Booking a Malindo Air (Malaysia-based airline) ticket was an exercise in frustration for us. After fighting with the website, multiple browsers, and finally google searching the issue we figured it out. This is the most time we have spent trying to book a ticket (more than an hour!)
The simple answer is to not book the ticket at MalindoAir.com. The website payment system is completely broken. Its only use for us international ticket purchasers is to find the fare we want. You then have to go elsewhere to buy it.
This lead us down a road of trying to find the same price we saw on their website. Thanks to several forum posts we found via google we figured out that using Expedia’s Asia website was the best route to take. The problem was none of the posts and articles we read actually gave you the link to the Expedia Asia website!!
So here is the link you need to use: http://www.expedia.com.sg
This is Expedia’s Singapore website. Searching there you should see the same fares you see at MalindoAir.com with 2 caveats: 1) It will be in Singapore Dollars so you have to convert to be sure and 2) You will not be able to choose seats nor pay the seat selection fees.
For us this is OK. We are fine gambling on our seats and just wanted to book the flight since the schedule and price were ideal for our travel plans. We are flying Malindo Air from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to Colombo, Sir Lanka for around $80 USD one way. This is a great deal for a 4-hour flight!
After booking we tried pulling up the ticketed reservation at MalindoAir.com but we got nothing but errors and gave up. It seems the website is just not up to the task of managing tickets booked outside of their own systems. It is a shame as Malindo Air seems to be doing everything else right!
We of course will review the flight thoroughly soon! This experience trying to book a ticket with them was so bad we felt it warranted its own post. We hope this post will save other travelers frustration and time trying to book tickets on Malindo Air flights.
