Malaysia Airlines is having a fare sale now and there are some very good deals to be had on business class tickets. If you intend to travel between now and April of 2017, you should definitely see whether you can make this work for you.
Although the fares out of Singapore are not bad, it’s even cheaper to route out of Phuket. So do the maths and remember to factor in
- The cost of a return ticket to Phuket (You can get there with Tiger for about S$140, although if you want to avoid a long layover in Phuket you might need to pay more)
- How you’re going to make the connection in Phuket from your inbound flight to MH work
- How much vacation time you’re willing to spend on the additional travel required. Some would it say it doesn’t make sense flying from SIN-HKT-KUL-AKL
You should definitely see the full list here if you don’t see your preferred destination below. Remember you can switch the site to the Thailand version on the top right of the page so you can view deals from Bangkok and Phuket as well.
If nothing else, this should convince you how much we in Singapore get hosed when it comes to airfares. Because we’re an “affluent market”, you’re never going to see the same cutrate business fares you see originating from BKK, BOM and CMB. Business class round trip to Australia for <S$1K is an amazing deal.
Fares departing from Singapore must be booked by 30th October latest. If you’re intending to fly from Phuket, travel must be locked in by 21st October. Travel periods are generally between now and 30 April 2017, although you should check the dates again on the official page.
If you’re looking to jump on these fares you might want to make sure you can get MH’s newest A330 business class product which is full flat. I’ve not tried it but it looks really sweet.
The new A330 business class product is available on these routes
| Route | Flight Code | Service effective |
| Kuala Lumpur – Sydney | MH141/MH140 | Now flying |
| Kuala Lumpur – Sydney | MH123/MH122 | Now flying |
| Kuala Lumpur – Melbourne | MH129/MH128 | Now flying |
| Kuala Lumpur – Melbourne | MH149/MH148 | Now flying |
| Kuala Lumpur – Auckland | MH131/MH130 | Now flying |
| Kuala Lumpur – Tokyo | MH70/MH71 | Now flying |
| Kuala Lumpur – Auckland | MH133/MH132 | Now flying |
| Kuala Lumpur – Tokyo | MH70/MH71 | Now flying |
| Kuala Lumpur – Tokyo | MH88/MH89 | Now flying |
| Kuala Lumpur – Osaka | MH52/MH53 | Now flying |
| Kuala Lumpur – Shanghai | MH388/MH389 | 7 Sep 2106 |
| Kuala Lumpur – Beijing | MH360/MH361 | 7 Sep 2016 |
| Kuala Lumpur – Adelaide | MH139/MH136 | 23 Sep 2016 |
| Kuala Lumpur – Perth | MH125/MH124 | 12 Oct 2016 |
| Kuala Lumpur – Delhi | MH190/MH191 | 12 Oct 2016 |
| Kuala Lumpur – Seoul | MH66/MH67 | 30 Oct 2016 |
| Kuala Lumpur – Jeddah | MH150/MH151 | 18 Nov 2016 |
You can read a full review on the new business class product here.
I’m thinking of visiting the Australian Open in Melbourne in Jan 2017 as I seek to complete the grand slam of tennis visits, so I’m going to give these fares a long and hard think.
One last thing. Let’s try not to let this conversation descend into whether Malaysia Airlines is “safe” or not, because that’s silly. MH370 and MH17 were tragic, but you’d be stretching it to argue that the airline was to blame (even if you say MH17 had no business flying over an active conflict zone, lest we forget an SQ flight cleared the same airspace just prior to the shootdown) for either event.
I got a text from a colleague right after MH17 happened who said maybe we should suspend flying on MH because they’re “not safe”. Which was such an absurd thing to say given the circumstances in which the event happened. This is the 21st century, people. We make decisions about airlines based on who has full flat business class seats, not rumor and superstition.
/endrant
(HT: Loyalty Lobby)
I have flown on Malaysia Airlines and have experienced the new A330 business class in the past month. The seats were comfortable. The in flight service was friendly and good. I won’t hesitate to take Malaysia Airlines again in the near future.
Seems London makes the most sense. The other flights don’t save a huge amount of money when you factor in the cost of positioning to HKT (with a convenient connection to avoid having to overnight at a hotel or something), and added travel time.
Nice find though!
agreed. 1.6K to London on return business is insane. SQ’s full flex economy would cost you 2.2K
When I try to make a booking for Business Class to Taipei to fly in December, strangely the results return an airfare of $2,500 and not the advertised $756.
I just took the business class to Tokyo too. It was very good. Service was excellent and satay was superb although other food is just airline food. I got economy for 385 return from SIN, but upgraded myself for $200 per leg from KL-NRT
overall good deal. Though the milelion is not for family travel. I have to note that their child meals were good. They have fresh milk and attendants were not the Etihad nanny service but they were really helpful.
haha give it 5 years and you might start to see a lot more family oriented travel reports on this site. assuming I don’t die alone. Which is possible.
in the meantime, Jeriel, one of the guestwriters, has some trip reports taken from a family POV so you might be interested in those too
After deliberating for a week, took the plunge and booked tickets for KIX next year for hanami. Thanks for the tip.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-18/malaysia-air-says-london-fare-cuts-are-luring-travelers-from-ba?cmpid=google
it’s a hail mary if i ever saw one