COVID Travel Credit Vouchers Issues - Malaysia Airlines

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Malaysia Airlines gave us their e-Voucher for unused flight tickets, following onset of COVID-19 in Mar/Apr 2020. Validity of these vouchers were progressively extended until 31st Dec 2022. As international borders are opening now, Malaysia Airlines (MH) started advertising new flights and we booked our travels based on that, including connecting flights on another airline for onward journey. MH accepted our booking requests using the vouchers and sent us confirmation emails. Don’t ask about the mysterious reductions in voucher value that happened during the booking process & their tricks to force us to pay something extra using credit cards & exorbitant CC fees (approx. $30 fee on a $65 payment).

Few days later they sent an email saying our previously confirmed flights were no longer available & suggested us to booked different option that forced us to stay in Kuala Lumpur for an additional day & they won’t support accommodation cost. That didn’t stop there, they kept sending these rescheduled/cancelled fights email every few days for another two different occasions. I rang their global contact centre on 132 627 (from Australia) around 5 or 6 times to get clarification and alternate options available to us. Every single time, except for once, their customer service reps would take all our booking reference details, complete ID verification & while they are discussing options available or while keeping me on hold, would suddenly hang up. This was after 15-20 min of initial waiting every time.

Finally we decided to move our whole travel plan by a week to newly available flight options on MH website. This also meant we ended up spending additional $600 to reschedule our connecting flights. Believe it or not, a few days after this rebooking, MH sent their usual email that these rebooked flights are no longer available. They kept sending similar emails that basically kept shifting the goalpost & new flight times with every new email. We decided this was too much for us and ended up cancelling the whole booking & they put us back on another voucher with same validity period until 31st Dec.

Imagine having to reschedule my leave with the employer, reschedule kids’ leave at school, rebooking connecting flights, changing rest of the travel plans, etc. with no certainty that MH would let us travel as per any plan. We have now spent nearly $4k with Qantas for the same route, hoping to have a bit more certainty.

Our main issue is: MH gave us a voucher to use before 31st Dec 2022. We made bookings based on advertised flights. They accepted those bookings & sent us confirmed itinerary. They then kept changing their flights too often & forced to spend additional money, unnecessarily. In addition to all this, the inconvenience of having to reschedule our leave arrangements at work and school and change all other travel plans. This is completely unfair.

Their customer service is behaving completely unprofessionally. I wasn’t being abusive or even arguing with them. In fact, I did clarify to them that there was nothing personal against them, but just trying to find out why would the airline keep changing the flight schedules so much & every time they just hang up on me. They know who they are talking to & have got all my contact details. Why not ring back or email to continue the conversation, when they fully well know my query hasn’t be resolved?

Mine is not an isolated case, look around facebook pages of MH promotions & the number of people in exactly the same situation.

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Hi @renga.vsr, welcome to the community and what a shocking experience you are having.

I wonder if part of the issue you may be facing is MH have recently resumed flights to and from Australia and passenger/booking numbers might be low… causing flights to be cancelled.

It is good business practice to be upfront with customers in relation to interactions, and this is something MH needs to do.

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@phb’s point on number of flights post corona virus being resumed or cancelled is a good point.

@renga.vsr you do not mention where you booked the flights. Was it by phone to MH or via a travel agent? Or was it online and if so, was it the Australian website of NH or another website of MH. I ask because I do not know, others here will, if you are covered by say, NSW Fair Trading (if you live in NSW) when you book on non Australian websites even though you’re in Australia when doing so.

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ACL covers if they conduct business here eg Valve decision.

The effectiveness however can be far less than desired outcomes.

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Hi PHB, thanks for the prompt response. I don’t think there is shortage of bookings during Easter long weekend. In fact, I have seen those good-priced tickets being bought quickly.

Completely agree with you on the “good business practice”. Challenge so far has been to get them to see it that way too & not just deliberately hang up on customers all the time.

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Hi Jon01, thanks for your response. I booked all our tickets directly via MH website www.malaysiaairlines.com

I don’t trust third party booking sites, especially in these uncertain times.

I am trying to raise my concerns with our local Consumer and Business Affairs division here in SA as well. Hopefully, they have jurisdiction over MH because our journey would have started from and finished in Adelaide (SA). Will keep this forum informed of any progress there.

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My wife and I in good faith booked and paid for a return flight to the Philippines on the 14 of August 2019, we were booked to fly Malaysian Airlines an amount of $1591.51. We booked online through Universal Traveller which is connected to Flight Center. Of course, the flight was cancelled due to Covid 19 and we were told we would receive credit, anyway after many unanswered phone calls and after leaving messages I gave up. I really thought the law was there to protect you, after all, we paid for something and got nothing in return. We booked through a reputable company and can’t afford to lose all that money. Here’s hoping someone else has suffered a similar situation and has an answer.
John Kift

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Hi @Kifty, welcome to the community.

I have moved your post to a existing thread about covid related airline credits, specifically Malaysian Airlines.

As you can see from the above posts, Malaysian Airlines did issue credits for flights cancelled/interrupted due to Covid.

It is unfortunate that you ‘gave up’ as you should have been entitled to a credit. As around 3 years possibly has passed since your flight was cancelled and a commitment was made to issue credits, it may not be possible to request new flight credits to be issued due to time that has passed (including potential expiry of credits issued at the time for use).

At the time, I would have persisted either with the travel agent and/or Malaysian Airlines until the credits were received. This was a right which you could have exercised and there is information in the community, on the Choice website and issued by the ACCC in relation to consumer rights on covid related travel cancellations.

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