nov11

If you speak strictly on satay terms, yes

asheby

i'll AMEN you on that one!

wolf72

I do find that MH do not have an open method of enrich members relaying their comments to management in any way shape or form other than through twitter/facebook.

I just do not think they are taking the problems consumers are seeing with the airline seriously enough from the quality of food being dished out by Brahmin to the IFE selection to the constant changes in flight departure times that we see the airline doing over and over again consistently in 2017.

Passengers are being left behind because they didn't know a flight was re-timed and are then told it was their fault, flights are cancelled, etc etc...

Even Satay can't save the airline in these regards.

d00t

Have you maintained Gold/Sapphire equivalent? I mean, how much flying have you done over 30 years? I had my first MH upgrade 4 years ago and it was my 3rd ever flight with them. Oneworld Emerald (not MH Plat).

Long term elite members should be receiving upgrades. Especially if it's a factor in driving your loyalty. But then again, if you've been loyal for 30 years - to me this might say a free upgrade won't drive any incremental business and that the FFP (in all the iterations over the years) is working perfectly.


While I don't fly MH as often as you have over the past 30 years, I can appreciate where you're coming from. What do you think Enrich should do to remedy this? Direct phone line to the head of loyalty? FT rep? Faster email response time? Not many programs have super-open and easy comms channels for members to speak directly with decision makers.

wolf72

Hi.

1. Enrich Gold.
2. Maybe their customer service should have a complaints email address enrich members from gold`/platininum can voice comments or suggestions?

At the moment, everything is just hit or miss as far as what gets to management and what middle management maybe wants to share with upper management...I can imagine a lot of comments are being ignored/deleted or even twisted by middle management in meetings and the real truth about how awful the meals being served on flights are and how poor the IFE is now days as far as the selection/replacement and recycling of movies/tv shows are.

I fly on average 4 x 737 flights per month, 2 x A380 flights every 3 months, 2 x A330 flights every 3 months, and 8 x ATR flights per month on average.

Mileage is not an issue. I have seen it all over 30 years of travel. If you include my early youth travelling on the Fokker 50, my experiences with MH go all the way back the the late 70's as well so, I think I can perhaps humbly say I am a veteran traveller as far as MH is concerned.

I do want the airline to improve and get back to where it was as an iconic global airline after some very tragic and horrible episodes over the past 7 years.

d00t

In fairness, when you watch/read Peter Bellew on the direction MH is heading, he genuinely seems to care about the brand and airline. The airline isn't exactly flush with cash, and perhaps upgrading IFE isn't financially viable given the new fleet on order. It's not like they can go buy a few Ipads and glue them to seatbacks

I've always been a fan of airlines having a dedicated customer advocate who has power and authority to get stuff done internally, bring teams together and operates across all departments. Like most large organisations, much is lost in translation or deemed as unimportant by departments where the change/improvement might conflict with their KPIs, yet benefits the entire organisation.

Totally agree. 30 years of flying MH at a Gold equivalent level the entire time is true loyalty. Have you ever spoken to MH/Enrich about your experiences, thoughts, etc?

Do you use points upgrades? Cash upgrades? Obviously, not much scope to upgrade you on ATR flights (keeping in mind this is operated under MASWing)

When I was a kid (and totally obsessed with airlines as I still am), there was a back page cover ad on business magazine in Australia. It was a Malaysia Airlines advertisement, proudly displaying their achievement as having the worlds best first class, with a full list of other airlines (I think top 25 carriers at the time). I recall SQ, CX, TG all in the top 10.

I had this advertisement stuck on my bedroom wall as a kid for years. Something about it was magical and drew me to the brand.

Maybe this is what airlines mean when they talk about wanting to bring the magic back to flying. The feeling of being valued and part of something special.

sxc

MH has had some great brand advertising, and I remember thinking of them as being as good as SQ, even though I had never flown with them. Below was one of my favourite MH ads. I'm not sure if it is the blatant rip-off of the All Saints song (Pure Shores) or just the imagery, but it gave me warm and fuzzies about MH.

This ad is from 2002 and some of the product features really were pioneering for that time.

wolf72

1. Yes, agreed MH is not flush with cash and Kazannah are well known for being prudent with spending. But the food needs serious serious improvement. It has gotten worse instead of better over the past 2-3 years since the new management came in. It was bad before they took over, but I don't know if the catering company is just poor in how they prepare meals or even how they cook meals but look at the simple menu's Air Asia as a direct comparison come out with their meals on a daily basis.

A simple menu that work's for all Malaysians and is safe for foreign travellers: your nasi lemak, your chicken rice, a pasta, a vege dish, etc etc.

And then you taste MH food on a flight and it's just....not even comparable. I am reliably told MH still pay far more for their meals than AA do.

Why don't MH go to AA and work together with them if it means cheaper costs but better quality meals?

I understand the political pressure from up to top keep Brahmin afloat but it is damaging the airline reputation very badly. Look at the comments on facebook on the official MH facebook page and you will see what I am talking about. It is not 1-2 people complaining. It is literally hundreds.

2. I do think having a dedicated team who handle customer grouses and can have the power to solve problems will be a good investment. Spending RM50k on a team of 10 people and 2 or 3 team leaders and directing complaints and traffic their way can not only potentially appease customers but it will allow quick solutions to problems that I think will come back to help MH in the long term. A RM50k spend on a monthly basis. What is that when you look at the millions being spent on other things per week!

3. How to lose a new customer for a life time in 24 hours: I had a friend who was booked to fly MH from Kuching to London via KL and for some reason, his flights got changed from the early morning flight to KL which allowed him a safe 2 hours landing in KLIA to landing 1 hour before or 1 hour after his London flight departed.

Not sure if the booking system had problems all of a sudden but he was irate as he was taking back his ill wife back to the UK and he called MH and wasted an hour on the phone there and was given the option to fly to KL the night before which included hotel accomodation (he politely declined).

No reason was given why he was bumped off the 5.00am flight to KLIA. And things like this anger passengers.

It's things like this that make you lose passengers who won't come back, no matter how cheap the price of the ticket is because they are not poor and they can afford to pay a little bit more for a stress free flight on Emirates, Ethiad, SQ or even Cathay via HK or BA via KLIA.

He has categorically stated NEVER MH AGAIN!

Granted he could have accepted the earlier flight the night before and free hotel accomodation without asking questions as to why he got bumped off a flight he paid for but this is a man of principles who does not like things to be changed unless there is a good reason. No reasons were given so....

4. The IFE system is another issue: the same movies sit in the favourites section for months and months (i have seen the same lot of movies in that folder for over 2 years) and the new movies are limited to 10-20 movies (not a bad choice to be fair).

Entertainment for passengers on board is an icing on the cake to fly MH. The food quality has gone out the door so let`s not even talk about that. Seat comfort? Nothing different from a typical AA seat with similar seat pitch's and limited room for the legs in economy.

5. I have never written in to MH other than to complain only ONCE about my missing luggage which didn't arrive at it's destination for more than 48 hours but that's a minor inconvenience.

I think other passengers have far more interesting stories to tell about their travels.

6. I have redeemed flights with the points+ cash options and also to upgrade myself on long haul flights to London and Paris.

d00t

Like!

MH has seats which transform gently into full length beds in the sky.
SQ is fixated on the bizarre notion that everyone must be under 180cm and enjoy standing up, making their bed and being in full flat mode without any desire to watch TV.

blueferrari

THIS. AirAsia have a way better food (yes, you need to pay, but it's relatively cheap).

at least MH gave free ice creams for ex-KUL regional flight. do they still provide that?

wolf72

I was actually going to find out this weekend on a planned trip to Thailand but given the problems with booking flights on the current beta upgraded website for MH (it kept crashing), I am flying AA sadly so won't find out if they do serve ice cream.

But I only ever got served ice cream (it was actually really good) on the Kul-Sing sector and Sing-Kul sector but never for the Kul-Hkt sector nor Kul-Jkt sectors nor Kul-Bali sectors.

Maybe others have been luckier.

nov11

I fly a lot of AA and their food is average at best. Catering ex-US is meh for any airline in any cabin but I still don't get how AA and MH can work together in catering? They only share a few stations e.g. LHR, NRT, SYD etc.

asheby

Was similarly just as confused.

zsc

I live in KL. Multiple LHR-KL trips in a year, mostly in cattle class (Y). By all means, go for QRPC over Enrich. Enrich has never been valuable, the golden lounges can't compare to that of most other airlines (though I speak from limited Asian lounge experience), and redemptions have never been valuable either. You get very poor return for your loyalty to MH.

One thing to note is that if you want to fulfil the sector requirement for QRPC membership/renewal you'd almost definitely need to fly Asia-EU/similar long haul routes, and you're almost always going to be transiting in DOH. Very important to consider this as it will impact how easily you can retain status for.

Feel free to ask me anything if you'd like, I've been with Qatar for almost 3 years and am well satisfied with what they offer.

Quite a few Malaysian companies are well-versed in the marketing card - we have some well-known ones making annual videos that never fail to bring a tear come certain public holidays.

Their hard (and possibly, soft too) product is weak though. Never really liked travelling longhaul with MH because of the mediocrity, and if not for the competitive J fares for inter-Asia travel, they are pretty much unappealing, even to those that have KUL as the nearest airport.

nov11

I am confused about lounge access - that's standard for all OW except for maybe a few exclusive tier program in their own airline (QF Chairman's Lounge come to mind). OWS gets J class lounge and OWE gets F class lounge (and soon AA allows OWS/J in Flagship too). MH KUL lounges aren't great but that has nothing to do with Enrich.

There were great redemption value before (55k for a one-way KUL-LHR) and sometimes a one-way KUL-LHR J ticket costs only 27,500 miles with the 50% off promo