I'm a bit late on this item of news, apologies, but a great long-term Tier Point running opportunity has arisen in the past week (9th October).

British Airways and Malaysia Airlines have agreed to codeshare to 14 Malaysian cities and 9 other cities in South East Asia and Australasia. You will be able to book these on either ba.com or malaysiaairlines.com depending on your preference.

The codeshared routes in Asia/Australasia are:

Malaysia – Alor Setar, Kota Kinabalu, Johor Bahru, Kuching, Kuantan, Labuan, Langkawi, Miri, Penang, Sibu, Kuala Terengganu, Sandakan, Kota Bharu, Bintulu
Australia – Adelaide, Melbourne, Perth
New Zealand – Auckland
Indonesia – Denpasar-Bali, Jakarta, Surabaya
Vietnam – Ho Chi Minh City
Cambodia – Phnom Penh

And in exchange the following European destinations will be bookable as Malaysia Airlines marketed flights, all transferring via Heathrow:

UK – Aberdeen, Belfast, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester and Newcastle via London Heathrow on British Airways flights.
Spain – Barcelona,
Germany – Berlin,
Denmark – Copenhagen,
Austria – Vienna,
Belgium – Brussels,
Switzerland – Geneva, Zurich, Hamburg,
France – Lyon, Toulouse, Paris

NB: the non-UK destinations are subject to regulatory approval

My thoughts

Currently British Airways operates one flight per day to Kuala Lumpur on a Boeing 787 Dreamliner and Malaysia Airlines operates two per day in their A350 aircrafts. The flight times also offer genuine choice in flight times, with BA departing at around 7pm and Malaysia Airlines departing at around 10:30am and 9:30pm.

Aside from Malaysia being one of my favourite culinary destinations anywhere in the world, the thing I'm most excited about are the abundant Tier Point earning opportunities, especially with the domestic Malaysian flights. Once you get yourself to Malaysia you can very easily find sub-£1/TP routes. One such popular route is Kuala Lumpur – Penang.

Added to the fact that London-Kuala Lumpur is over 6000 miles, this makes it a 160TP route if flying in business class.

And given Kuala Lumpur's fortuitous location, there is an abundance of routes over 2000 miles as per my “Every Oneworld Flight marginally over 2000 miles” guide. As you can see from the diagram below, Perth is actually one of the codeshared destinations meaning that you can get enough tier points for BAEC Silver status ( 2*[160+140]TP = 600TP) in a single return trip AND get the four qualifying flights you need.

Bottom Line

This codeshare agreement makes a lot of sense and also opens up Tier Point earning opportunities which should please a lot of BAEC members. Granted the hard products on both airlines are perhaps not industry leading like Qatar Airways' QSuites, but the simple fact you can get Oneworld Sapphire in a single return-trip makes this a very appealing partnership.