Malaysia Airlines Rewards

Does anyone have experience in using VS FC Points for Malaysia Airlines rewards? A friend is getting married in KL next year and am looking at Business or First Reward Seat, I see that they are a partner and I can use my points - just wondered if anyone has experience of this and knowledge of availablity and ease etc? Will be looking at booking in the new year once I have firm dates.

Thanks!

I am about to try and do the same so will let you know how it goes. My expectations are low.

That would be really helpful, thanks! I too am not hopeful but would be great to hear your experience in preperation for the New Year.

The only time I've tried to use points for Malaysia Airlines ended up pretty good

We booked 1st Class LHR to KL, and then Business (the only service they ran) to Perth. The 1st Class were relatively easy to book, but it took a little while for the business leg to be available. We did the 1st class bookings at T-330, the earliest we could book them

Then the ash cloud came! - I was worried that I was going to lose everything - trying to do an insurance claim for lost miles?

But everything turned out OK - they rearranged everything for us

So let's find out how you get on!

Peter


The flights (particularly the 1st class) were excellent - some of the best I've ever taken

Used 120,000 VSFC points in Sept to travel to KUL on MH in Business Class last month. Called FC and date/flight I wanted was available - was really easy and painless!
Cons - Business on MH is nowhere near as good as VS (eg no flat bed) and planes seem/are old despite it being a 5* airline. The reservation code you get from VS is not recognised by MH so couldnt go online and do seat selection etc. When I called VS they gave me MH's international phone number which was never answered. Took me a while but found a UK number 0871 423 9090 (that might be useful for you) that got answered v quickly where I got the MH reservation number and they allocated seats for me.
Pros - Even though I was using points/reward for flight when I've checked my VSFC account on my return I have miles and tier points for the trip (unlike when you take reward flights on VS).
Hope that helps

I am about to try and do the same so will let you know how it goes. My expectations are low.

Hey JCBR - how did you get on? I am counting down the days before I need to call up VS to try and sort them out. I have about another two weeks to go.... then I will start.

I used *A in the end as I wanted to use up some UA miles !

Don't forget that MH is joining One World in Autumn so that may change the VS partnership.

An update....

So finally got my flights sorted, it was a bit of an ordeal and took 6 phone calls over three days to sort. They would only let me try a single combination at any one time, so the dates and class I requested were made, had to wait 24 hours to be told no, then go back with another set etc. In the end, the last call I made I got through to someone who turned round and said all the requests were wrong and that he will sort it and he got me the flights I wanted in the class I wanted. So once again it turns out it matters who you speak to... sigh.

Anyway, looking to the positive I have a LHR to KUL to LHR First Class flight booked on the dates I want for £436 and 145K miles! Bargain if you ask me, considering they are going for over £6K for my dates at present on the website and I have a load of VS miles I want to get rid of.

Followed Mark G's advice and called to get the MH reference and sort my seats (1K both ways) as you cannot bring up the flight details on MH website.

So to finalise... It was hard work for me to sort this, but after a lot of headache I got exactly what I wanted. Got to say that the staff in the call centre were helpful throughout, I am just not sure if they knew exactly what they were doing, at least that was the picture I was painted in the final call where it was all sorted.

Just an update to this...

It turns out that out of nowhere, my booking has been amended from First Class both ways to outbound in First and Return in Business. Very annoying and took over 3 hours with VS on the phone to work out there is nothing they can do and that they will refund me the necessary miles and taxes etc. Of course, 2 months later, there is still no miles or refund and I have lost all interest in bothering.

I am sure it will still be a decent flight, but had I of known that this was going to happen I would not have booked the flight at all and would have gone on SIA despite the connection as my friend is also on that.

Nevermind... hopefully there will be no more un-notified amendments. Just a note, no one actually contacted me to advise me of the return down grade, I went online to find my booking has disappeared from the MY BOOKING section, called up and then eventually they worked out why.