Prologue:

Seeing a report on MS is not common. I can't blame you for picking another carrier. MS is known to be a dry airline and not the best airline in the world.

A reader asked me where do I credit my Star Alliance miles, I replied MS (I enrolled in sepo but already got 108k status prior to that flight). Weird choice you might be thinking.

I'm currently gold with TK but my membership ends in December and I won't renew it. I emptied my account lately. While TK is a good FFP, the miles expiration after 3 years is a pain (MS, same issue unless you hit Platinum). But the deal breaker for me is the lack of lifetime status. So why did I pick TK in the first place. Well I got status matched…

Well, here's why I picked MS and why I fly MS:
• awardwallet.com digged out the fine print of MS Plus. It turns out as couple or family you can pool the miles. Not ground-breaking I know. What is then ? The fact that you pool your miles AND Status. For example, the Silver card comes at 30k miles. If you take with your wife on a CDG-SIN-HKG with SQ in Y you will earn 32K miles in the main account holder. The other side of the coin is your wife will never get a status. My wife calls the MS Plus, the selfish FFP….
• It takes only 60K miles to hit Gold and from that point on, you need to fly 30K within 2 years to renew… Easy.
• The lifetime Platinum card comes at 1 million and I plan to hit that level in the next 4, 5 years.
• Now why MS? While most airlines are stingy giving miles and status. MS does not fall into that category. You earn 200% in business class AND on top of that you also get a 20% Bonus for Silver or 30% for Gold or 40% for Plat, the good thing is the bonus counts toward your status. Now do the math…
• You don't have YQ with MS awards.
• Awards chart look fairly priced. I was able to snag a F seat with LH for my mom.

The trip gives me 31000 miles as a gold card member for 740€ (As I shared the details previously, MS had a great sale in J and Y for NRT for the first fight from Cairo).

But I did not buy the flight from Cairo. Instead I bought it from Tunis for 960€. Why ?
• 6800 miles added on the trip
• Cheaper to reach TUN than CAI.

960€ for 37800 miles, it's a steal ! I will report TUN-CAI later.

I know some/many of you would not fly MS even for free or I know some are afraid to take MS for security reasons. The fact that MS is a dry airline is a no-go for most of you. I also read crew smokes in the air. While It might have happened, on the last 6 long hauls with MS nothing named here happened.

While I have many other trips to review, I decided to report the inaugural (once again) flight to Tokyo. Since It's a weekly flight, I have made a U-turn in NRT…. It's wild given that it's MS.

After a great cappuccino in Le Meridien Hotel, I arrived at 9pm to collect my boarding pass... Agents are still puzzled why making such a journey. Unless you are points addict it's hard to understand.

The agent told me that the flight is delayed for 9 hours…. Because of the weather in NRT.. Killing my Mileage Run. Since the flight back to Tunis would leave on Monday without me, I'm screwed. If I'm not on a tight agenda, I don't mind. But I had 2 meetings in Paris on Tuesday that could not be pushed.

The flight delay went from 9 to 13h because of the bad weather in TYO plus FYI another 5h for the NRT-CAI leg…. With no internet in the Airport…. I wandered for 3 hours in terminal 3. I asked if my flight could be set for next week. Since it was not MS's fault (force majeur), it was a long trade to put me on the next flight which is the week after. The CS Manager did not have the authority to make such a call.

It was past midnight I was tired, one of the agent (they were all fantastic for supporting my case) told me he would handle it. I went to Le Meridien paid by MS for a night, I went back to the airport in the morning to see if the request has been approved by the HQ. Few calls done by the staff, I was requested for a confirmation or should I say a ten X confirmation for the U-Turn in TYO. Then, the CS Manager came to give me the new ticket… Loyalty paid off here. The agent took my phone number and followed with me on whatsapp. It's what I call a great service!

But wait how do I get to Marseille on Monday to be in Paris on Tuesday ? I will make a specific news and report (SV), it deserves the right explanation and analysis.

Back on the report:

I flew back to CAI with BA. It was the best option and the cheapest using 14k avios and 117€. I also wanted to experience the CCR (I encountered the worst JERK of my life) one more time given that I usually fly from T3. A report will be made.

Nov 4th, After two nights in Le Meridien, it was time to head back to the business class counter to check in for my CAI-NRT-CAI-TUN…

Summary:

It was once again a fun trip with MS (my 6th). Yes MS is not a leading carrier by any means. You can say the seat is from last decade, yes it's true. You have around 100 movies for the IFE. The headset is the worst I've ever received in business class.

The lounge is just bad. It reminds me the one from Air Algerie in ALG when I used to fly weekly with AF.
Instead of having a larger and better lounge, you have 3 lounges.

Aside from that, I was delighted by the catering. Once again don't expect a 5* meal a la SQ or QR. MS tries their best to offer a good meal experience. Which they did.

But to me the greatest asset of MS is their cabin crew. On all my flights they were great and on par with top carriers.

To end my report, I was not drunk nor under drug (funny enough one pax brought beers on board and opened the can for the dinner) to make such a report on MS and I was not paid either (someone asked).
MS suffers a lot from a bad reputation. While it might have been deserved, if I base my opinion on that flight to NRT and all my MS flights, I would suggest you to give MS a chance.

Thanks for reading and I'm looking forward to reading your questions/comments.

See you soon for the flight back.

Thomas