Malaysia Airlines are offering a campaign to allow you to reach their Enrich Gold status, equivalent to OneWorld Sapphire, if you fly a business class return trip with them over the next few months.

What do I need to do?

Unlike most promotions, there is no special enrolment link you have to use. Just buy a flight through the Malaysia Airlines website. You must book by 16th September 2019, and travel by 30th July 2020. Thus you have only a short period of time to decide, but quite some time to execute.

The biggest contradiction in the terms and conditions is which direction you need to fly. I have included the screenshot from their promotion's page which clearly states that the flights must be starting in London and going to Asia/Australasia, versus the contrary — starting in Asia/Australasia and going to London. There is roughly equal prominence of both directions in the page so it is difficult to tell what the correct direction should be. But the Terms and Conditions quite clearly state it's for flights going TO London.

Adding to that, there is this rather cop-out term from Section D “General Terms” Paragraph 14 of the terms and conditions (summary is also written at the and of this post)

MAB will not be held responsible for any typographical errors or misprint under these Terms and Conditions

Given that this is potentially a big waste of time and money if it turns out it is wrong, it's probably a good idea to get a confirmation in writing before you book anything.

What will I get?

If you are Enrich blue or silver you will get the Enrich Gold status after completion of your itinerary. The Gold status runs to 31st March 2021 irrespective of when you actually fly

If you are already Enrich Gold or Platinum, then you will get a bonus 50000 qualifying miles instead. Another contradiction in their terms and conditions is whether the 50,000 miles applies to 2019 or 2020 re-qualification or both. Under most programme rules the elite qualifying miles should count in the year they were added to your account and that's the conservative approach you should take here. (Despite what the schedule of earnings state in Section C, Paragraph 2)

What do I need to do?

If you are flying to Australia / New Zealand, you need to be flying in Business Class J, C, D, Z fares, or in Business Suite F, A or P fare buckets.

For journeys to South East Asia your fare needs to be J, C, D for business class and F or A for Business Suite. Basically the deep-discounted fares will not count.

Analysis

It should be stated that this is probably NOT a worthy mileage run, though everyone is free to put their own intrinsic value on elite status.

Using BAEC status as a benchmark, if you were just Tier Point running your way to Silver then I would endeavour to keep the cost below £1800, and £1200 if you were being particularly aggressive. This is achievable if you use the Germany-USA fares which I posted a few days ago, or went back and forth between London and Helsinki 4 times (though this would get boring I'm sure!)

However, let's compare directly against the required routing of the promotion.

If you were to credit these Malaysia Airlines flights to BAEC, A trip to South East Asia routed via London – Kuala Lumpur – [your final destination] would earn a minimum 400 Tier Points round trip and possibly 600 Tier Points round trip if they can count Taipei as an eligible destination. (Kuala Lumpur to Taipei are 2012 miles apart so JUST creeps into the 140TP earning threshold, and London – Kuala Lumpur earns 160TP.)

If you flew to Australia, then you can increase that to 600TP. If you already have 4 British Airways sectors, even in cheapest economy class, this is a guaranteed BA Silver straight away. There is therefore no advantage to you crediting your miles to Enrich over BAEC, unless you wanted the redeemable Enrich miles over Avios for whatever reason.

Conclusion

Malaysia Airlines' promotion on the face of it is fairly generous but you will need to ensure you are already flying enough to use the benefits of the elite status. The terms and conditions, however are a total mess and require individual confirmation of eligibility or a public statement from Malaysia Airlines to make sure you are eligible.

Terms and Conditions:

Terms & Conditions:

1. Enrich member must book and purchase a return qualifying fare ticket originating from Australia or New Zealand to London [Notice no reference of South East Asia!] and, successfully complete the return journey(s) on flight (s) operated solely by Malaysia Airlines on Business Class or Business Suite during the period stated below (“Flight Requirements”) to be eligible for the incentive.

2. The Incentives are subject to certain terms and conditions – Enrich Gold status membership for existing Enrich Blue/ Silver OR 50,000 Elite Miles for existing Enrich Gold/ Platinum

3. The original date of ticket booked/issued must be within the Campaign/Booking Period.

4. Upon meeting the flight requirements within the Campaign/Booking Period and Travel Period, the qualified Enrich member(s) will receive the Incentive within fourteen (14) working days after successfully completing the return journey.

5. Enrich Blue and Silver member upgraded to Enrich Gold under this campaign will NOT be eligible for 50,000 Elite miles for any subsequent travels within this campaign period.

6. Enrich members are allowed to make multiple flight booking(s) and must complete the journey(s) during the Campaign/Booking Period and Travel Period in order to be deemed as qualified entries. However, only one (1) incentive will be awarded per Enrich member.

7. In the event the Participant is identified as Non-Enrich member, MAB has the right to disqualify the Participant.

8. For more infomation about terms and conditions, click here