Put this one in the offers that are ‘just plain insane’ basket – Malaysia Airlines are running a promotion until December 8th where redemptions on Malaysia Airlines operated flights through their Enrich frequent flyer program are 50% of the usual level. The full offer terms are here, and you’ll need to book in the next week for travel from 1st January to 30th June next year.
Enrich have traditionally run this promotion in the past, once every 6 months a discount comes along – last year at this time it was 50% off also, but it actually ran for a month or more. This time the window of opportunity is much tighter.
Malaysia Airlines Enrich is a transfer partner of American Express Membership Rewards, with Membership Rewards points transferring at 1 MR to 1 Enrich mile. Promotions like these are why I love Membership Rewards – while unrelated to Amex, the ability to transfer points out to the major programs in the region at a whim is just so valuable.
Only flights (both one way and return) that end or begin in Kuala Lumpur are eligible – so (for example) no one-stop London to Sydney or vice versa bookings, but there’s no reason why you couldn’t combine two bookings at only a slightly higher price.
A 50% discount on points required is of course outstanding, but Malaysia Airlines Enrich redemptions are already cheap, meaning if you have ANY plans to travel anywhere that Malaysia Airlines or Firefly service in the first 1/2 of next year, start researching that award booking now. A one way ticket in Business Class to KL from Sydney in Business Class comes in at just 20,000 Enrich miles during the promotion (at the cheapest level). A comparable length flight to Singapore on Qantas using Qantas points would cost 60,000 Qantas points.
Researching Enrich award availability used to be more straightforward, but now you need a minimum balance of 1,000 miles in your Enrich account to research online. You can open an Enrich account and they’ll give you 1,000 miles as one option, but for those with less than 1,000 miles in their account, British Airways now show Malaysia Airlines availability, and you can also use awardnexus.com (excellent paid service) to do the same.
I’m now thinking how on earth this could be useful for my travel plans next year, definitely trying to find a way…
I basically told Amex they sucked l, it was their fault, and asked for many compensatory points in case I missed making my award booking. 5k MR points was credited to my account, fair enough.
Following on from previously: my first round of ticketing was fixed as promised and sent to my email within 24 hours. I then had to go through a similar painful process to add an infant to each of the sectors (each on a separate PNR). On hold for several hours on Saturday while an operator manually added the infant to each leg, but they then couldn’t process my credit card, and then my call dropped out from their end, and my infant was added to the booking, but no e-ticket number or credit card charge.
So just rang back tonight, and got an operator who managed to finalise the transaction and emailed me confirmation and receipts while I waited, in just under an hour! I’m glad to have the tickets, but that was seriously the most painful booking i have ever made. Keith, do you have any suggestions on seat selection for 2 adults and an 18 month old on Malaysian’s J class ex-BNE and their A380 cabin? Thanks for your site, btw, this site was one of my first references when I started collecting points for travel awards in Feb this year.
Glad they got it all sorted for you though in the end.
As for seat suggestions, we’re travelling on the A380 and A330 back to Sydney in the not too distant future. We’re currently up front with the bassinet – not much choice here given we’re travelling with a 4 month old. I’ll let you know how we go.
Thank you!
Considering 5,000 pts for $150 works out to 3 cents per point, and buying points from MR costs 2.5 cents per point, I am assuming that the tax reduction will at least offset that (i.e. less than $125 for the 5,000 pts), regardless of tax rate?