IT started with so much promise. The far-away destinations, perks and privileges that awaited me as a loyal customer that shovels money into the coffers of Malaysia Airlines.

Alas, like a Nigerian love-scam, it was all over too soon, and yes… Enrich members are the ones out of pocket. But the hollow promises are still there.

Enriching for MH, not you

You see, Malaysia Airlines has changed the way which Enrich works and how it will work for you and me.

It now solely works for Malaysia Airlines given the massive devaluation to the worth of the miles you accrue and the lower percentages they give you for flying in certain classes.

The first change was in early 2015 and then another in 2017. We weren’t asked for our opinions nor asked if we were ok with the changes. They were forced upon us.

The number of miles needed to upgrade from economy to business on say, London, used to be 40,000 miles. Then it changed to 50,000 to 70,000 miles depending on the type of economy ticket you’d bought.

Since 2017 you now need between 60,000 and 100,000 miles to upgrade from economy.

Previously, I would need in the region of 130,000 Enrich miles to buy a roundtrip to London on business class with Qatar or Finnair. Now, it’s 202,000 miles plus RM1,300 to RM2,200 in taxes and fees. The tax alone is two-thirds of a regular economy class ticket!

Previously, to use Malaysia Airlines for a round-trip to London and using my Enrich miles, I could redeem a ticket for 110,000 miles. Now, because of this dynamic pricing algorithm they have in place, it ranges from 300,000 to 500,000 miles.

At the cost of 300,000 miles – it places Malaysia Airlines as the most expensive airline in the world to redeem a ticket from KL to London.

Sure, Malaysia Airlines appears to have more seats available than other airlines – but for 500,000 miles on other carriers (Cathay Pacific, Singapore etc,) I could redeem my miles for Visa gift cards and buy whatever airline seat I want, at any time, without being locked into a single airline – and I would still have miles left over.

I was quoted the following table by Malaysia Airlines at the end of September 2019 for a roundtrip from Bangkok to London.

The email came with the caveat that “the above miles and tax quotations were derived based on random dates. The actual miles and taxes will apply at the time of your actual booking and will be based on your travel dates. This will also be subject to seat availability and foreign exchange fluctuation.”

And this is where it gets plainly silly and it’s unforgivable for Malaysia Airlines to charge their own members a premium to fly MH and with so many caveats.

I did another search on British Airways Avios for the same flights, same dates (see attached screenshots). Bangkok to Sydney via Kuala Lumpur; BA will charge me 187,000 miles plus THB4,290 tax but Malaysia charges me 232,800 Enrich miles plus THB4,290 tax. (OneWorld miles are 1 to 1). How can BA sell Malaysia Airline seats at a lower cost than Malaysia Airlines? Effectively – you are giving non-loyal, BA customers, a better deal than your own high-value, loyal Enrich Platinum customers. It’s patently absurd.

By comparison, the reward miles needed on Qatar and Cathay Pacific are far more reasonable – even if I select Malaysia Airlines as my choice of carrier.

Cathay Pacific’s Asia Miles want 140,000 miles for business class on Malaysia Airlines Bangkok via KL to London and return. MH wants 303,000.

Planning your holiday with your family isn’t straight-forward anymore. And get this – if I want to redeem my miles on another OneWorld carrier – I have to call that fabulously professional call-centre in Fiji.

Indeed, my life has been enriched. Not.

How patently absurd is it that Malaysia Airlines’ management deems it fit and proper to play with our loyalty in this manner. Our Enrich Miles are near-worthless and I dare Malaysia Airlines to tell me otherwise.

Not enriching you nor I

Carrying on from the not-so-subtle changes that have been made to the Enrich reward programme, MH boldly claim that our miles can take us further. Actually, no, they can’t. This is just meaningless and deceptive market-speak when the facts present themselves. Competitor and partner airlines have far-superior value.

A simple search of Bangkok to London and return for every week up to September 2020 shows the same number of miles required. They say on their website “Miles are based on dynamic fares”. I beg to differ because the mileage doesn’t fluctuate at all for the next one year. If they were dynamic, the redemption could also be made on “saver fares” (a lower ticket “value”) but the rewards are set against the full, non-saver fare.

I would urge all Enrich members to closely study this programme which has changed twice in 4 years because, from my perspective, this is not a reward programme in the sense of the word.

However, 5 days ago – Enrich went and did something smart but have not told any of us Enrich members – but only for Malaysia-based Enrich members. Malaysian Enrich members now have the ability to redeem a ticket based on a lower fare bases – it’s called Enrich Base.

This plays into the thinking that Enrich folk seem to think that Enrich members are only based in Malaysia. They’re worldwide, no? Open your eyes. You have a database and you know where we are. Where are the local eateries, cinemas, coffee chains etc where we can earn or redeem points? You have a tie-up with Lazada Malaysia where Malaysians can redeem miles for RM50 coupons to spend online. Is Lazada only present in Malaysia? Really, the narrow mindedness and lack of creativity is astounding.

Malaysia Airlines has nearly 4 million Enrich members – that’s an awful lot of cash that MH is sitting on because Enrich is effectively a currency that MH prints and controls. As a business owner myself, it makes me sick to think how much more cash MH could be generating if the programme wasn’t so blatantly ripping off high-value Enrich members.

And from a marketing perspective, I would understand my brand is damaged and I would bend over backwards to lure passengers from partner or competitor airlines to try my product and hopefully convert them.

But I have finally realised how worthless all of my cash and loyalty has been – and so the game is over with me. You get my cash for flying me from A to Z but I won’t be using my Enrich card anymore unless it dawned on someone at MH that they are not treating their loyal customers fairly.

For me, I’ll simply use another OneWorld loyalty programme which understands what loyalty means and where my accrued miles will take me further – considerably further than Enrich.

So, for the last couple of tickets that I bought my miles are now being accrued with another airline loyalty programme. I hope more Enrich members see the light and follow so a clear signal is sent to the management of Malaysia Airlines.

Or maybe members have been sending clear messages, and management are too caught up with trying to nickle-and-dime passengers to realise the most valuable customers are leaving. I know I am not the only member who has expressed these concerns.

I will go as far as to say that I feel conned and as Ms Lau, group chief marketing and customer experience officer, has stated before, you need us to be your brand ambassadors and advocates. Well, here I am, advocating to other Enrich members to re-evaluate their continuation given the gouging you have deftly performed on our loyalty.

To me, as it was succinctly put in an Australian Frequent Flyer portal “MH Enrich don’t really want to be in business anymore (at least for OneWorld partners). Or they are just really after the ‘dumb’ money – i.e. people who don’t know better and are just crediting/redeeming MH Enrich?”

A simple Google search of “Malaysia Airlines Enrich” shows a flurry of posts on forums and the key theme is this – the loyalty programme has lost value. Don’t fly Malaysia Airlines.

However, the Platinum lounge and Golden Lounge in the satellite terminal are great. The former is a wonderful oasis of tranquility. The entire team in the lounges are brilliant. Proactive and the service really is from the heart. Whomever is training them, kudos to you.

On a lighter note, I would not be surprised if they rename their Enrich online magazine something other than the World of Riches because this Riches is leaving the programme after I find ways to dump the miles I have accrued.

Fiji and India

I also cannot for the life of me understand why Malaysia Airlines chose a non-Malaysian call centre to manage most of their calls from outside of Malaysia. For me calling from Bangkok, my calls are routed to a firm in Fiji. Yes… in the Pacific Ocean.

I have been asked by these people over the years questions such as what is the currency of Thailand and do I know what the code is for Jakarta – because they don’t.

It’s a company that I dread calling if I need to enquire about flight changes or redemption of miles on other OneWorld partners. I have been kept on interminable holds that last up to and over an hour while they try and figure out how to answer a question. The simplest question and I am asked to “be put on hold for a couple of minutes.” Rude and many times – Malaysia Airlines knows – untruthful responses.

I have met fellow Enrich members in the lounges of Melbourne, KL and London – mention this company and their eyes roll.

It’s come to a point now where I demand to be connected to their Malaysian call centre colleagues who are knowledgeable, pleasant and efficient. But even that is nigh-on impossible.

Just a few weeks ago, the MH online payment gateway was not working for me. MH has since blamed my bank for this. The website just gave me errors and codes and nothing in English as to what I should do. So, I had to bite the bullet and call Fiji. The guy said he couldn’t transfer the call to Kuala Lumpur (I hear this every time). I then spoke to him in Malay – he couldn’t understand a word I said and no surprises, he did what he said wasn’t possible. He transferred me to KL.

Why Malaysia Airlines still engages this company is a mystery. This is their front-end to the customer and yet, they allow it to continue unabated.

It gets better, though. The social media team for the flag carrier of Malaysia is in, wait for this – India.

This company – that MH calls a “partner” – have an atrocious social media skill set. Every message that even hints of a problem is taken offline into private messaging. And yet there are people endlessly repeating a particular problem and they are ignored. MH needs to get those people sorted out so every post that is made doesn’t have a negative comment about a year-old problem attached to it.

Bizarrely, even questions that would have educational value in a response, are taken private. A woman on the MH Facebook page asked about the rules for flying when pregnant. The response was “Please check your inbox as we have responded to you via private message.” This, surely, is valuable information so why the secrecy?

A Japanese man wrote a message in Japanese – your social media gurus replied “Thank you for contacting us. However, please be informed that we support Malay, Chinese and English languages. You may send us a translated message in these languages so we can further assist you.” The gentleman was good-natured enough to write in poor English that he enjoyed his recent business class trip to KL.

This tells me that the company is staffed by people that don’t fly, have little industry experience and more than likely are fresh graduates honing their skills on Malaysia Airlines customers.

When this company was appointed, the ex-CMO of Malaysia Airlines stated “Our customer is at the centre of everything we do and this collaboration will enable us to respond to our customers faster and more efficiently. 

“Digital development has been the forefront of our customer experience and I am very pleased to announce this partnership (with the Indian company). This innovative solution will provide a five-star digital experience for our customers worldwide.”

Really? I take my hat off to the PR person that wrote that guff because the result is patently untrue.

Malaysia Airlines has 2.4 million likes on Facebook. You have a magnificent opportunity to use this tool to lower marketing expenses, build some brand loyalty, drive traffic to your localised web-sites and communicate to an audience that wants to know more.

Yet – take a look at the Twitter and Facebook pages and the interaction is near-zero. Nice pictures, some fun facts but plenty of angry customers moaning about lost baggage, poor customer service – and that’s about it. It’s laughable and an embarrassment.

I find it hard to believe that critical front-end communications cannot be sourced in Malaysia. A state-enterprise should first and foremost support local companies in my opinion.

Crew go the extra mile while MH charges extra

If you’ve kept up with me this far, you will know that I only fly business if I can. I have been blessed with the ability to work hard and sometimes, work smart. So, the comforts of being able to recline or have a bed for long-haul flights with a touch of champagne and decent wines, is my reward.

As I also fly others such as Etihad, Qatar, SQ, CX and Thai, there are noticeable differences between the carriers. I have said before that MH crew are second to none.

But let me focus on the aspects where MH needs to up their game. Their Boeing 737-800 fleet cabins are worn out, grubby and windows, without exception, filthy. So filthy you don’t even want to touch them given the grease and other muck on them. I have sent pictures of offending windows to management – and nothing is done.

Tables in many cases are wobbly and disfigured; seat belt buckles greasy to the touch, pillows are frayed and stained and the overhead lockers covered in dirty finger-prints. It’s all a bit nasty at times. But for two hours or so, bearable. But it needn’t be this way, right?

For some reason, MH manages to keep the product better maintained and clean on the A380, 350 and 330s.

Once upon a time, the business class bathrooms were stocked with decent branded colognes, air fresheners and flowers. The flowers were removed for cost-cutting purposes. So, one of the ladies started a trend of making flowers with tissue paper, using their make-up and perfumes to create really quite amazing displays. These works of art were placed into the empty metal stem-holders where real flowers should have been placed. The reaction from the guests was nothing but praise for their ingenuity. They would look like roses, hydrangeas and hibiscus. A pop of colour in the grimmest part of the aircraft.

But then guess what happened? The cabin crew were issued with a directive to stop this practice. All of sudden, they were gone. “Because management said we shouldn’t do it anymore” I was told. How sad and petit. Quite what the issue was with this fun and colourful display created at zero cost to the airline is beyond me. This gesture was from the heart of the crew but it was flat-lined by management.

I’ve been on 737s to Denpasar and the cabin is full – 16 business class seats. Great stuff. But – only two bottles of champagne and two each of red and white wines. So, the 3-hour sector on occasions has become dry because the second bottle of each is meant for the passengers on the return sector. On flights which aren’t full, this problem doesn’t seem to occur. But goodness me – where’s the planning? Is it that difficult to look at a load-sheet and work out that a full flight needs more uplift of beverages?

One word of warning to Enrich members – if you have status with Malaysia Airlines, but you use another airline’s membership to earn the miles, Malaysia Airlines has not yet figured out how to apply what’s commonly referred to – and available on Google.com – as FQTV/FQTS.

This is an entry system that tells anyone at Malaysia Airlines that you also hold status with them even though you are crediting miles from that flight to another programme. As I found out on three of the four recent sectors, I wasn’t listed as Platinum Plus. On this subject, Malaysia Airlines replied that they will talk to Amadeus (the computer reservation system) about this. However, it just goes to show that they aren’t thinking about the implications of not being recognised who you are when it comes to service levels. Our loyalty is meaningless but our cash is prized.

Talking of planning, I was unfortunate enough to endure a delay of one hour to Denpasar two weeks ago… no great issue. But returning the flight was retimed, which meant I missed my connection to Bangkok. I was forced to spend 4 hours plus at KLIA waiting for a flight that got me home at 1am in the morning.

Further, on the flight from Denpasar, the inflight entertainment (IFE) system in my seat was not working. The purser refused to compensate me for the loss of a value that I have paid for saying that RM100 compensation vouchers are now only provided on flights of 6 hours or more. 

Malaysia Airlines – I don’t care if the sector is 1 hour or 16. If a customer spends money with you, he has a reasonable right to be compensated for your failings. Under law.

I was however offered a portable player but as I advised them – it was not possible to have that device and a meal tray on the table. This is the same purser who was annoyed that I had pinpointed a glaring issue with the Hokkien mee – the sambal was in fact gravy meant for the matt salleh meal option. He told me this is what they were provided with. Granted, he managed to find the sambal but by then the meal was stone cold.

From KL to Bangkok that night, MH put on a 737 that had no IFE and no in-seat power. And Bangkok is a premium route for MH and still they keep putting one of three aircraft that are not equipped for business class facilities on premium routes. Again, Malaysia Airlines – we have a reasonable right to be provided with a product and service that we pay for based on your advertising and product offerings.

For these delays, the lack of products, closed transfer counter at KLIA, MH have offered compensation of 50% of their full fare on one sector.

Even though I paid for two sectors (Bangkok to Bali and back, MH will only provide me with a 50% discount on say Bangkok to KL and back or KL to Bali and back to KL). So that means, they are prepared to compensate me by graciously asking me to buy a full fare ticket and they will then take 50% off. This will still be more expensive than their promotional fare.

So – Malaysia Airlines wants me to spend more money with them as a form of compensation. How bizarre – and they have the gall to think this is right and proper?

Really, I must be considered to be a donkey by Malaysia Airlines if they think I won’t work out that they will profit from their errors. In the words of Greta Thunberg – “How Dare you!”

Does management care?

I have received countless surveys to fill out. Including one earlier this year, signed off by group chief marketing and customer experience officer Lau Yin May. She wanted to know about a flight to Singapore.

That’s fine. But upon closer inspection I realised that I had been identified as a disabled passenger. They wanted to know how I was looked after with provision of wheelchairs etc.

From memory I have no disabilities and I walk onto planes. It made me feel all warm and fuzzy that Malaysia Airlines’ management know who their customers are. And this was from the lady that talks ad infinitum about making her premium passengers her brand ambassadors and advocates.

An extremely poorly thought-out marketing plan was hatched recently. In September I arrived at KLIA from London and whilst in transit I was flicking through news on my phone and I spotted an article that Malaysia Airlines UK was running a campaign, something along the lines of – Buy a business class ticket to Australia, New Zealand (and certain points in Asia if I recall) and your current Enrich status goes up a grade. So, if you were blue, you went up to silver and silver to gold and gold to Platinum. If you are already Platinum, you’ll receive 50,000 extra miles.

What on earth? I have spent cold hard cash on earning my Platinum Plus status (which, incidentally has nearly no additional perks over regular Platinum) and here they are dishing out card upgrades with just one purchase? Fantastic way to make your loyal members feel special, MH.

MH has improved their website but still some very basic problems to be sorted out. Dead links amongst them. And last month, I attempted to make three business class bookings and each one of them failed because the payment gateway was down. Malaysia Airlines management told me the cause was from my bank in Thailand. I reported this to my bank and after a few days, they wrote to me and said they had zero issues with any of their hundreds of thousands of transactions. They denied they had problems.

Online check-in is another – whenever I receive an email from MH to check-in, I do so. All filled out and submitted. Roughly two or three hours later I receive a Whatsapp message telling me to check in. This used to make me think I had made an error. So off I went to check-in again. Now I ignore the whatsapp messages from MH and have blocked them. Technology is annoying if not used intelligently and appropriately, MH.

Talking of technology, MH has an IFE system which is full of potential. Now again, I should say I don’t know the costs of acquiring content for inflight display, but this is a frequent complaint by those that travel on MH. Who tells me? The crew.

I am not the only one lamenting the dreadful content available for sure. But MH doesn’t do anything about it. I made a comment to Malaysia Airlines by email that judging by the content available, the person making the selection is a millennial. Marvel comic, rom-coms and fantasy genres rule the roost. That’s all well and good for some, but dear me – get us some other intelligent content that befits your demographic of the frequent business flyer. 14 hours to London and 12 back – I have the same content to look at. Can’t content be changed for sectors? I know I fly more than most but dear me – refresh the content more often. Please!

However, the selection of Asian content has improved dramatically. Singapore Airlines has more than 1,800 on-demand options refreshed frequently and Qatar has 4,000 on-demand options also refreshed often.

I also find it remarkable how emails to the CEO have gone down to middle management and now down to customer service to reply. It is clear they do not like being told where they are failing and by denigrating my loyalty and my money to a junior staffer that is condescending in her reply, then from my perspective it drives home the oft-made point that we are worthless.

So, I really think that at the end of the day, the passenger isn’t valuable to Malaysia Airlines. We’re a number on an Excel spreadsheet and that’s it. Loyalty counts for squat.

Fares

Something went terribly awry at MH’s fare-planning department and to boot, a series of promotions have priced Malaysia Airlines out of some markets and in my humble opinion, called into question the ethics and perhaps the legality of how they run these promotions.

Since June or July this year, Malaysia Airlines priced itself uncompetitively from markets outside of Malaysia. I emailed Capt Izham in July to point this out to him – with screenshots of prices from competitors – and never heard back.

Then, shortly after the MATTA Fair was held in Kuala Lumpur, a promotion was emailed to me shouting about “25% off”. I looked at the fares as I had two European trips to book and to my great surprise, Malaysian Airlines was vastly more expensive for a range of dates.

An example of how ludicrous their pricing strategy showed the following options on the MH website. For Madrid and Vienna, I could book Malaysia to KL and then Dubai or London and use their code-share alliance with British Airways or Emirates to get to either Madrid or Vienna. I booked the tickets I needed – but on Qatar. Why?

Simply because MH Online’s fare was more expensive one-way than a roundtrip on Qatar. My Qatar mixed with BA flight came to RM11,303 and Malaysia’s combination of BA or Emirates came to an astounding RM35,573. Three times more for the same dates.

Has Malaysia Airlines gone insane? Seriously?! MH has lost in the region of RM30,000 of revenue from me on two business class bookings to Europe in November. What more can I say other than I try but at the end of the day, I run a business too, and I will not pay exorbitant fares to get from A to Z.

Just for fun and to make sure my eyes weren’t deceiving me, I also took a look at fares from Melbourne to London in business. This was an eye-opener. Same dates of January 10, 2020 to London and returning January 20, 2020. All with a similar flying times. Even for economy, same dates, MH was RM3,000+ more than SQ.

Other random date checks revealed the same pattern.

I also fare-compared with MH versus the competition from Bangkok to London and back in business class. Out on November 2 and back on November 17. They were promoting an “up to 25% off” the fare of “Bht119,000” to London when they are usually around the Bht80,000 to Bht95,000 mark.

Here are the results.

If I changed the dates by a day or two, Malaysia Airlines dropped down to Bht119,000 (as promoted) but entailed a minimum 11 hour layover at KLIA. No thanks.

So Khazanah must be besides themselves with joy if, over the past three months or so, suddenly Malaysia Airlines is able to price itself higher than the really premium airlines. They must be generating enormous yields, finally! This must be because of Malaysia Airlines’ marketing team’s much vaunted super-duper dynamic algorithms that match fares to demand and availability.

Maybe now, Khazanah can call off Morgan Stanley because with these loads and possible revenues the carrier will not require suitors?

Cynics, myself included, would suggest otherwise because to price yourself thousands of ringgit dearer than Singapore Airlines, Emirates or Qatar each with an incredibly superior product is nonsense.

After the September “up to 25% off” promotion, on the October 1 I received an email from marketing with… wait! What’s this? Gosh! Another promotion! This time with “up to 30% Off!” Yay! I was thrilled!

My joy was short-lived because, as I also communicated to the folks running Malaysia Airlines, the pricing was the same as the 25% off.

Has Malaysia Airlines skirted or even overstepped the rules when it comes to truthful and honest advertising with these disingenuous campaigns? I would assume that Malaysian (very similar to British) advertising regulations state that you must also indicate what the price is off and indicate what that higher price is?

Considering how much I fly MH, I know what their median fares have been. So, to state that the fares are now 25% or 30% off when in reality the fares increased by – in some cases – 30%! 

Surely when it comes to fares, and knowing how sensitive the market is, Malaysia Airlines would do some research before publishing such fares? I should add, that since I started putting down my thoughts, the fares have come back into line and I am flying MH on a few more flights. But what an expensive mistake to make. How many like me booked elsewhere these past few months? If anyone needs evidence that Malaysia Airlines has lost the plot, it lies therein.

Not all is rotten at MH. The Malaysians that make it function on the ground and in the air, are generally brilliant and I really wish that management would spend time with them to listen and – to us, your passengers and stop fobbing us off with PR-speak.

I just wish they’d get their act together once and for all and concentrate on getting it right. MH is still a damaged brand and it should be bending over backwards to earn our trust, money and loyalty. – November 6, 2019.

* Stephen Riches is frequent flyer and reads The Malaysian Insight.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.