Malaysia Airlines unveils the new A350 coming to London, and bookable on Avios

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Malaysia Airlines is one of the lesser known members of the oneworld alliance, in which it is a partner alongside British Airways. This means that you can both earn and redeem Avios, and earn British Airways tier points, when flying on Malaysia.

Malaysia Airlines has just taken delivery of its first A350-900 aircraft and, from January, this aircraft will be operating one of their two daily Heathrow to Kuala Lumpur services. Both daily Malaysia flights will switch to A350 operation by March.

Full details of the new planes are on their website here.

These aircraft will replace the current A380 services, which the airline intends to convert to an ‘all economy’ configuration to use exclusively on pilgrimage routes to Saudi Arabia.

These are three cabin aircraft – a super-exclusive First Class of just four seats (one row), Business Class (35 seats) and Economy. Three rows of Economy have additional leg room and will be sold at a premium.

These three pictures which are all that Malaysia has put on their website so far:

First Class:

and

As you see, you are getting a ‘suite’ with a closing door. The real difference between First and Business is that your feet are not tucked away in a cubby hole under the seat in front.

Business Class:

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.

Here is an extract from the seat map which hopefully makes it clearer (click to enlarge):

If you want to find out more, Malaysia Airlines has a special A350 section on its website which you can find here.

Whilst this will be bookable on Avios via ba.com (not avios.com), remember the standard restrictions on booking partner awards. Every date is a peak date in terms of pricing, and you cannot use a British Airways American Express 2-4-1 voucher.

How to earn Avios points from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (December 2021)

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

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

British Airways BA Amex American Express card

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up, no annual fee and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending ….. Read our full review

British Airways BA Premium Plus American Express Amex credit card

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the UK’s most valuable credit card perk – the 2-4-1 companion voucher Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points, such as:

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

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

The Platinum Card from American Express

30,000 points and an unbeatable set of travel 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:

Capital On Tap Business Rewards Visa

The most generous Avios Visa or Mastercard for a limited company 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

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

(Want to earn more Avios? Click here to visit our home page for our latest articles on earning and spending your Avios points and click here to see how to earn more Avios this month from offers and promotions.)

Category

oneworld alliance partners

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

Lochlann says:

4 Dec4 December 04:24

Improvement on the A380 – that has put me off flying MH since my one and only trip with them
milgom says:

4 Dec4 December 04:57

For people in South east asia, MH is also a great way to get tier points quite quickly. For example penang to kul in business class is about 40gbp and gives 40 TP.
- Ben says:
  
  4 Dec4 December 05:38
  
  And it’s currently possible to fly PEN-KUL on the A350 at the beginning of next year. Added bonus is being able to book the seats in first, as they don’t sell F on the route. I’ve got that exact trip in Jan!
  - Polly says:
    
    4 Dec4 December 08:12
    
    Wow that good news. We were hoping to hop over to PEN in Feb as Bali off the books now we think! So, to be able to fly in F seats for that J price would be amazing, even if it’s only a half hour flight! Just for the experience. Or even J with avios…
- Matt says:
  
  4 Dec4 December 06:38
  
  Which dates? I’d be interested in doing this but can only find fares for £110 or thereabouts on Google Flights.
- TripRep says:
  
  4 Dec4 December 06:50
  
  Do you know if they also plan to fly the A350 to Langkawi ?
  - Jon says:
    
    4 Dec4 December 06:56
    
    Just Penang, Bangkok and Singapore for the proving flights, unless anything has changed recently.
Steve says:

4 Dec4 December 05:14

I quite liked their A380 business class product, and also their regional one over in Asia… What I didn’t like was their appalling customer services when it went wrong… The a380 on my return from KUL to LHR went tech and was 16th hrs delayed. The comms were terrible (they didn’t announce to biz or first, only found out any info from listening to the economy gate room announcements). Hotel was eventually offered but only allowed for about 4hrs sleep and many passengers declined, given the poor state of information flow concerned that pax would end up missing something vital. For me the delay meant I missed an onward BA flight from Heathrow by an hour and had to book another later flight at considerable expense. The offer of compensation was 10,000 enrich miles.. No use to me as an AA Plat!
Jon says:

4 Dec4 December 06:09

Great shame they didn’t go with the “Negaraku” livery as in your first picture for this one (or indeed all of them), or adapt the A380 livery – the livery they’ve used here is the same as on their 737s and is rather dull, I think, plus on the A350 it really doesn’t work where the wing / fuel tank cuts into it at the front. Not a good piece of visual design at all.

Still, looks good on the inside 😉 The economy seat looks much them same as those on the A380 but perhaps with more padding? I found the business class seat (assuming the same as their A330) very comfortable (interestingly they have a three-point car-style seatbelt, rather than the usual lap-only ones). I’m curious to see whether there’s any difference between the middle block of seats in First and the outer ones – the seat plan makes it look like the middle ones are bigger, but that could just be the drawing. I’ll find out in January from the comfort (hopefully!) of 1A 😉
- CV3V says:
  
  4 Dec4 December 10:15
  
  MAS had already lost the plot with the livery, the have the original MAS livery which is still used on one (?) aircraft for posterity, they have the old livery which they seem to have spent years replacing, the newer livery, the A380 livery, and the Negaraku livery (which has the most impact).
PGW says:

4 Dec4 December 06:31

The problem with redemptions is that MH never seem to offer more than a single seat in F and J on each flight so they are no use for a couple. That said, it’s also tough on the BA flight to KUL.
- CV3V says:
  
  4 Dec4 December 08:40
  
  When MAS first joined oneworld the redemption availability was completely open and it was easy to book whatever cabin on whatever flight (I got 2 seats in First on the A380 which used to fly KUL to HKG). Then something was changed and it seems to only ever be 1 seat per cabin.
  
  Watch out for some really good ex BKK deals in business, fly onwards to other asian cities via KUL.
TripRep says:

4 Dec4 December 06:58

Is there a better way than BA.com to search for MH teward availability?

Tried looking on BA.com for PER-KUL oneway with Avios on MH recently but nothing,

I guess they get booked immediately like LHR-KUL does on MH & BA.

One way cash fare was £1000+, plus flying at 2am, hence why I’m giving AirAsia business a shot.
- PGW says:
  
  4 Dec4 December 07:26
  
  At the risk of repeating my previous point, how many seats? I can see lots of availability if you only need 1 but little or no chance if more than that.
- Jon says:
  
  4 Dec4 December 08:54
  
  How far out? MH seem to load OneWorld/Avios redemptions in occasional batches – in the past I’ve seen plenty of availability in Business 11 months out, on BA.com, other times nothing until 6 months out. I’ve definitely seen 4 seats per flight readily available every day for weeks, and pretty sure I’ve seen 6, maybe even 9+ IIRC, but they do seem to come in waves… (I’ve only been looking at LHR-KUL though).
  - PGW says:
    
    4 Dec4 December 09:17
    
    Not for a moment doubting what you say but I’ve been looking for 2 seats to KUL from LHR,CDG or AMS for months now but have never seen more than 1 in either J or F. Part of the problem seems to be that they have levels of awards for their own members and those using Avios need a “partner” award which, IME anyway, is always limited to just 1 seat in each cabin. Obviously I haven’t checked all their other routes but those I have follow the same pattern.
    - CV3V says:
      
      4 Dec4 December 09:54
      
      Arent MAS only flying to LHR? The AMS and CDG routes were cancelled a few years ago, with talk of starting up one of the routes with the new A350. MAS used to also codeshare on the AMS route with KLM, using a KLM aircraft, so that wont show up on avios redemption.
    - Jon says:
      
      4 Dec4 December 10:03
      
      Well you won’t find any on MH from CDG or AMS because they no longer fly those routes 😉 But keep trying for LHR – there’s almost nothing showing, which probably means there’s a new batch due to be loaded any minute… although oddly there’s nothing to KL (as of a quick look just now) on BA metal or any other OW partners, so maybe a glitch with BA.com perhaps? (Seems to be throwing a lot of errors also.) There’s 2 F seats on MH1 on 13th Dec though, if that’s any use to you… 😉 Good luck in any case!
  - TripRep says:
    
    4 Dec4 December 09:30
    
    2 seats in approx one month’s time, so I accept that’s relatively last minute, only booked this route because of recent Volcano/ash cloud situation in Bali…
  - PGW says:
    
    4 Dec4 December 10:32
    
    Thanks – I’ll give up on AMS & CDG then!!!!!
    
    I actually ended up booking DUB-DOH-PEN on QR with AAdvantage miles but would have liked to try the MH route had there been availability when I wanted it.
- Mike says:
  
  4 Dec4 December 08:57
  
  I flew Air Asia to Perth in 2016 and for the price paid was happy with the business seat and service.
  Remember it is effectively buy on board after you’ve eaten your packaged meal.
- Jon says:
  
  4 Dec4 December 10:16
  
  Just remembered, re TripRep’s original question – doesn’t Expert Flyer show availability by fare class (not just cabin class)? Only in the paid version as I recall, but may be worth it – you can set up alerts to notify you when seats become available IIRC. MH First partner rewards are fare class P. Business class is U I think.
Chen W. says:

4 Dec4 December 10:22

Slightly off-topic but MH related. They don’t offer 24-hour grace period for ticket cancellation, which I leant the hard way a few weeks ago. I booked a wrong date (my fault) but rang them immediately after I realised the error (10 minutes after booking), and after a few phone calls in the following days plus escalating to their management still the answer is a bluntly no. Well it just finishes me off with booking MH ever again.
Rob says:

12 Dec12 December 17:58

Latest is that the A380s (or at least some of them) might remain on the LHR route as MH can’t find any other use for them:

https://www.ausbt.com.au/malaysia-airlines-is-bringing-its-airbus-a380s-back-to-london