Malaysia Airlines Enrich Award Chart Devaluation

Malaysia Airlines Enrich Award Chart Devaluation

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There’s no arguing that Malaysia Airlines has 99 problems, and too many passengers on their planes ain’t one of them. 😉

Malaysia Airlines has announced changes to their Enrich frequent flyer program, which kick in as of February 16, 2015. They’re changing both their earnings rates as well as changing their redemption rates, but ironically only for travel on their own flights, and not for travel on oneworld partners — that’s the opposite of what most airlines seem to do nowadays!

Malaysia-Enrich

Malaysia Enrich earnings rate changes

Malaysia’s Enrich program will be following the industry trend whereby they’ll be offering more miles on higher fare classes, while they’ll be offering fewer miles on lower fare classes.

Here’s their current earnings chart:

Malaysia-Enrich-1

And here’s their new earnings chart:

Malaysia-Enrich-2

To summarize the changes:

  • J fare class goes from 150% > 175%
  • Z fare class goes from 150% > 125%
  • L, V, S fare classes go from 70% > 85%
  • N, Q, O go from 50% to 25%

These changes aren’t huge, as you can see — the higher business class fares earn more miles, while the lower business class fares earn fewer miles. And the same goes for economy.

Malaysia Enrich redemption rate changes

Here’s how Malaysia Airlines describes their award chart changes:

The new redemption chart will only apply to Malaysia Airlines flights, excluding codeshare and marketed flights. All redemption tickets issued from 00:00 (GMT +0800hrs), 16 February 2015 onwards will be based on the new redemption chart. Zones 1 and 2 now require fewer miles – one-way redemptions start from as low as 6,000 Enrich Miles – great news for short-haul travellers! We are also introducing Zone 7 – you can use your rewards to fly to a wider network and farther destinations with Malaysia Airlines.

Here’s Malaysia’s new redemption chart for travel on their own flights:

Enrich-1

Meanwhile you can find Malaysia’s current award chart here.

Zone 1 & 2 redemptions are indeed going down in price. For example, a roundtrip economy Zone 1 saver award goes from costing 15,000 miles to costing 12,000 miles.

Enrich-2

That being said, the cost of more “aspirational” redemptions goes up substantially. For example, under the current award chart, a roundtrip Zone 5 award (from Kuala Lumpur to Europe, for example) costs 60,000 miles in economy, 110,000 miles in business class, or 320,000 miles in first class.

Enrich-3

Under the new chart it costs 65,000 miles in economy, 150,000 miles in business class, or 520,000(!!!!) miles in first class.

Malaysia-First-Class-1
Malaysia Airlines A380 first class

Malaysia Airlines Enrich bottom line

This award chart devaluation is both drastic and puzzling. While I appreciate they provide some advance notice, one week isn’t exactly a lot. And I can’t for the life of me figure out why they’d raise redemption rates on their own flights and not for flights on partner airlines, given how poor their loads apparently are after the events of the past year (which admittedly were largely/possibly completely outside of their control).

That being said, Enrich is never a program I’d credit to anyway, so hopefully not too many people are impacted. Their redemption rates are too high and there aren’t enough elite benefits to justify crediting to them as opposed to one of their oneworld partners.

Conversations (15)
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  1. Stephen Guest

    You should see their new redemption rules effective 10th June 2017. Awful. Increases across the board. For example, in May I used 66,000 Enrich miles to use a C Class on Y to London from Bangkok. Now up to 165,000 miles!

    They have seriously lost the plot as an Enrich Platinum this cheeses me off no end.

    https://www.malaysiaairlines.com/ph/en/enrich/enrich-oneworld/redeem-with-oneworld-and-partner-airlines.html

  2. alex Guest

    Hi,
    I might ask a stupid question but can't find the answer anywhere....
    what's the letters Y, B H, K M etc. ????
    I can't find any help for understand the table... I never used my miles before and would like to see how much I need to get a free ticket...
    Cheers
    ALex

    1. Tiffany OMAAT

      @ alex -- Those are revenue fare buckets, so it sounds like you're looking at an upgrade chart?

  3. theaddictedtraveller Guest

    The increases for upgrades are pretty minimal and still a decent use for Enrich Miles.

    Also anyone that used to use the companion travel awards - note that they are pretty much useless now.

  4. farulg Guest

    Zones 1, 2 and 3 are all actually cheaper to redeem on economy class compared to their previous charts. These are shorter distances flights where most people wouldn't mind flying in economy (plus MH's regional business isn't all that great IMO). These are also the short distance flights where MH is under fire from the low cost airlines particularly Air Asia.

    From what I see I think they're trying to focus on where they have...

    Zones 1, 2 and 3 are all actually cheaper to redeem on economy class compared to their previous charts. These are shorter distances flights where most people wouldn't mind flying in economy (plus MH's regional business isn't all that great IMO). These are also the short distance flights where MH is under fire from the low cost airlines particularly Air Asia.

    From what I see I think they're trying to focus on where they have more flights and where they have more advantages, although raising the redemptions to that level for F/J on those long haul flights doesn't make much sense.

  5. Al Guest

    That opening statement was utterly and unnecessarily bitchy.

  6. Raffles Guest

    'Their redemption rates are too high' - do you know any other programme that offers UK to Australia for 102,000 miles return in J?! (120k less 15 per cent online discount)

    It is also a 1:1 partner with the IDC Amex card so a UK resident can (for another week only!) move just 65,000 UK Amex points to an IDC Amex (grossed up by the current UK US FX rate) and get a J return to Oz.

  7. Dax Guest

    "which admittedly were largely/possibly completely outside of their control"

    We may not know what happened to MH370 but we do know there was nothing preventing MH from playing it extra safe by routing away from active war zones like Ukraine. If you continue with business as usual after a major disaster then you can only blame bad luck for so long. The pathetic public relations mess and the second crash and the hacked website and...

    "which admittedly were largely/possibly completely outside of their control"

    We may not know what happened to MH370 but we do know there was nothing preventing MH from playing it extra safe by routing away from active war zones like Ukraine. If you continue with business as usual after a major disaster then you can only blame bad luck for so long. The pathetic public relations mess and the second crash and the hacked website and the head scratching devaluation have little or nothing to do with bad luck and everything to do with a business that is completely out of touch. At this point maybe they should just shutter or sell their current operation and start over again. Nobody I know is itching to try them and many I know would never fly them under their current ownership.

  8. No Name Guest

    @Lucky
    OSL seeksing to become a “pre-clearance” airport for US flights

    http://www.newsinenglish.no/2015/02/09/osl-seeks-to-speed-us-arrivals/

  9. Jubbin Guest

    Well.. I have 50,000 Enrich points and I was considering saving as I earned more - and using partner flights to channel into Enrich - but honestly - I think it's time to pick a new partner airlines. Maybe Qatar or something, because this is just disappointing...

    It's not like they're an amazing airline right now with above and beyond quality of products - their business class seats feel like premium economy...

    Goodbye Enrich, it's been good but time to move on.

  10. Joey Diamond

    I agree with you. They do have a sale period once a year. Back in late 2013 they had a 50% off redemption sale on all their nonstop routes from KUL but you had to book it during the 1st week of December. In 2014, there had a similar one but it was only 30%-50% on select routes.

  11. No Name Guest

    Complete opposite of what they need to do if they want people to fly them again. Rise earning for flying their own metal and make it much cheaper to redeem the miles.

  12. Abdel Rahim Abdallah Member

    Needs lots of explanation. Is this the new CEO at work or did he not start his term?

    1. lucky OMAAT

      @ Abdel -- He hasn't yet started.

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The comments on this page have not been provided, reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any advertiser, and it is not an advertiser's responsibility to ensure posts and/or questions are answered.

Stephen Guest

You should see their new redemption rules effective 10th June 2017. Awful. Increases across the board. For example, in May I used 66,000 Enrich miles to use a C Class on Y to London from Bangkok. Now up to 165,000 miles! They have seriously lost the plot as an Enrich Platinum this cheeses me off no end. https://www.malaysiaairlines.com/ph/en/enrich/enrich-oneworld/redeem-with-oneworld-and-partner-airlines.html

0
Tiffany OMAAT

@ alex -- Those are revenue fare buckets, so it sounds like you're looking at an upgrade chart?

0
alex Guest

Hi, I might ask a stupid question but can't find the answer anywhere.... what's the letters Y, B H, K M etc. ???? I can't find any help for understand the table... I never used my miles before and would like to see how much I need to get a free ticket... Cheers ALex

0
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