As of now only Amex Membership Rewards and Citibank will convert to Asia Miles. I've not personally converted to Asia Miles but have converted to Krisflyer and Avios from both of the above. Treatpoints only convert to Krisflyer and Enrich.

Having said that however, I personally suggest converting to Avios if you're trying to redeem on Cathay Pacific. A one way Hong Kong to NYC for example costs 35k, 70k or 105k for economy, biz and first when redeeming with Avios vs. 55k, 85k or 130k when redeeming with Asia Miles.

Got my new Premier cards today. One of the nicest looking cards around, with matte black finishing. Second only to my Sapphire Preferred. Another set to add to the collection...

US is frequently chip + sign the same way Malaysia is, but gas stations will almost always ask for the billing post code to minimize fraud. Never had it ask for a PIN before when I was there last week but some places simply won't work.

Yeah, most banks I think have a pretty strange selection process and not entirely logical. They probably have secret info about you and score you based on stuff you don't know about.

I've converted most of my MR to KF instead of Enrich.

1. tax and fuel surcharges come out to be roughly the same. I flew MH Biz KUL-LAX in 2013 and SQ First Class IAH-SIN-KUL in 2014 and they end up to be around RM1,200 each way.

2. krisflyer has stopover options for round trip as well. One stopover for saver, 2 for standard awards. From anecdotal evidence you can buy more stopovers for $100 each

http://www.singaporeair.com/en_UK/ppsclub-...Miles_moreinfo/

Open jaws are permitted too.

3. this is the one I miss most

4. I find biz class availability a bit more limited on KF depending on flights. Economy and first class availability is much better. I found my first class suites for KUL-SIN-JFK around CNY time next year for example. It's roughly the same as MH but nowhere as good as CX.


More advantages of KF over Enrich

5. way way more flight options. I have a wedding to attend at a small coastal town in Italy. With KF I have the option of flying to Milan or Rome. MH unfortunately only flies to CDG or AMS now

6. KF allows redemption on Star Alliance members at much much more reasonable rates compared to Enrich and OneWorld. Go check out their redemption charts and compare.

In short the only advantage Enrich has is the 50% off redemptions which I've taken advantage of multiple times already. If MH Enrich sadly goes away though I won't be that sad.

At 7TP to 1 mile you're getting ~86k miles
At 4.5TP to 1 mile you're getting ~133k miles

48k extra miles to save RM300? Depends what you do, but I value 48k extra miles (Krisflyer in my case, not Enrich) at way way more than RM300 cashback.

Good question, never tried it recently. Last I tried was before I got my Amex Reserve.

I just found out that Visa Infinite Asia Pac card holders have a free offer to upgrade to HHonors Gold. This includes the Maybank 2 Premier cards.

http://www.visainfinitecard.com/en/possibi...programs/hh.jsp

So I called the Visa Concierge number in Malaysia:

https://www.visa-asia.com/premium/infinite/...nes/index.shtml

and signed myself up. I was already on my way to HHonors Gold but free is free. The nice man on the phone took my details and stated that the status would be upgraded and confirmed by Hilton themselves within 10 business days.

If you don't have Hilton HHonors yet best to sign up first before calling

https://secure3.hilton.com/en/hh/customer/j...joinHHonors.htm

Nice. I've been SPG Gold for many years, never really paid attention to Hilton HHonors until my recent trip when the Westin was full

There are certain benefits that are useful, for example SPG Gold has 4pm checkout and free wifi, it's been pretty consistent across the board when I asked for it for the past few years. The room upgrade isn't worth it when I'm staying alone and going for work, definitely worth it when I'm going for vacation.

When I'm traveling on my own and paying my own $$$ then I'll go for the cheapest available of course. When the company is paying for my hotels then I stick to SPG except this next upcoming trip when the Westin is full. During certain offers I'm able to get up to 10-12k SPG points for just a one week stay, that's 3-4 free nights at a Category 2 hotel. Worth it IMO.

So in short look at who's paying your hotel bills

The transfer fee is I think 3 or 4 sen per Enrich mile, transferring 40k miles to another account will easily cost > RM1k.

Business on CX regional flights (A330, 772, A340) are recliner seats only. Business on MH regional (772, A330) are angle flat. Way nicer to be on MH here.

Business on CX long haul (77W) are lie flat and are comparable to business on MH A380 only. If you're stuck on an MH 772 route then CX long haul business is significantly better.

On the whole I prefer CX business and don't mind the HKG transit, lots of lounges to choose from at HKG although you waste several hours of flight time that could be part of your vacation.

I've never redeemed AM, only Enrich, AAdvantage and Avios. Redeeming any award seat on MH will incur YQ or fuel surcharges. Redeeming award on CX has little or no YQ if you're using AAdvantage or Avios. My MH business class to/from Los Angeles (back when they still flew there) cost me RM2+k for taxes and YQ. My CX business class from Los Angeles only cost me ~US$110.

I have about RM20k to spend over paypal in the next month or so. Transactions will be in USD so will it make more sense to use Visa Infinite or Amex Reserve? Both should give me 5x TP since it's overseas spending. I get to skip Paypal's horrible conversion rates since it's charged in USD but which is more worthwhile or is there even any difference?

TIA.

Thanks @herc and @rjb123 for the info. I've been trying out the Amex Reserve for my orders at Amazon, will probably use the VI/AR on my overseas trip next week to experiment as well.

I don't think Krisflyer redemption will last much longer. I'm dumping my TP to Enrich for an award booking soon, then if Krisflyer redemption is devalued as well then I'm off my Maybank 2 Premiere cards and will stick to my US based credit cards again.

First condition though is you must have a US based SSN, if you don't know what this is then you're almost 99% confirmed that you can't have US based credit cards.

But to answer your question, I've been with Chase, Citibank, Amex and most recently BoA for years, have collected millions of miles as well. The biggest score for most of these US based banks are the sign up bonuses of up to 100k miles on the various programs and at my peak I'd be signing up for 6-10 cards per year. As a comparison, KL to US/Europe is around 110k miles return on CX business and you pay airport taxes as low as US$7. KL to Auckland is around 35k miles in Thai economy with airport taxes around US$65. Lots of fantastic value and competition, but unless you have a SSN there's almost zero way to join the fun. Visit flyertalk one of these days and read up more there.

Having said that though, there's plenty of opportunities with Asia Miles and Krisflyer with the Maybank 2 Premiere cards and MH Enrich short distance redemption are still pretty good options. I just don't know what to do when my RM800 annual fee comes up

FWIW I just cancelled my Maybank 2 Platinum cards and transferred my 350k TP to my Maybank 2 Premiere cards.

OK Tigerr kinabalu and anyone else who still have your SSN, here's a quick howto

What you need

a. credit score
b. credit history
c. bank account
d. US forwarding address
e. time & some money


For a. and b. go to creditkarma.com and creditsesame.com and sign up for accounts. You'll need your SSN and will need to remember some old addresses that you've used before, even if it was 20 years ago. You may need a VPN based in the US too. Check your credit scores (pref > 700) and read up the recommendations.

The rest are self explanatory.

In general many credit cards will give you a certain amount of miles after signing up and completing a certain amount of spend. Example is Chase British Airways Visa card, spend US$1,000 within 3 months of signing up for the card and you'll get 50k Avios miles. Many cards will have higher spend requirements. I use these cards for everyday spend in Malaysia to reach the spending requirement.

For comparison purposes, KL to Phuket/Saigon/Phnom Penh is 4.5k Avios miles + ~US$8 one way on MH economy.

Lots of other info on flyertalk, or next time I'm meeting tinkerbel for drinks I'm happy to share more details.

I called and ask, first time got disconnected while on hold. Second rep confirmed that I can cancel and move TP over, but then first rep called back also confirmed I can cancel and move TP over. Not sure why there's anything different, I don't spend much, maybe RM10-15k per year. As bearbear said, walk in might be of some help.

In my case two phone representatives said I could do it. I don't know if this is normal or if my profile is different from other people. I don't put a huge amount of spend on my Maybank 2 Premiere cards, maybe around RM20k or a bit more total.

A bit disappointed but not surprised to find out that the Maybank Asia Miles 33% bonus transfers has reached its limit.

I'm wondering if I should keep my TP around, or if I should transfer them all to Krisflyer instead. Already missed the Enrich deadline so no use transferring to Enrich.

My fear is that the Maybank Premiere 4500 TP = 1k miles will devalue without warning. Oh well... will have to decide some time.