I’ve written often about Malaysia Airlines Enrich program offering excellent value for their frequent flyers and credit card program partners with excellent redemption rates on Malaysia Airlines operated flights. Unfortunately, as of Feb 16th, this value is gone.
Malaysia Airlines today reworked their award chart for both earn and redemption – my attention is on redeeming Enrich miles which can easily be transferred from a range of credit card partners, and they have effectively gutted the value overnight – although if you get in quick, you can still transfer and redeem Enrich miles at the current, cheaper rate.
I really hate to say I told you so.
Key changes for Australian travellers
- There’s an addition of a new zone 7 for travel over 10,000 miles – pretty much all Australia to Europe flights fall in this new, higher, band
- Zone 4 flights (Australia to Kuala Lumpur) change from 40,000 (without the 15% online booking discount) to 55,000 miles, one way, in Business Class
- All Australia to Europe (Paris, London and Frankfurt) flights that are now in Zone 7 go up from 60,000 miles (no online booking discount, 52,000 with) to 115,000 (97,750 with discount) miles, one way, Business Class – with a couple of exceptions…
Thee exceptions to routes that fall into Zone 7, and are in Zone 6 are:
- Adelaide to Frankfurt (9752 miles via Kuala Lumpur)
- Perth routes to London, Frankfurt and Paris (via Kuala Lumpur)
These all fall into Zone 6, at 90,000 Enrich Miles one way (without the 15% online booking discount).
There’s also an FAQ document on the changes here.
Where does this leave those who used Enrich for cheap Business Class redemptions?
The new pricing flat out sucks. There’s now little appeal in looking at Enrich-booked travel on Malaysia Airlines for long-haul Business Class redemptions, as the new pricing is comparable to their competitors in KrisFlyer, Asia Miles and Qantas Frequent Flyer, but with a worse in-flight product.
In short, if you were planning on making an Enrich redemption, you should transfer your credit card points over ASAP and book before February 16th.
I’ll try and dig into the changes in more detail in the next couple of days and see if there is any extraordinary value left in the Enrich program for me – but at this point, it doesn’t seem so. I haven’t yet looked at any planned changes to redemption on oneworld partners (which were historically poor value anyway), for redemption in Zones 1 or 2 (which are now cheaper, but probably not much use to us) or for Enrich points earn.
Old vs New Award Charts
This is the current award chart, which is still online on the Malaysia Airlines website (along with no messages I can see about the changes):
I am planning to travel to Italy in July with wife and 2 kids (8 and 5). Considering that Malaysia isn’t an option wit the high miles charge I was wondering ifyou have suggestions for me. I have approx 900,000 points with Amex. I have tried to look at Singapore however every date in July i have checked I need to be on a waitlist. I am looking at business class return. I dicussed my options with a company who will find me the seats and book them for me for $500 however if they can find and book seats why can’t I?
Any recomendation or suggestions would be greatly appreciated
ie. 4000 points + 3656 AUD for 2 business return
The earning rates on Malaysia Airlines flights have changed as well – anyone buy the cheap discounted business class tickets will earn less as well as those on heavily discounted economy. Group bookings now seem eligable for Enrich Miles interestingly.
If anyone uses travel companion awards they are pretty much useless now.
The one silver lining is that upgrades awards have only had a small increase and are going to be the best bet for using Enrich Miles. Note though that I expect the fare classes for the eligability to change as a result of the earning changes – but nothing has been released yet.
It looks as though at least for now it’s going to be cheaper redeeming with Oneworld airlines using enrich than on Malaysia Airlines itself: http://www.malaysiaairlines.com/sg/en/enrich/enrich-oneworld/redeem-with-oneworld-and-partner-airlines.html
I transferred my Altitude points on Monday after receiving the email. Transferred at 9 am snd when I checked my Enrich account the same evening, the points were already in my Enrich account. Westpac transfer is speedy from my experience. Usually within 48 hours. However if you transfer from AMEX, that is a different story…..
Although I would suggest they start by looking at how they pay their catering firm RM125 (approximately $AUD45) for each nasi lemak meal, when nasi lemak costs less than $1 to $4 for a chicken or beef or if you really want to go deluxe, you can pay $6 with prawns.
Pfft… I wouldn’t transfer valuable points into enrich to redeem 195.5k for trips to EU for an inferior business product.
I don’t care if they have delicious satays and nasi lemak, there are better airlines to get to EU.
I also think there will be a knock-on with revenue fares-I’m sure I’m not the only one who was prepared to fly MH J over the competition to pick up the points
Better get my booking on as i was relying on MH to get me back from europe in August.
I’m 7k enrich miles short of making my booking for 2 people. What do you suggest in terms of getting the miles needed? Does amex still do the 15% bonus on transfers?
Depends on what card you have as to tactics. The best quick win if you have a Platinum Edge would be to pre-buy credit for Coles, Myer, iTunes, Skype, where-ever you can spend in future, at a supermarket – getting triple points. $2,350 spent would tip you over the edge of 7,000 points with immediate crediting of points which you can transfer.
Enrich Miles may also be purchased in blocks of 500 Enrich Miles, at RM50 (18AUD) per block, plus an administrative fee of RM40 (14 AUD)
Bullet point no: 8 of the MH FAQ’s provides as follows: –
Any change to the route or change to higher class on or after 00:00 (GMT +0800hrs), 16 February 2015 will be subject to the new redemption miles. A penalty fee of USD20 will apply to the changes made within the ticket validity.
As I would merely be looking to change the date would I just be up for the USD20 penlaty fee and legitimately escape being subject to the new redemption miles which presumably means the gap between the old and new redemption regimes?
However, I noticed the upgrades redemption remain quite cheap (unlike SQ, upgrades is almost as much as outright redemption). So perhaps MH want you to buy the ticket and upgrade? After all, they need cash now.
We can only hope they do a Thai U Turn and revert back to the old redemption rates in a couple of months when their premium cabins remain empty.