milesaddict

Seeing a report on MS is not common. I can't blame you for picking another carrier. MS is known to be a dry airline and not the best airline in the world.

A reader asked me where do I credit my Star Alliance miles, I replied MS (I enrolled in sepo but already got 108k status). Weird choice you might be thinking.

I'm currently gold with TK but my membership ends in December and I won't renew it. I emptied my account lately. While TK is a good FFP, the miles expiration after 3 years is a pain (MS, same issue unless you hit Platinum). But the deal breaker for me is the lack of lifetime status. So why did I pick TK in the first place. Well I got status matched…

Well, here's why I picked MS and why I fly MS:
• awardwallet.com digged out the fine print of MS Plus. It turns out as couple or family you can pool the miles. Not ground-breaking I know. What is then ? The fact that you pool your miles AND Status. For example, the Silver card comes at 30k miles. If you take with your wife on a CDG-SIN-HKG with SQ you will earn 32K miles in the main account holder. The other side of the coin is your wife will never get a status. My wife calls the MS Plus, the selfish FFP….
• It takes only 60K miles to hit Gold and from that point on, you need to fly 30K within 2 years to renew… Easy.
• The lifetime Platinum card comes at 1 million and I plan to hit that level in the next 4, 5 years.
• Now why MS? While most airlines are stingy giving miles and status. MS does not fall into that category. You earn 200% in business class AND on top of that you also get a 20% Bonus for Silver or 30% for Gold or 40% for Plat, the good thing is the bonus counts toward your status. Now do the math…
• You don't have YQ with MS awards.
• Awards chart look fairly priced. I was able to snag a F seat with LH for my mom.

The trip gives me 31000 miles as a gold card member for 740€ (As I shared the details previously, MS had a great sale in J and Y for NRT for the first fight from Cairo).

But I did not buy the flight from Cairo. Instead I bought it from Tunis for 960€. Why ?
• 6800 miles added on the trip
• Cheaper to reach TUN than CAI.

960€ for 37800 miles, it's a steal ! I will report TUN-CAI later.

I know some/many of you would not fly MS even for free or I know some are afraid to take MS for security reasons. The fact that MS is a dry airline is a no-go for most of you. I also read crew smokes in the air. While It might have happened, on the last 6 long hauls with MS nothing named here happened.

While I have a QR and MH First to report on FT you can find the QR F report here :
youtripreport.com/report/flight/165
where I met and flew with 2 Ftalkers on QR, I decided to report the inaugural (once again) flight to Tokyo. Since It's a weekly flight, I have made a U-turn in NRT…. It's wild given that it's MS.

After a great cappuccino in Le Meridien Hotel, I arrived at 9pm to collect my boarding pass... Agents are still puzzled why making such a journey. Unless you are points addict it's hard to understand.

The agent told me that the flight is delayed for 9 hours…. Because of the weather in NRT.. Killing my Mileage Run. Since the flight back to Tunis would leave on Monday without me, I'm screwed. If I'm not on a tight agenda, I don't mind. But I had 2 meetings in Paris on Tuesday that could not be pushed.

The flight delay went from 9 to 13h because of the bad weather in TYO plus FYI another 5h for the NRT-CAI leg…. With no internet in the Airport…. I wandered for 3 hours in terminal 3. I asked if my flight could be set for next week. Since it was not MS's fault (force majeur), it was a long trade to put me on the next flight which is the week after. The CS Manager did not have the authority to make such a call.

It was past midnight I was tired, one of the agent (they were all fantastic for supporting my case) told me he would handle it. I went to Le Meridien paid by MS for a night, I went back to the airport in the morning to see if the request has been approved by the HQ. Few calls done by the staff, I was requested for a confirmation or should I say a ten X confirmation for the U-Turn in TYO. Then, the CS Manager came to give me the new ticket… Loyalty paid off here. The agent took my phone number and followed with me on whatsapp. It's what I call a great service!

But wait how do I get to Marseille on Monday to be in Paris on Tuesday ? I will make a specific news and report (SV), it deserves the right explanation and analysis.

Back on the report:

You can check the full review here:
http://www.youtripreport.com/report/...-with-egyptair

I flew back to CAI with BA. It was the best option and the cheapest using 14k avios and 117€. I also wanted to experience the CCR (I encountered the worst JERK of my life) one more time given that I usually fly from T3. A report will be made.

Nov 4th, After two nights in Le Meridien, it was time to head back to the business class counter to check in for my CAI-NRT-CAI-TUN…

Dedicated security line.





Warmly welcomed by: Mister Thomas, nice to see you again !

I used the priority line and I was off to the stunning (joking) MS Lounge. It was again fairly busy even after the TK pax left.
I was warmly welcomed by 2 lounge attendants. One Recognized me from my previous flight to BKK and wished me a lovely flight.



The lounge is far from what you can expect in Europe, the catering is weak and not the best I would say below average. However the waiters are good. Don't expect to take shower because they don't have any. Wifi is more than weak. I would say if you are in Cairo and not in transit (unless you have a multi entrance visa which I have), head to Le Meridien linked to T3 and go to the bar in the lobby or by the pool. You can order a soda for 2€ and enjoy a fast wifi connection.







At 11pm I left the lounge for the gate, it was fairly busy, the flight in nearly full in both C (40 out of 49) and Y (238 pax). I'm impressed given that the flight has only been around for 1 week, it's only the second flight out of cairo. 80% are Japanese. Egyptair and the country itself can play a big part to boost tourism. I hope for both that the yield will be strong enough to make the route a profitable one.

Boarding for Business and *G begun, I was greeted at the door by the purser and was escorted to my seat. The layout is an old school 2-3-2 with a huge pitch. Unlike the Business on the A333, the seat is flat with a slight angle (I would bet 178°), you don't slide down.





As welcome drink, I had the choice between a strawberry juice and an orange juice. I picked the latter. It was not canned but freshly squeezed.



The kit handed is pretty basic and cheap.

A gift from MS. First time I get one of these. A clever way to put MS at the center if you pour your coffee or tea. It's a double-edged sword: if the flight is a success, it would remind the pax the good flight but if the flight is terrible….



After 45 min delay (luggage issue) we pushed-back for a 11H20 flight bound to NRT. Prayer to start as always and safety video.

We took off with the beautiful engine sound of the 77W.

In regards to IFE, don't expect thousands of choices but around 100 movies. Bring your own headset if you want to fully enjoy the movie. The one given is just miserable.



Some decided to try the seat

Menus were handed out. I'm confused on the pattern : Sometime you get it, sometime you don't. For example I did not get it from NRT. Go figure.



At a first glance it looks good. Check the meals for breakfast, do you know a lot of carriers offering seabass for BF in Business? It's rare to see a carrier giving a meal that is related to your landed time. I'm sorry but I'm sick to eat pancakes or omelette when it’s almost time for dinner at destination. Well-done MS !

Service begun 30 min into the flight. Once again don't expect a service a la QR. You get to see the tray with your first course. It was good but not sophisticated.



Then, for the main course, the FA bring the dolly to display your choices. I picked the beef. While the picture does not help to sell it, it was delicious. I have complained a lot in the past in business or first about the lack of success to get a good beef meal.



See how great it was. I mean it. You could cut the meal without a knife and it melted in your tongue. Yummy.


For the dessert I took an apple.

Apple strudle, so-so and a mousse which was fair. I'm complicated for deserts.







The service was wrapped-up in 45 minutes and I was ready to fall asleep. I slept a solid 6h.



While I woke up I could enjoy the view from the window..



2h prior to landing the breakfast was served. Sea bass for me. Boys… Everything was phenomenal. Damn, you really have to wonder if you are flying MS.



Bottom line:
It was once again a fun trip with MS (my 6th). Yes MS is not a leading carrier by any means. You can say the seat is from last decade, yes it's true. You have around 100 movies for the IFE. The headset is the worst I've ever received in business class.

The lounge is just bad. It reminds me the one from Air Algerie in ALG when I used to fly weekly with AF.
Instead of having a larger and better lounge, you have 3 lounges.

Aside from that, I was delighted by the catering. Once again don't expect a 5* meal a la SQ or QR. MS tries their best to offer a good meal experience. Which they did.

But to me the greatest asset of MS is their cabin crew. On all my flights they were great and on par with top carriers.

To end my report, I was not drunk nor under drug (funny enough one pax brought beers on board and opened the can for the dinner) to make such a report on MS and I was not paid either (someone asked).
MS suffers a lot from a bad reputation. While it might have been deserved, if I base my opinion on that flight to NRT and all my MS flights, I would suggest you to give MS a chance.

Thanks for reading and I'm looking forward to reading your questions/comments.

Thomas

Beltway2A

Thanks for the TR milesaddict. I'm glad your flight was able to be rescheduled. For the price you quoted, MS looks like an excellent experience. And it's always nice to see a review of a product we don't see very often.

Did the cabin crew take issue with that, or is the practice allowed?

TPJ

It is semi-allowed.

Some 5 years ago - when MS had a daily flight to KUL - we had a Corporate fare negotiated with them. I probably took something like 10 trips to KUL and do not recall any major issues.

Please remember that some people fly with them BECAUSE they are dry - once I had a Jordanian lady seating next to me who said she cannot stand RJ as out BKK (MS used to fly KUL-BKK-CAI, she joined in BKK) as most people drink heavily on that route.

Beltway2A

Thanks for the clarification, I appreciate it. ^

UTex09

Nice to see a TR covering a less-traveled airline. Thanks

milesaddict

Well, they were not surprised. I was since it's a dry airline. I'm wondering if SV would react the same way.

milesaddict

Thanks for your clarification.

Just out of curiosity, why MS axed KUL ?

milesaddict

My pleasure. Thank you.

IlikeBowling

Nice report Milesaddict, good bumping into you and the Swedish fella, (I forgot his handle) in Bangkok in September from your QR F flight. I dont think I could do an MS flight to Tokyo knowing it was dry. Haha

roadwarrier

No, I think SV would be horrified. Unlike Egypt, Saudi is dry (bar certain enclaves - pardon the pun), , so they will not tolerate any booze on their flights.

warakorn

I know of no airline in the world that sqeezes the fruit out of oranges.
Usually this orange juice might be of higher quality (with pulp), but its certainly not freshly squeezed.

DanielW

A once weekly flight between two large capital cities seems a bit unusual(?). Is it more for political rather than economic reasons?

roadwarriorafrica

EK and QR do.

milesaddict

Hi Omar it was indeed great bumping to you. Not MS for you, I don't blame you, hard to go from QR to MS..

milesaddict

Hi Daniel. I bet both. But 90% were Japanese travelers on my flight last saturday (flight was also delayed for 13h for a false reason...) And I pushed my flight to another date + got in trouble with immigration.

But 1 flight per week is a non sense since you have crew away for 1 week + accommodation and so on. I hope for them, NRT will work but if they keep having delays on that flight, it's the best way yo sink the route.