How We Value Enrich Points

As the national carrier, Malaysia Airlines is the most popular airline in Malaysia, and credit card rewards are often associated with their frequent flyer program, the Enrich program. Very often, we look for ways to fast-track the earning of Enrich points, as cardholders sign up for cards to get rewards before fully understanding how all the rewards work. Here, the topic of how much Enrich points are worth and how you can maximize your Enrich points in redeeming flights are something we would like to discuss in this article.

Enrich Points Purchase Rate

First of all, one reference we can make is to look at the price that Malaysia Airlines is selling their Enrich Points for. If you are buying 1,000 to 50,000 Enrich Points, the rate per Enrich Point is RM 0.085 currently. The rate per Enrich Point decreases when you purchase more. Obviously, it works like how other retail companies typically work; the more you buy, the cheaper it gets. Since we are looking at the value of Enrich points, we will pick the highest rate of RM 0.085 per Enrich Point as a good start.

Enrich Saver Chart for Air Ticket Redemptions

The cheapest way to redeem Malaysia Airlines air tickets is through the Enrich Saver Chart. Malaysia Airlines has published their saver chart and always revises it, so we are doing this calculation at the time of writing. Let’s take a few examples to see how much Enrich Points are worth in flight redemptions, as the destination and the class of travel might affect the Enrich Points needed.

Example 1: Business Class One Way from Kuala Lumpur to London

Business Class one way from Kuala Lumpur to London requires 100,000 Enrich Points. The cheapest flight at the time of writing is RM 7,270 on September 22, 2024. A very simple calculation of Points per Enrich Point here is 7270/100000, which is equal to RM 0.073, not very far from what you purchase from Enrich officially.

A UOB Prvi Miles Elite credit cardholder (the card that produces 1.1 Miles per Ringgit in overseas spending, the highest we can get in the market) needs to spend roughly RM 90,000 to get close to 100,000 Enrich points, and imagine 7270/90000 = 8.1%. This is very encouraging, as a normal cashback card would not give you cashback of RM 7,270 in the first place, but 8.1% is a very decent ‘cashback’ that you can get in the form of an air ticket.

Example 2: Economy Class One Way from Kuala Lumpur to Tokyo

Economy Class one way from Kuala Lumpur to Tokyo requires 19,600 Enrich Points. The cheapest flight at the time of writing is RM 1,710 on September 22, 2024. A very simple calculation of Points per Enrich Point here is 1710/19600, which is equal to RM 0.087, very close to points purchased from Enrich and indeed higher than what Enrich is selling, so this is definitely a bargain.

The same UOB Prvi Miles Elite credit cardholder needs to spend roughly RM 18,200 to get 19,600 Enrich Points, and by doing 1710/18200 = 9.4%, this is another decent ‘cashback’ that you can get from earning Enrich Points using a credit card.

Example 3: Economy Class One Way from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore

How about a short trip from KL to Singapore? Economy Class one way from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore requires only 5,400 Enrich Points. The typical one-way ticket costs RM 259, so with a similar calculation as in examples 1 and 2, 259/5400 = 0.046, far from what you spend to buy from Enrich, and extremely not worth the money, as paying RM 259 directly to purchase the flight ticket is a better choice.

Since this trip only needs 5,400 Enrich points, we use AmBank Enrich Visa Infinite local spending to do this simulation. The AmBank Enrich Visa Infinite credit card rewards 0.33 Miles per Ringgit for local spending, so someone needs to spend RM 16,363 to get 5,400 Enrich points. 259/16363 is only 1.5%. This may not be worth your spending to redeem for only 1.5% ‘cashback’.

Come to think about it, let's use the UOB Prvi Miles Elite card overseas spending to do some comparison. The cardholder needs to spend about RM 4,910 to get 5,400 Enrich points. So 259/4910 = 5.27%, much lower than examples 1 and 2, and thus shorter trips or low airfares redemptions are something not value for money in our opinion.

Ticket Redemptions

Without going through the saver chart, you can pay for the air ticket partially through your Enrich points and cash if you do not have enough points for saver chart redemptions. However, the redemption rate is not something interesting. Taking the example 1 above, for an air ticket of RM 7,270 flying business class from Kuala Lumpur to London, as I only have 56,000 Enrich points, I need to top up RM 2,000 for the rest of the 44,000 Enrich Points. 2000/44000 = 0.045 per Enrich Point, not so worth the redemptions, but it provides you the flexibility to top up with cash when you don’t have enough Enrich points.

Others

There are many other ways you can utilize your Enrich Points. From the Enrich rewards catalog, entry to the Satellite Golden Lounge requires 10,000 Enrich Points, or online access costs RM 279. This means the Enrich points are only worth RM 0.028 here.

You can use Enrich points to redeem MHFlyPass Asean Zone 3, which costs 215,920 Enrich points and gets you 3 return trips between Kuala Lumpur and destinations such as Jakarta, Medan, Singapore, Ho Chi Minh, Manila, Bali, and many more. Let’s take the example of Kuala Lumpur to Hanoi, where each return trip costs around RM 1,200, and the total of 3 return trips costs RM 3,600, depending on when you actually fly. So the Enrich rate of 3600/215920 is extremely low, which at the same time, you can just buy the MHFlyPass for RM 2,699. Do note that each Kuala Lumpur to Hanoi one-way trip only costs 6,900 Enrich points, so if a saver is available, it would always be the best choice to use Enrich points.

Conclusions

In summary, we value each Enrich point at RM 0.087, given that this is the highest value we can find across redemption channels. The value is almost on par with how Enrich values their points at RM 0.085. Most of the time, you should utilize your credit card spending to earn Enrich Points instead of buying Enrich points, as the price is on the high side.