Malaysia Airlines have gone on the offensive with a raft of cheap flights for next year that regularly beat the prices of low cost carriers like AirAsia.com — you need to book by November 9th
While there’s a huge amount of doom and gloom over the world’s economies right now, travellers are actually getting a bit of a break. The price of oil has dropped significantly and airlines are hungry for passengers in these cash-strapped times – which means there’s bargains to be had.
Malaysia Airlines have already launched several major promotions this year and now they’re doing another one – book by November 9th and you can pick up flights through to the end of July 2009 on most sectors of their Asian network plus Brisbane and Melbourne in Australia for a fraction of their usual cost. Best of all, Malaysia Airlines are making a point of displaying the all-inclusive price upfront when you book i.e. including all taxes and fees. So that means what you see is what you pay and you don’t have to click through endless screens to find the actual price you’ll be charged.
The only drawback is – it’s actually quite hard to find the Malaysia Airlines sales page. It’s not even marked on the front page of their website proper. Follow this link to find it: Malaysia Airlines cheap flights page.
If you are not starting your flight from Kuala Lumpur, you’ll have to get there first, but it can still be cheaper to do two flights than take a standard direct flight. For example, I want to go to Bali next May – if I fly with Thai Airways direct from Bangkok to Denpasar it costs a whopping 22000 Thai Baht, nearly $650 US — whereas if I fly with Malaysia Airlines and go via KL on two separate flights, it will cost 9000 Baht – that’s less than half the price!
I can fly to Bali from Bangkok with AirAsia too, if I take two flights and go via Jakarta — but the price is almost the same as Malaysia Airlines, perhaps a few dollars cheaper, yet I don’t get the full service or baggage allowance I get on Malaysia, plus I have to go via Jakarta, which is a deeply unpleasant airport. (Kuala Lumpur airport is state of the art by comparisonl).
Another example would be flying from Bangkok to Siem Reap to see Angkor Wat – Bangkok Airways charges 14,000 Baht for this flight, whereas you could fly with Malaysia Airlines via Kuala Lumpur and still save 3000 baht. (Or you could fly with AirAsia to Phnom Penh and get the bus and make it really cheap – see the full rundown of Angkor Wat to Bangkok).
It’s worth checking the Malaysia Airlines sale and getting creative with your flight routes, as you can save money if you don’t mind passing through KL. It will be interesting to see how the other major Asian carriers respond to this – here’s hoping we see some cuts in fuel surcharges at least.
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