business class had a pretty good selection of in-flight entertainment (IFE) options, although there weren’t as many new movies as I might’ve expected.
The IFE remote was a little annoying as the main button was overly sensitive. It had a four-way directional button to move up, down, left and right, with the selection button being in the center of that pad. There were numerous times during the flight where I pressed the selection button and in the process ever-so-slightly nudged one of the directional buttons in the process which meant it selected something different.
The business class cabin was kept at a comfortable temperature when awake. However, there weren’t any individual air nozzles (only additional lights) above us. That meant that when trying to take a nap, it was too hot having a blanket on me despite the fact that I was only dressed in shorts and t-shirt.
Just before departure we were provided with a Versace amenity kit.
One of the things it contained was a couple of stickers you could attach to your seat to advise whether or not you’d like to be woken up when sleeping for a meal.
The rest of the amenity kit included some soft and comfortable socks, an eye mask, toothbrush and toothpaste, dental floss, eau de toilette, lotion, misting spray and lip balm.
We were also provided with food and wine menus before takeoff. As mentioned earlier, Turkish Airlines is known for its business class catering service as they have a couple of chefs on board taking care of the food.
Here’s the food menu…
…and here’s the wine menu.
Another feature of the in-flight entertainment system was that it had a couple of cameras on the outside of the plane. One allowed you to watch the flight from the front of the plane…
…while the other looked directly downwards. This was a slightly unusual way of watching the flight, but it was strangely fun watching it with this view during landing at the end of the flight.
Dinner was served about 30 minutes after takeoff. This started with seasonal salad, cheese, “potpourri” of seafood, selection from a bread basket and a chocolate profiterole. The seafood was good, but not what I’d class as memorable.
We then had a choice between a grilled Turkish style meatball, grilled swordfish brochette or rigatoni. I’d never had swordfish before, so I decided to order that. It came served with celeriac potato puree and Tuscany style vegetables. Seeing as I’d never had swordfish before, I have nothing to compare it to. However, it was drier than I expected it to be.
With the meal I had a glass of champagne.
Shae ordered the rigatoni which she thought was OK, but nothing special.
After the meal I decided to move on to Jim Beam Bourbon Black.
The flight attendants then handed out a snack menu that we could choose from at any time.
After our meal was finished the flight attendants came around the cabin offering turndown service.
The seat itself was comfortable to lay down on, although it felt very narrow and so it was tight having my arms by my side. I think I managed to drop off a little on the flight, but I kept waking up very hot in the cabin.
Service on the flight was mediocre. The flight attendants weren’t unfriendly, but it felt like we were putting them out if we ever requested anything outside of the two meals. At times they’d seemingly just ignore the fact that you’d pressed the button for service.
One time I went up into the galley to ask for some snacks. The flight attendants were sitting in their seats chatting to each other and just blanked me for about 30 seconds before finally making an effort to ask if I wanted something. A similar thing happened to Shae too where they ignored her and continued chatting to each other.
There was also a weird water situation on our flight. We were all given a small bottle of water, but when asking for more water later on I was advised that there were no more bottles and so they had to take my bottle to fill it back up with water. The bottle was very small and I like to stay hydrated, so I had to ask for more water several times which wasn’t ideal seeing as the flight attendants sometimes ignored service requests.
The bathroom was somewhat spacious – certainly larger than Emirates First Class on the 777-300 ER which I wasn’t expecting.
Turkish Airlines offers business class passengers 1GB of Wi-Fi free which is great. The speed of their internet was very good too; I did a Speedtest.net test during the flight and was impressed by the speed and so took a screenshot. Unfortunately my laptop died the night we arrived back in the US and so I lost that screenshot.
Miles & Smiles members get 10 MB of free internet regardless of which cabin they’re sitting in. If you’re an existing Miles & Smiles member, you have to log in with your account, so you’ll want to have your login details with you. If you’re not, it seemed like you could set up an account on the flight and get the 10 MB free that way.
If you’re not in business class and so not getting 1GB free, you can then pay for additional data usage which seemed to be priced reasonably.
About an hour before landing we were served another meal. This started with Best of Turkish meze, Bombay beans in tomato sauce, shepherd’s salad (which only consisted of tomato, cucumber and olives) and chocolate mousse. They also brought round a bread basket which we could choose from.
This was followed up by a choice between traditional “dolma” varieties and “karniyarik” (minced beef stuffed vine leaves and zucchini eggplant with minced beef, tomato sauce and yogurt) or “manti” homemade Turkish ravioli (minced beef, tomato sauce and yogurt).
Both Shae and I chose the ravioli. While I appreciated that it didn’t have cheese in it (I don’t like cheese), this too was a little dry as there wasn’t much tomato sauce to go with it. I could’ve added the plain yogurt, but that didn’t appeal to me.
Landing
About 30 minutes after our meal was cleared away, we landed at Chicago O’Hare. The plane wasn’t at a gate, so we had to get on a shuttle bus to take us to the terminal. Turkish Airlines allows business class passengers to disembark first, so that meant we boarded the first shuttle bus.
Shae and I both have Global Entry, so we got through immigration very quickly. That was all for nothing though because the experience picking up our bags was awful. I’m not sure if the issue was on the Turkish Airlines end or O’Hare airport’s end, but it took 1 hour 15 minutes for our bags to appear on the carousel.
The situation was made even worse by the fact that O’Hare decided to put luggage from three different flights on the same carousel. There were many carousels going unused, but by putting them all on the same one meant it got ridiculously crowded. Many people weren’t wearing masks or were wearing them as chinstraps and everyone was pushed up against each other.
When people’s bags were finally available, people standing next to the carousel wouldn’t move out of the way so others could collect their bags. Another time, a 10 year old boy was trying to lift a bag off but couldn’t manage it on his own. He was following the carousel around trying to lift it off, but anyone who could’ve helped refused to until I gave him a hand lifting it off.
Again, I don’t know if the baggage situation is the fault of Turkish Airlines or the O’Hare ground crew, but it made for an unpleasant end to the flight. Our bags had Priority tags on them due to us flying in business class, but we seemed to be some of the last people on our flight to get our luggage. Regardless of whose fault it was, having it take 75 minutes for bags to arrive is unacceptable. I’m just glad we weren’t needing to catch a connecting flight that evening.
How We Paid For Turkish Airlines Business Class IST-ORD
I booked our flights using Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles miles. To do this I transferred 94,000 Citi ThankYou points to my Miles & Smiles account as our tickets cost 47,000 miles + $321.15 for taxes and fees per person. That got us from Amman to Istanbul and then Istanbul to Chicago, all in business class. While $321.15 per person for taxes and fees was higher than I’d have liked, it seemed worth it seeing as we only had to redeem 47,000 miles to go along with that which was less than most other airline loyalty programs would’ve charged.
The booking process was a bit of a faff though. I tried booking tickets for both me and Shae at the same time, but Turkish Airlines’ website said I could only book for myself first as it was the first time I was booking an award ticket with them. I did that with no problem, but it still wouldn’t let me book Shae’s ticket online after that.
I therefore had to call the Turkish Airlines ticket office and book her ticket over the phone. There was a long wait time to get through to someone, but once I finally got connected to an agent it was a smooth process. I think he might’ve been based overseas, but he spoke excellent English and was extremely helpful. It therefore only took about 20 minutes to get Shae’s ticket booked once I got through to him.
Final Thoughts
I have mixed feelings about our flight in Turkish Airlines business class. Shae and I have flown in economy class for the majority of the flights we’ve taken in our lifetime, so complaining about flying in business class seems strange.
There were a number of features that I wasn’t overly impressed with though. For an airline with a great reputation for the quality of its catering service, the food was disappointing. My swordfish and ravioli were both dry, while Shae’s pasta wasn’t very flavorful. The flight attendants weren’t what I’d call actively rude, but they were mediocre and not very attentive – even going so far as ignoring us when asking for service. They also did nothing about the kid watching obnoxiously loud videos on his phone for several hours.
Our business class seats were comfortable to sit in, but more narrow than I’d have liked when trying to sleep. It was also too hot in the cabin to use the blanket when sleeping as there were no air nozzles. Having it then take 75 minutes to get our bags after our flight made things even worse.
There were some features I liked though. Our seating area felt spacious and I liked the large storage compartment on the floor as well as the adjustable tray table. It was nice having lie-flat seats, albeit with it being too hot to get any proper sleep. Getting 1 GB of free internet in business class is great value, especially considering it was a very good speed. The flight was also good value seeing as it only cost 47,000 miles and $321.15 per person to get us from Jordan to the US via Turkey.
Needless to say, it was a more pleasant flying experience than flying in economy class. I certainly wouldn’t avoid flying Turkish Airlines in business class in the future, but I won’t be actively seeking it out either.
Check Out All The Posts From Our Dubai/Egypt/Jordan Trip
- It’s Time For Shae’s Secret Birthday Extravaganza!
- Flight Review: Emirates First Class – Chicago (ORD) To Dubai (DXB)
- Hotel Review: Grand Hyatt Dubai (1 Bedroom Grand Suite)
- Awesome Dubai Desert Safari For Shae’s 40th Birthday
- 1 Week In Dubai: Here’s What We Did
- Hotel Review: Ramses Hilton In Cairo, Egypt
- Exploring Babylon Fortress In Old Cairo, Egypt
- Visiting The Pyramids Of Giza In Cairo, Egypt
- Hotel Review: Marriott Mena House In Cairo, Egypt
- 6 Days In Cairo, Egypt – Here’s What We Did
- Our Dead Sea Experience: Floating, Mud & Tequila Shots!
- Hotel Review: Hilton Dead Sea Resort & Spa, Jordan
- 10 Tips For Driving In Jordan
- Visiting Petra In Jordan – One Of The New 7 Wonders Of The World
- Hotel Review: Petra Marriott, Jordan
- 1 Week In Jordan – Here’s What We Did
- Flight Review: Turkish Airlines Business Class – Istanbul (IST) To Chicago (ORD)
- Hotel Review: Hilton Chicago O’Hare Airport, IL
- Spending Breakdown: 3 Weeks In Dubai, Egypt & Jordan – Here’s What It Cost
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