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Malaysia Airlines launches a special promotion for Visa cardholders

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Malaysia Airlines is running a special promotion with Visa this weekend.

You can save an additional 5% on all tickets in both Economy and Business as long as you travel by 6th May.  You can ONLY get the discount if you book via this page of the Malaysia Airlines website.

The offer will be running every weekend until the end of March, but this weekend it coincides with – and doubles up with – the January sale savings.  As well as Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Airlines has good connections to Australia and elsewhere in Asia.

Malaysia Airlines A350 business class

Remember that you earn Avios and British Airways tier points when you fly with Malaysia Airlines as both are members of the oneworld alliance.

Malaysia Airlines has recently taken delivery of new A350-900 aircraft and is now operating them on the Heathrow to Kuala Lumpur route.  There are two daily departures from Terminal 4 at 10.25 and 21.25.

Full details of the new planes are on their website here.  The Business Class layout looks pretty good.  It is a staggered 1-2-1 or 1-2-2 layout, similar to Aer Lingus.  It even has two Aer Lingus-style ‘throne’ seats on the right-hand side.  On the left, one row has ‘table / seat’, the one behind ‘seat / table’ and so on, so that your feet slot under the table area of the seat in front.  The Qatar Qsuite works in a similar way.

Your best option to maximise your miles when paying is American Express Preferred Rewards Gold.  This offers double points – 2 per £1 – when you when you book flight tickets directly with an airline.  Our review of Amex Gold is 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 (84)

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

  • Alex says:
    19 Jan19 January 15:04

    OT and help please! My flight to Kharkiv, Ukraine with wizzair scheduled 19 feb got cancelled and wizzair offered to re-route me to Romania (!). Can i force them to re-route me to Kiev, from where I can easily get to Kharkiv, with different airline as, I have no business in Romania?? Thx all!

    • Anna says:
      19 Jan19 January 17:30

      Yes you have the absolute right to re-routing by comparable means, it’s enshrined in EU law, google it.

    • Charlieface says:
      19 Jan19 January 20:31

      Feel free to demand a connection flight diect to Kharkiv with any airline, they must offer this by law. I assume you’re flying from London so Lot, Tukish or Ukranian would be options

  • Pid says:
    19 Jan19 January 15:06

    OT – I know some has answered before but the can not recall the answer. If doing a payment to HMRC for self assessment using curve linked to virgin, is virgin adding and fees?

  • Roger says:
    19 Jan19 January 15:24

    OT_ Amex Travel £200 off £600

    Has anyone received this offer i.e. who were not targeted last month but offer may have appeared again, if the enough sign up has not been taken up?
    Trying to see if anyone received this offer in last couple of weeks.

  • Roger says:
    19 Jan19 January 15:52

    OT- To qualify for VS SIlver do I need 400 Tier Points only?
    Is there any other requirement?

  • Ali G says:
    19 Jan19 January 16:19

    Ref the Malaysia Air deal – does anyone know when the discount appears – automatically via the link or when you click through to add your Visa number?

  • Jay H says:
    19 Jan19 January 17:30

    OT

    Has anyone else’s MR stopped showing in their account and brings up an error when trying to login into the MR catalogue?

  • Roger says:
    19 Jan19 January 18:18

    OT_ Has anyone got any experience of buying airline status off eBay?
    There are seller on eBay posting airline status for a fee.

    • Graham Walsh says:
      19 Jan19 January 18:25

      Must be a scam

    • BJ says:
      19 Jan19 January 21:33

      There was an article on this on LL one or two days ago.

      • Alan says:
        19 Jan19 January 21:46

        Yeah I think that was a specific website? Either route sounds dodgy and potentially runs the risk of your account being closed. Personally I wouldn’t do it if you had a reasonable balance!

        • BJ says:
          20 Jan20 January 09:39

          Personally I wouldn’t be tempted because I never bother with status as I almost always book business or sometimes First with cash or miles. Only BA bronze, only think I miss is inability to choose seat free at time of booking. However, even that is not all that important in my own experience. Even over the busy Christmas and New Year period my partner still managed to get seats 4A and 3K for free.

      • Graham Walsh says:
        20 Jan20 January 12:20

        I read maybe the same. Some club you sign up £99 via their app and it’s in beta.

    • Graham Walsh says:
      20 Jan20 January 17:18

      So here’s an idea, someone needs to develop a Hotels.com for the airline industry. Fly with any brand and build up loyalty with them. That way you are not stuck with a certain airline.

      • Lady London says:
        20 Jan20 January 17:47

        I think the credit cards are doing that. The Daily Mail used to run a Club that sounded like it might do something similar and I think some travel agents like Trailfinders might have the odd scheme that worked a bit like that in the far far past.

      • Rob says:
        20 Jan20 January 19:33

        Given that OTAs get around 1% commission on a flight booking I doubt that will happen.

  • Ruth4325 says:
    21 Jan21 January 17:58

    OT – we are planning a stay at a German hotel (Traube Tonbach) which annoyingly does not accept credit cards. According to their reservations team they only accept EC-Cash or cash at check out. That’s a lot of cash to carry around for a 5 night stay. Although on tripadvisor looks like some people have managed to pay by bank transfer. Short of hoping they change their card policy between now and July, does anyone have any suggestions for ways to pay the hotel not using cash? Looks like EC cash cards are too difficult to get. Also looked at the Avios Cash Passport MC but not sure about that either, or even if they’d accept it.

    • Rob says:
      21 Jan21 January 18:02

      You could probably load up a Revolut card from your credit card (which most credit cards treat as purchases, earning points) and then send the money to their bank account from your Revolut card.

      German hotels are a bit odd. I booked one last night for my parents in law, a fairly big German chain. There are no pre-pay rates at all. You can only book ‘pay at hotel’ which is obviously risk free for the guest (you don’t even need to give a credit card unless you plan to arrive after 6pm) but very 1999!

      • Ruth4325 says:
        21 Jan21 January 18:06

        Ah..yes very odd! Do they not really use credit cards in Germany? With Revolut can you load it with Amex? Thanks Rob.

        • Rob says:
          21 Jan21 January 18:09

          They do use credit cards but not commonly – memories of the 1930s are still alive and well and spending more than you earn each month has the sort of social stigma that Brits tend to reserve for convicted child molesters. EC bank cards are taken. Amazon works by bank transfer – you order something and they sit on it until you’ve transferred the cash across!

          You can’t load Revolut from Amex.

        • Alan says:
          21 Jan21 January 20:27

          No you can only load Revolut from Mastercard or VISA.

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