Using ITA Matrix to get BA Silver / Oneworld Sapphire in a single trip

Turning Left for Less recently did a couple of excellent articles on using ITA Matrix. I highly recommend reading them first.

https://www.turningleftforless.com/so-you-want-to-book-a-tp-run-ita-matrix-part-1/

https://www.turningleftforless.com/so-you-want-to-book-a-tier-point-run-ita-matrix-part-2/

I decided to construct a flight with the following guidelines in place:

1.) My final destination is Barcelona. Visiting the Sagrada Familia has always been on my bucket list and neither Ashley nor myself have ever been to Spain.

2.) London is a city that we always enjoy visiting, so a stopover in London would be a nice bonus, but not strictly necessary.

3.) We need 4 flights to be on BA / Iberia, to requalify for Silver status.

4.) We need to hit 600+ tier points, again to requalify for Silver status.

5.) Flights from Colombo are generally cheaper, and Sri Lanka has also been on my to-visit list for a while, so I'll be looking at flights from there too.

Using the dates January 17-31 2019 as an example, and inputting PEN-BCN into google flights, we get the following results:

A fairly typical result. A little on the expensive side but not unexpected due to it being the only 1-stop flight between Penang and Barcelona, and in business class.

However, this flight would only get us 560 tier points and none of the 4 required BA flights. It's great if you have no need for the status though.

Since we ARE going for status (and could use a cheaper ticket), I'm going to book PEN-KUL-CMB, followed by CMB-BCN.

PEN-KUL-CMB goes on sale quite often for around RM2,500 on MAS, so we'll just add RM2,500 to the cost of the CMB-BCN flight. It also generates a useful 160 TP.

Inputting in CMB-BCN for the dates 19-29 January 2019 into Google Flights gets you:

Meh. After adding on the additional RM2,500 for the PEN-KUL-CMB flight the total cost is now RM15,750, more than the original flight from Penang, albeit with 160 extra TP. We can do better!

Let's fire up ITA Matrix.

What we are doing here is forcing stops at Doha, London Heathrow and Madrid on the way to Barcelona, as you can get more tier points from multiple medium-haul flights, than a single long haul flight.

And the results:

WOAH. That's a 680 TP run, and all segments are on BA/IB. Although some of the legs are on Qatar Airways (which you want, because the service is much better than BA), because it has a BA code in front, it'll count towards the 4 eligible flights.

And the price? Only RM11,600, add on RM2,500 for the first flight and you have a total of RM14,100, even less than the original PEN-DOH-BCN flight.

Since we'll want to build in stopovers in London, we'll have to go back to the Multi City tool on ITA Matrix and configure the dates manually, which gives us this:

Well that's weird. After building in a stopover in London, the price has now fallen to RM9,993! So the entire flight, PEN-KUL-CMB-DOH-LHR-MAD-BCN return now only costs RM12,500, and it also generates 840 TP.

Isn't that amazing?

BA World Traveller Plus (Premium Economy) review

There comes a point when you are a little older, a little richer, and you can no longer bear to sit 13 hours in Economy class, squashed next to your neighbors like sardines in a can.

On the other hand, your budget doesn't quite stretch to Business-class, which can easily cost 3 to 5 times more than Economy class. In this situation, Premium Economy is worth a look, especially for long haul flights.

For the week of January 10 - January 17 2019, as an example, Economy class from Penang to Rome would cost around RM3,200, and Business-class costs a minimum of RM12,000! And that's on a Chinese airline, which are well known to be quite terrible.

However, if you select Premium Economy instead, you can fly the  longhaul KUL-LHR segment in BA's World Traveller Plus cabin for RM5,158 per person.

The extra RM2,000 per person is in my opinion, money well spent, assuming you can afford it.

For starters, pitch, or the distance between seats, is 38 inches on World Traveller Plus, compared with the usual 31 inches on Economy. This translates to noticeably more legroom.

Furthermore, because there are only 7 seats in a row, compared with 9 in Economy, each seat is considerably wider.

Meals are also better, as WT+ gets Business-class meals. To our pleasant surprise, BA actually has very decent meals.

Overall, we had an excellent flight between Kuala Lumpur and London. Service was excellent, food was good, and the seats were comfortable enough to easily fall asleep in. And the best part is that you no longer have to rub shoulders with the peasants back in cattle class.

Singapore Airlines Krisflyer sweet spots

This article is a complement to my previous one. The reason why I am focusing on these two FFPs is because for most credit cards in Malaysia, they allow you to credit miles to either Krisflyer or Asia Miles (they also credit to Enrich but that's a pile of crap so we won't go there).

Krisflyer is a zone-based program, which is quite different from Asia Miles' distance-based program. This has both advantages and disadvantages. Advantages are when you are flying to a large zone such as Middle East or Europe; for example, the cost to fly from Singapore to Istanbul (5388 miles), is the same as flying from Singapore to Muscat (3422 miles), even though the distance is considerably greater.

The disadvantage is flying within zones or between two cities that are in two different zones but geographically very close, such as Penang to KL in  Economy (still costs 7,500 miles, the same as Penang to Bali!), or Penang to Bangkok (a ridiclous 12,500 miles!)

However, as a zone-based program, it's a perfect complement to Asia Miles's distance-based program. Since credit cards can redeem points on both programs, you can split the miles as necessary for your maximum benefit.

1.) Malaysia - Middle East. 45,000 Krisflyer miles for a one-way business class ticket from Penang to the Middle East (including Turkey) is a real steal. The distance between Penang and Istanbul exceeds 5,000 miles, so being able to fly 12 hours in SQ business class for only 45,000 Krisflyer miles is incredible value.

Istanbul is so close to Europe that you can fly onwards to most European cities for under RM500 return. Granted, this is in Economy, but the distances are so short anyway that Business isn't really worth it, and not to mention the fact that a lot of intra-Europe flights are just Economy class with the middle seat blocked off.

However, do note that PEN-AMM does not seem to be viable, so if you want to visit Jordan, you'll have to book it under Asia Miles. Apart from Istanbul, SQ also flies to Dubai.

2.) Middle East to Europe. There are plenty of interesting places in the Middle East that are also reasonably safe to visit, such as Turkey, Jordan, Muscat, Dubai etc. While you're there, why not tack on a business class flight to anywhere in Europe for only 25,000 miles one way?

As mentioned earlier, most European short haul "business class" flights are economy class seats with the middle seat blocked off, so Turkish or Egypt Airlines would be the preferred choice here as they have actual business class seats.

The distance between Dubai and London is 3,420 miles, which is a long way for only 25,000 Krisflyer miles.

Incidentally, Malaysia - Middle East (45,000 miles) followed by Middle East - Europe (25,000 miles) is cheaper than Malaysia - Europe (85,000 miles!) So you get to save 15,000 miles each way, and get to visit another city, win-win!

3.) Central Asia to Europe. You really don't want to transit in India if you can help it. Thankfully, both Male (Maldives) and Colombo (Sri Lanka) are also included in this band. Both are wonderful countries for a stopover on the way to Europe, and flying to either of these countries from Malaysia can be very cheap.

From Central Asia, it only costs 47,500 Krisflyer miles to fly business-class to anywhere in Europe. Incidentally, Malaysia - Central Asia in business class is only 35,000 Krisflyer miles, so Malaysia to Central Asia followed by Central Asia to Europe is slightly cheaper than Malaysia direct to Europe.

A dream holiday in Europe with a stopover in Maldives sounds pretty awesome, if you ask me.

4.) Middle East to North America. For only 69,000 Krisflyer miles, you can fly Turkish Airlines business class from Muscat to New York. This is a long flight, clocking in at 7,099 miles total and 16 hours in the air, a bargain.

Unfortunately, it seems that only destinations on the East Coast are available. Still, it's an incredible deal for 16 hours of business class on a highly regarded airline.

5.) Southwest Pacific to Southwest Pacific. For only 28,000 Krisflyer miles, you can fly one-way business class from anywhere in Australia to New Zealand or even Tahiti (theoretically). The reason why I say theoretically is because award space on Air New Zealand is quite difficult to come by.

If you do manage to find award space, Melbourne to Tahiti via Auckland is over 8 hours of flying and 4,187 miles, and usually costs RM10,000+ for a return.

Cathay Pacific Asia Miles sweet spots

Cathay Pacific's Asia Miles program recently had a devaluation / readjustment, and there are some interesting sweet spots to be had with the new distance bands.

Sweet spots are redemptions that come in at the upper limit of a distance band, making them good value redemptions for that particular band, in terms of distance flown / Asia Mile.

In the case of Asia Miles, the band limits are 2,750, 5,000 and 7,500 miles. There isn't a large difference between the Asia miles costs for the 7,500 and 7,500+ mile bands, hence we'll focus mainly on the 2,750 and 5,000 mile bands.

As always, redemptions should be made for business-class and above, as the various fees and surcharges generally make economy class redemptions poor value for money.

1-way redemptions are particularly good value, as these tend to be exorbitantly expensive.

1.) Penang - Hong Kong - Jeju / 2,575 miles / 10,000 Asia Miles + RM283 each way on Cathay Dragon economy-class

Ok I know I said it's not worth it to redeem miles on economy-class flights, but this is actually not a bad deal. It's a single stop flight to Jeju (for all you Winter Sonata fans) and it normally costs RM2,700.

The downside is that you need to stay overnight in HKIA on the return leg, which will cost an extra RM250 on a twin share basis. Adding this RM250 to the RM566 in fees means that you're getting RM2,700 - RM816 = RM1,884 in value from the 20,000 Asia Miles, or over 9 cents per mile, a very decent amount.

2.) Maldives- Doha - Frankfurt / 4,904 miles / 50,000 Asia Miles + ~RM500 each way on Qatar Airways business-class

If you ever wanted to visit Europe with a stopover in Maldives, now's your chance! Sri Lankan Airways and a few LCCs fly there for very reasonable rates. Once you're there, you can look forward to 11.5 hours of Qatar Airways business class to your European destination.

You can also route to Milan, Zurich, Rome, Munich, Vienna or Prague for roughly the same costs. Cities further west like London or Paris are out because the distance would exceed 5,000 miles.

3.) Penang - Doha - Amman / 4,515 miles / 55,700 Asia Miles + ~RM500 each way on Qatar Airways business-class.

Jordan is usually a very expensive place to get to, but that's irrelevant when you're paying with miles! This is a great route, as you get to fly direct from Penang to Doha on Qatar Airways before connecting to Amman.

Interestingly enough, Qatar sells certain regional business-class routes as first class. The seat is the same but you get access to the exclusive Al-Safwa lounge. DOH-AMM is one of these routes so you'll get access to this amazing looking lounge.

4.) Australia - Hong Kong - America / 7,500+ miles / 85,000 Asia Miles + RM1,133 each way on Cathay Pacific business-class.

This is probably the best value redemption available. Asia Miles' top band is 7,500+ miles, and this redemption clocks in at a whopping 12,643 miles for the SYD-HKG-JFK route, but you'll still pay the same amount as a 7,501 mile redemption.

The cash cost of this flight is around RM20,000 return so you're getting incredible value for money.

MH A330 Incheon to Kuala Lumpur in business class

During the MH Deepavali sale, I saw that business-class return tickets from Penang to Incheon, South Korea, were RM3000 per person. After a bit of thought (around 5 seconds), I grabbed tickets for Ash and I for a spontaneous holiday with RJ.

1.) It credits 360 tier points to our BA status, getting us BA Silver / Oneworld Sapphire after our family holiday to Paris next year. This is quite a big deal, as it allows us to access any Oneworld business-class lounge, even on Economy class, along with Priority Check-in and Priority Boarding.

2.) We've never been to Seoul.

3.) RM3000 is REALLY cheap for business class seats. Especially since MH has recently overhauled their dated cabin.

The plane we flew on was the A330-300, with the new business class seats. These seats can be both very good or very bad, depending on the location within the cabin.

1K, also known as the "Throne" seat, is by far the best, featuring copious amounts of storage space, excellent leg room and privacy.

1A, 1D and 1G are close runner ups. They have the same amount of leg room but less storage and privacy.

You can see the massive amount of leg room here :

And after becoming a full-flat bed:

MH business class's signature dish is the satay, and you can request for multiple servings if you so wish.

The starter of Scallop Salad was pretty decent too.

That was followed by garlic bread and bun:

Unfortunately, after this is where MH screwed up. Ah well, it wouldn't be MH if they didn't screw up somewhere!

I ordered a Beef Kalbi with rice dish from the Chef on Call menu, but they gave me a vegetarian option instead. Thankfully, the very nice stewardess managed to scrounge up a Halibut dish for me, which was ok.

The yucky vegetarian option:

The replacement Halibut dish:

Ash's Beef Tenderloin dish was excellent though, so do go for that if you fly from Incheon.

Haagen Daaz ice cream for dessert:

Overall, it was an excellent flight, with attentive and polite service from the cabin crew, a lovely full-flat bed and decent food. I'd hesitate to pay full price for MH, especially if its Asian rivals are selling for around the same price. But when it's only half the price of CX or SQ, it really is a no-brainer.

Why British Airways Executive Club might be the best Frequent Flier program for not-that-frequent fliers (residing in Malaysia).

There are a couple of caveats that apply:

A.) If you own, or are able and willing to apply for Maybank 2 Cards Premier, you would be better off with Cathay or SQ. You can earn around 1 mile per RM1 spent, but they only transfer to Enrich, Asia Miles or Krisflyer.

B.) If you fly to Australia a lot, Qantas would serve you better as it would be easier to move up the tiers. Qantas miles do not expire as long as you have activity in your account in an 18-month period, making them a good
alternative.

The reasons:

1.) As long as there is some activity in your Avios account, the expiration date of ALL Avios will be pushed back another 3 years.
This is the #1 reason why you should consider BAEC for your FFP. Almost all other FFP miles will expire 2-3 years or so from the date they are awarded. For many Malaysians, it could be very difficult to accumulate sufficient miles for an award flight before they expire.

"Activity" could be anything. You could fly Penang to KL on MAS and credit that measly amount of miles (202!) to your BAEC account and that would work.

https://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/executive-club/collecting-avios/avios-expiry-rules

2.) They are part of the Oneworld alliance.
As Malaysians, more likely than not we'll be flying MAS or another Asian airline like Cathay, JAL or Qantas. Being part of Oneworld means that you can credit miles from flights of partner airlines to your BAEC account.

Unfortunately, notable omissions include SQ, Thai, ANA and EVA, which are all part of Star Alliance. However, SQ has been quite expensive of late and EVA is not that convenient for Malaysians. ANA is not that much better than JAL. 

We fly MAS quite a lot and their business class is an excellent product for the price. Just recently we managed to snag PEN-KUL-ICN return tickets for only RM3k! This also contributed a whopping 360 tier points to our BAEC tier level.

https://www.britishairways.com/en-it/information/partners-and-alliances/oneworld

3.) Their award chart is decent

They are on par with Cathay and  cheaper than SQ or MAS. JAL has by far the cheapest award chart in OW, but unless you fly a lot your miles might expire before you get to redeem a flight. And if you're flying enough to make JAL worth it, then you shouldn't be reading this post :P.

BA also has by far the CHEAPEST short-haul award flights, starting at only 4500 Avios for trips of less than 650 miles. By comparison, MAS charges 9000 EnrichMiles for <500 miles while Cathay charges 10000 AsiaMiles for <600 miles.

This makes BAEC ideal for short hops around Europe or Japan, as these flights tend to be short distance but rather expensive.

4.) You can set up a Household Account

BAEC allows you to add your kids/parents/grandparents to your account and claim their miles as your own. Perfect for family holidays.

https://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/executive-club/household-accounts

5.) You don't have to fly BA
This one is non-intuitive. BA is generally regarded as having terrible service and seats in Economy. However, just because you're on the BAEC does not mean that you have to fly them! You can spend the miles on any OW partner airline.

However, you can get a 15% discount on miles required by flying BA during offpeak seasons, which can be useful.

6.) If you do fly BA, you can upgrade from Business to First for very little.

Although BA Economy and Business class is generally regarded as quite terrible, the First class has gotten very decent reviews.

A one way upgrade from Business to First only costs 31,500 to 35,000 Avios for Kuala Lumpur - London Heathrow; not bad at all!

7.) BA will hold your tier status for a year if you have a baby

Lastly, if you do have a new baby, you can submit a request to BA to extend your current tier level for another year. This is a nice touch since it is unlikely that you will be travelling as much with a newborn.

https://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/executive-club/terms-and-conditions/conditions-of-use#maternity

For in-depth discussion and analysis of the program, these 2 threads contain excellent information:

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/british-airways-executive-club/1812055-your-guide-executive-club-attaining-status-earning-avios-2017-edition.html

and

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/british-airways-executive-club/1812259-your-guide-spending-avios-2017-edition.html

All charts credit to Prospero on the Flyertalk forums.

Virus-free. www.avg.com

I-See-U-Nuggets and Cardboard Meatballs

The Cat and Bear ish back!

Lots of pictures from our eating trips and it is all awaiting Lazy Cat to take a break from World of Warcraft to do his share of writing and editing.

First up, another NEVER AGAIN.

Where: Cinema Concession Stand, Gurney Plaza

Opening Time: Look in the newspaper for the earliest and latest shows. That should be their Opening and Closing hours.

BEAR: Yet another outing with Sister Bear that ended up with horrible food. Not sure if Sister Bear has bad luck or bad taste.

Went to watch Hunger Games and Sister Bear decided that she was hungry. She wandered to the nearest kiosk and promptly got herself a box or meatballs and some nuggets.

Sister Bear likes nuggets.

Came back to kiosk with a pitiful face. The 4 meatballs and 6 pieces of nuggets cost her a total of RM11+. Bear forgot the actual amount since Bear wasn't paying.

Bears decided to "tax" Sister Bear's nuggets and regretted it, it was not only oily but it has a hole inside! How interesting, a hollow nugget. How do they do that?! 

It is a nugget that all girls out there on a diet should eat. It tells your brains that you have eaten 6 full nuggets when you actually just ate about half the amount! Genius!

Behold World, Hungry Bear and Cat presents, the Nug Hole. Named after the Nugget's Nug and Doughnut's hole.

I seeeee youuuu~

                                                                                       I seeeee youuuu too~

Ahh meatballs. Bear's favourite. From the outside, it strangely looks very dry and flavorful. But looks can be deceiving right? In this case, it was WRONG!

It was dry alright with a weird not-very-meatball-like-texture that strangely reminds Bear of a cross between a meatball and cardboard.

 It's not the type of cardboard used to ship TVs  but rather the cheap cardboard they use to pack your food in. The kind that half disintegrates while you are only half way home kind. 

By the time you reach home, the box would have usually absorbed all the oil/ sauce and is now leaking through the corners and no longer resembles a box.

Yeshuuu, that kind.

The meatballs taste as if it was made with a little meat, a little cardboard and a whole lot of MSG. but there's nothing a gallon of chili sauce can't help right?

Partially right.

It made it bearable but Bear thinks that even Gordon Ramsay would not have been able to save these meatballs.

God Save The Meatballs!

Bear suggests that if you are hungry, just save yourself some money and stuff yourself silly with the popcorn. At least those are good.