KTMB ‘MySawasdee’: Fun, Fancy or Fizzle?

UPDATE 4th June 2024: Despite being completely prepared and having details at hand, we were able to select the berth we wanted, but before  10:01, when we clicked to confirm, our MySawasdee booking was unsuccessful – the seats had disappeared that fast! By 10:02, there were only two upper berths available, but even those disappeared while we went from selecting to confirming them. Read on to see the rest of this sorry tale.

This is not a review of a trip made, whether good, terrible, or indifferent. Yet. When we heard about KTMB’s ‘MySawasdee’, offered by Malayan Railways (Keretapi Tanah Melayu Berhad) in early March 2024, we were quite excited.

Economy Traveller as a team, loves train travel and will jump at any opportunity to see the world, riding the rails. But we met some challenges when we tried to book for this upcoming adventure. We’re writing about our experience to help readers avoid the errors we made. 

KTMB’s ‘MySawasdee’ concept and booking

Eight three day trips are planned for 2024, between April and December, over long weekends or public holidays. The trip covers only the train fare, but no meals or accommodation are included. But it’s a great deal, with a return sleeper fare being not much different from a single trip on the Electric Train Service from KL Sentral to Padang Besar on the border.

Unfortunately, the next trip from 11th – 14th April was already booked out a month before, so we decided that we’d get in early for the following trip as soon as tickets went on sale on 4th April. We did have a suspicion it would be popular, because the April tickets were gone by the time we found out, but we weren’t prepared for just how fast!

The KTMB website is not the easiest or most logical to navigate. For a start, they don’t promote special travel experiences like this, front and centre. Neither will a search of their website reveal any information. NOTE: After stepping through all the moving ”Special Announcements” on the home page, this page emerged, with the basic schedule details)

So go straight to the online booking page (or their mobile App) and log in with (or set up) your account or use your social media account. Enter the dates you want as per the screenshot below.

As there is no indication of what time bookings open, we started at just past midnight had to try three times before missing the start time altogether. For the we gave up at 1.50am and tried again at7am. Both had the same result. ‘No trips found’. The third try was at 9am, with the same result. (Hint: we didn’t try 10am)

It was a working day, so by the time we made the 4th attempt at 12 noon we weren’t happy to find only two widely separated seats available and no sleeping berths at all. By 2pm, everything had gone.

The same afternoon, this writer sent an email to the only address shown, requesting information regarding the programme, details for booking and up to date photos. As there was no response, I called on the afternoon of the 5th April.

Response from KTMB

I spoke to a very polite gentleman who was not particularly helpful and did not have the information I was requesting. His initial response was repeated a number of times…

….. I cannot help you because the seats are fully booked.

Finally he realised I was not asking him to pull strings and get me tickets for the May/June trip, but information about actual booking. He told me that:

Tickets go on sale at 10am on the booking day.

He insisted all this information is on their website and asked me to go to their Charter Train page, which I did. Apart from one photo of a group with a MySawasdee placard, there is no information or link to any. The only information on the Sleeper Coach is that it has a total of 40 berths per carriage, 20 upper and 20 lower bunks, each with a pillow, blanket and privacy curtain. (We have travelled on the night train before and the blanket is very light, so be prepared) He was unsure how many sleeper carriages were in each train. After checking he told me there are three, making a total of 60 upper berths, 60 lower available for booking. He did suggest that we follow them on Facebook  as they post this information in their social media feeds. You can see their latest Facebook post above.

I have followed this up with an email to the two people connected to the Charter train programme, given as Pn. Harina Ayu and En. Jefry, for their feedback and also to inquire about a waitlist for this next trip in May/June. Any response will be updated here. Apart from their website and their Facebook pages, you can also follow them on KTMB on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok , Twitter (X) and LinkedIn. Update: Neither Pn. Harina Ayu nor En. Jefry ever replied.

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