Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

Malaysia Airlines ‘drops’ First Class by calling it Business Suite – and you can’t use Avios

Links on Head for Points may support the site by paying a commission.  See here for all partner links.

Malaysia Airlines – a oneworld partner of British Airways – has made a marketing decision to rename its First Class product as ‘Business Suite’.

The airline has stated that it made the move as a result of many corporates now refusing to pay for First Class.  The Business Suite – which is available from London Heathrow on Malaysia’s A350-900 and A380 fleet – will be offered at a premium over a standard Business Class seat and will be cheaper than it previously cost to book First Class directly.

As you can see in the photo below, it is a very nice product.  The A350-900 version pictured has fully enclose suites with doors.

Malaysia Airlines A350-900 First

Nothing else is changing.  Business Suite customers will still, it seems, get the old First Class food, First Class amenity kits etc.

Here’s the bad news.  It seems that Avios customers are going to lose out.

When I looked last week, it seemed that the new ‘Business Suite’ could not be booked using Avios.  I tried to double-check this yesterday and could not find ANY Malaysia Airlines Avios availability from London, in ANY class, for ANY date, so I am guessing there was some sort of IT issue.

Even when it returns, however, I doubt ‘Business Suite’ will be bookable.  The only way of getting into the ‘Business Suite’ would appear to be if Malaysia allows you to pay a supplement.  It looks like I will need to cross this one off my bucket list ….

You can find out more on the Malaysia Airlines website here.

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2024)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending £15,000 Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

40,000 bonus points and a huge range of valuable benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital on Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 12th May 2024, the Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa card is offering a bonus of 30,000 points, convertible into 30,000 Avios. You must have a Limited Company to apply. Click here to learn more and click here to apply.

Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa

Huge 30,000 points bonus until 12th May 2024 Read our full review

You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus.

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

There are also generous bonuses on the two American Express Business cards, with the points converting at 1:1 into Avios. These cards are open to sole traders as well as limited companies.

American Express Business Platinum

40,000 points sign-up bonus and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

Category

oneworld alliance partners

Comments (129)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Klaus-Peter Dudas says:
    18 Dec18 December 04:00

    “Two new A321 aircraft will take Wizz’s Luton fleet to 11 aircraft, which collectively serve 60 routes across 28 countries. Wizz will account 42% of Luton’s capacity over the Summer season.”
    —

    I may miss something here, but how does Wizz have 11 planes at Luton but covers 42% of capacity with that?

    • Bagoly says:
      18 Dec18 December 05:45

      It’s easy to miss that the second sentence does not derive from the first.
      Wizzair has ‘planes at 25 bases, and some of them serve routes to LTN without being based at LTN.

      • Mike says:
        18 Dec18 December 09:08

        Until the last couple of years Wizz didn’t have a luton base. Because of the +2 time difference in central Europe the 7am – 8am hour is non stop arrivals from the base cities. These planes then go elsewhere, before returning to Luton in the afternoon then heading home.

  • Sam Wardill says:
    18 Dec18 December 04:40

    I was upgraded to Malaysian First once. One of the Sultans was flying and I guess they (correctly) figured I would not recognise him. It was certainly not a product that I would pay any premium for over Malaysian business.

  • Andrew S says:
    18 Dec18 December 04:43

    I have the same on my Amex platinum companion credit card but nothing on my charge card. It is the second time in the past few months I’ve got the spend £600 get £200 back on the platinum companion credit card. That almost pays for the annual fee of the charge card itself!

    • S says:
      18 Dec18 December 16:55

      You can have 3 Platinum cards on the same account without any increase in the annual fee. I have it on both, my main one, my AC, and on Mrs S card.

      £600 off £1800. This is the third time we’re making use of this offer in a year.

  • Colin MacKinnon says:
    18 Dec18 December 05:11

    Flew MH 1st from Paris (cheaper avios band than London) to KL.

    Had a couple of glasses of champagne and thought: hmm, Malaysian have lost two aircraft this year, one missing and one over Ukraine. Oops. Things come in threes…..

    So I had a third glass of fizz!

    Never bothered going upstairs – so never been upstairs on an aircraft yet! – and missed on checking out the prayer area with a lit ring to constantly show where Mecca is.

    • Mr Dee says:
      18 Dec18 December 07:47

      Good point not good history

      • Shoestring says:
        18 Dec18 December 10:54

        Yep but Air Malaysia maintains its planes to similar or better standards as the top airlines in the world, in neither case was it the maintenance schedule at fault.

        Just unlucky. You could always examine more closely the quality of the HR program that looks at pilots’ mental health but that’s a real tricky area to perfect – just look at the pilot who drove the Germanwings Airbus into the Alps. A few tell-tale signs (easy enough to say after the event) but perhaps not enough to stop them flying.

    • Mikeact says:
      18 Dec18 December 11:35

      Rob… ‘. It looks like I will need to cross this one off my bucket list ‘
      You are joking of course.

      • Rob says:
        18 Dec18 December 14:18

        No, Malaysia is a oneworld carrier with a decent new First Class product so it was something that would have been very relevant to cover. The HFP bucket list is not the same as my personal bucket list!

        • John says:
          18 Dec18 December 16:54

          May have been referring to this: https://www.businessinsider.com/r-malaysia-airlines-tweaks-its-bucket-list-sales-campaign-2014-9?r=US&IR=T

        • Jon says:
          18 Dec18 December 23:15

          Probably worth keeping an eye out. Back in the days when MH First could be booked with Virgin miles but you’d use the BA web site to check availability, I got the impression that reward flights were being loaded in six-month batches a matter of weeks beforehand. They have a different IT system now, so who knows, but I wouldn’t assume that because there’s no Avios availability showing now, there’s been a conscious decision to pull it – far more likely to be an oversight, I suspect. May possibly have something to do with the new use of the P fare bucket for the cheapest Business Suite fares – P used to be the air miles redemption bucket for First.

  • BlueLabel says:
    18 Dec18 December 07:29

    OT – I’ve received my 250 Golden Circle points from the Shangri-La app promo Rob reported a few weeks ago. Combined with a few points I had already = $50 drinks voucher to spend at the Shard. Cheers Rob!

  • Tom says:
    18 Dec18 December 07:37

    Nice one! Only just spent my last £200 off £600 and along comes another 🙂

    • Stu_N says:
      18 Dec18 December 07:47

      Thanks for heads up, on main Platinum and companion card. Very worthwhile discount.

      • Tom1 says:
        18 Dec18 December 07:50

        Annoyingly I’ve got the £50 off, on the card I’ve just hit the sign-up target!

      • Benylin says:
        18 Dec18 December 07:55

        Thanks, platinum charge + supp have £200 off £600. Gold credit have £50 off £600 across 2 cards.

  • Mr Dee says:
    18 Dec18 December 07:43

    Wish I had known about the biz suite before looks amazing, wonder what alternatives I can book on Avios that are similar?

    • Zoe says:
      18 Dec18 December 08:12

      I’m pretty sure you can book Qatar Business which has Qsuites on some routes. We had them from Canberra to Doha on a cheap ex Oslo fare this July.

  • C F Frost says:
    18 Dec18 December 08:13

    Bits: my name is on the card and I shouldn’t really have to ask you lot, but in the ‘have gold and then upgrade to plat’ practice, is the per annum referral limit capped at 90000 over both cards? In other words, you don’t qualify for a new tranche of five new referrals once you upgrade if you’ve already been busy at gold level?

    • FlyUpTop says:
      18 Dec18 December 08:16

      You still have the Gold charge card then as the Gold new CC can’t be upgraded to plat.

    • KevMc says:
      18 Dec18 December 08:19

      It is per account per calendar year, not per card, so it will reset in a couple of weeks anyway.

    • BJ says:
      18 Dec18 December 08:20

      The referrals are per MR account so the counter is not reset with the platinum card.

      • aba says:
        18 Dec18 December 10:18

        What if you have ended up with two MR accounts on the same account (as happens sometimes especially with the companion cards)?

      • GRIMZ says:
        18 Dec18 December 12:29

        are you sure about this? I believe it was per calendar year and was waiting until January for a further 2 referrals before I cancel the card.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

New to Head for Points?

Welcome!  We’re the UK’s most-read source of business travel, Avios, frequent flyer and hotel loyalty news. Let us improve how you travel. Got any questions? Ask them in our forums.

Latest Forum Posts

Get 40,000 bonus points (worth 40,000 Avios) and £300 dining credit with The Platinum Card

Check reward flight availability instantly for free!

See a whole year of reward seat availability on one page at SeatSpy.com

Get £10 when you spend £150 on your free Currensea card

Booking a luxury hotel?

Our luxury hotel booking service offers you GUARANTEED extra benefits over booking direct. Works with Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental, The Ritz Carlton, St Regis and more. We've booked £1.7 million of rooms to date. Click for details.

SME? EARN POINTS WORTH 10,500 AVIOS WITH CAPITAL ON TAP

Get 20,000 bonus points, four airport lounge passes and your first year free with American Express Gold

The UK's biggest frequent flyer website uses cookies, which you can block via your browser settings. Continuing implies your consent to this policy. Our privacy policy is here.

Got it!