I want to highlight that I bought tickets to Paris during their MAS fair in February/09 for travel in September/09. The travel period is also limited to a certain travel period. The terms required me to pay in full upfront and the terms of the ticket cannot be changed and there is no refund.

Now, 3 months later, in the latest MAS promotion, they are selling the same tickets (for the same travel period) for 30% less (no kidding) and I haven't even flown yet.

I understand their need to sell tickets but not at the expense of ripping their commited customers (i.e. offering lower priced tickets for the same travel period. They should have offered the cheaper tickets for different travel periods to avoid clashing with previous offers). Or they could have compensated commited customers with a rebate. They have failed to protect their customers and do not seem to care who they step on to survive. Another case of bad management.

I wrote to them and they seem to blame the agents for overbooking and cancellation and hence they need to sell the tickets now. Hello, what about their customers?!

I think it is a sales gimmick where they seem to offer you cheap tickets at one point in time, forcing people to commit to buy early and pay for them and lock you into their terms and conditions.

Word of advice is not to book your tickets in advance as the idea of booking early to save on ticket prices does not apply with MAS. The later the better as prices on MAS fares declines overtime.

Has anyone else experience this?

I have booked with Air Asia and I have seen prices rising as it reached the travel date. But 30% drop for MAS in 3 months?! That is RM800 for each ticket! Why do we assume it is their demand, why didn't they offer it for cheaper earlier on. That means they are indirectly telling people that they are overcharging but now can offer lower in order to sell more. And they are boldly advertising in the papers now "Everyday Low Fares". I think this is very misleading to the public.

I think competition is fair, but not by offering cheaper fares on same terms to new clients on the pretext of competition and screwing your past customers (especially since I have not even flown yet) is not a smart move. You gain new customers but at the expense of customers who paid more is bad management.

I understand the simple Malaysian mentality of cheaper is better and competition is good.

I won't have minded if I had already flown but I have NOT flown yet and they are offering lower prices for the same travel periods to new customers.

Metaphorically, if I buy a clothing now and paid full price, I have the advantage of using it right away and later it goes on discount, I won't care as I already enjoyed wearing it ahead of every one else. But in this case I have not even flown yet and they continue dropping the prices and conveniently locking me into their terms and conditions. This I think is not good practice. I will definitely think twice of booking with MAS in future given their lack of principles in taking care of their customers.

MAS has poor principles in taking care of their customers here.

For the benefit of everyone here, this is a statement I just found out which is extracted from MAS's website just minutes ago:

"With MHlow and MHbasic, you can be certain that you’ll be getting the cheapest fares available on our flights. How much you save depends on how far in advance you plan your travel or vacation"

Check it out here:
http://www.malaysiaairlines.com/my/en/bkin...valuefares.aspx

I am sure they will change this statement as soon as they find out.

I will bring this up to the National Centre for Customer Complaints.

This post has been edited by m88: Jun 5 2009, 02:14 PM

For the benefit of those who is in my situation, I was contacted by MAS recently and they offered me some offers as compensation for what they did to me. If you are in the same situation as me, please lodge a complaint with MAS and the National Centre for Customer Complaints (NCCC) and insist on taking this to the senior management and Board of Directors of the company. MAS has misrepresented itself and is misleading the public.

The Grab-A-Deal promo currently is just a gimmick as right before this they offered the same prices to the public but now they want you to register with them as a member so that you can get the cheaper rates. Any way you see it, it is the same but more hassle now given you have to register with them.