The development of general and expedient methodologies for the preparation of orthogonally protected glycoside building blocks is essential for the efficient synthesis of complex oligosaccharides. Herein, we describe a new approach that uses copper(II) triflate as a versatile catalyst for the one-pot preparation of orthogonal protected thio- and O-glycosides from the corresponding unprotected counterparts. The conditions are mild, easy to handle and applicable to two and three one-pot tandem transformations, which include arylidene acetalation, esterification, regioselective reductive acetal ring opening, glycosylation and silylation processes.