In this post:
Malaysia confirms reopening
After speculation for the last few weeks, Malaysia’s Prime Minister, YAB Dato’ Sri Ismail Sabri Yaakob has finally confirmed that the country will reopen from 1 April.
In response, Malaysia Airlines has said that they are looking to achieve approximately 70% of their pre-Covid capacity by end of 2022. Their official response statement said, “The move signifies a momentous occasion in the nation’s longstanding battle with the COVID-19 pandemic and a beacon of light for the economic recovery of industries, including aviation, which has been impacted significantly since Malaysia’s borders closed two years ago.”
Fully vaccinated passengers will not be required to quarantine on arrival. All you will need is a PCR test two days before departure and then a rapid antigen test within 24 hours of arrival in Malaysia.
You will not need a permit to enter, just a completed pre-departure form.
British Airways extends some vouchers and suspends Tokyo
If you read the comments yesterday you will have seen that Ian helpfully shared that his refund of a Future Travel Voucher (FTV) had arrived with an extension of his companion voucher.
Ian said “I’ve just had a Future Travel Voucher refunded. The cash refunded, the avios refunded and most importantly the Companion voucher refunded with a date of 30th September 2023.”
I recently wrote about how BA are planning to simply refund anyone that applies for an FTV on any Avios flight or flight that contains a voucher of any sort (apart from an FTV voucher). The good news is that although you can no longer get an FTV for an Avios flight, those that hold them already are being refunded with the extension of the expiry date until 30 September 2023.
If you have a voucher that expires after 30 September 2023, you should get the voucher back with the original longer date.
This is actually good news for everyone. Part of the issue with the phone queues was BA’s making entirely. By making everyone who had an Avios booking not be able to get a refund online, or if they took an FTV, have to phone up to use it. was blocking the phone lines. Once all the vouchers and Avios bookings are refunded, it should ease the problem slightly.
As well as being a nice gesture for customers (and let’s face it BA need some good PR right now), it also is probably going to help BA not get 100,000 people phoning up to complain and ask for their voucher to be extended!
BA further suspends Tokyo
In a fairly unsurprising move, BA has decided to further suspend flights to Tokyo Haneda which were due to resume for the summer schedule from 30 March. Given that Japan has not reopened for visitors and the extra fuel needed to fly to Japan currently, this was to be expected with low demand. At the moment the flights are suspended until 29 May 2022 but are not officially for sale again until the start of the winter schedule in late October 2022. I guess BA will decide nearer the time in case Japan decided to reopen again.
The Maldives ends testing for vaccinated travellers
Fully vaccinated foreign travellers will not be required to provide a negative PCR test upon arrival in the Maldives from 5 March 2022. You will also not need to supply a test before leaving either (could never fathom what that was about). You will still need to complete the Traveller Health Declaration form within 48 hours of your flight departure.
TLFL will be doing a round-up of which countries no longer require testing in the next week.
7 comments
JAL are still operating a daily service to Tokyo I see, ANA have suspended theirs. Perhaps one service a day is currently meeting all needs. The JAL flight time seems extended by 2-3 hours.
2-3 hours is one hell of a detour!
Fully vaccinated + TWO tests + pointless form filling…. sorry Malaysia, you’ll have to do better than that if you want me to visit.
JAL flights between Europe and Japan are currently taking the northern route over Alaska and Greenland, whereas ANA are taking the southern route over China, Kazakhstan and Turkey. At the moment JAL are only flying to/from Heathrow (due to their partnership with British Airways), whereas ANA are flying to Frankfurt (due to their partnership with Lufthansa) and to Brussels (due to the need to ship vaccinations to Japan). Flights to other European destinations are cancelled. I’m booked to fly back to Heathrow on ANA later this month, so following the situation closely.
The fraud association with tests on arrival is way too risky. Singapore, Thailand, and Bali all at it. And am sure Malaysia will jump on the bandwagon also. To up their hotel and testing income. Claiming tests are positive when they are definitely not… nasty. Not risking any of these places that still try this one on. It’s dreadful when you are suddenly told 2 days into holiday, that your test is either inclusive or positive, despite having a certificate email to you stating no covid detected, is a nightmare. Believe me, you do not want to be caught up in that.
Saying that, some places are nicer than others to spend your time in. Mine in Singapore had a nice balcony .
Yes I can understand why people are still hesitant to visit countries with tests on arrival particularly those that force you into state “hotels” if you test positive. Assuming the Covid situation stays the same I think they will soon have to drop that given that so many countries are dropping testing all together. For Malaysia it’s their first step in opening in 2 years so I can understand them being cautious. Hopefully they will soon remove that requirement.
regarding vouchers, we had a booking with 4 people. Now an e-voucher but how do I enter all the different codes, to use it for a new 4 person booking? is it “by phone” only? thanks!
Comments are closed.