The government should negotiate for bulk discounts for tickets from airlines in lieu of loyalty points, the Federation of Malaysian Consumer Associations (Fomca) said today.

Its secretary-general Muhammad Shaani Abdullah said the government was now losing millions of ringgit because the loyalty points were being siphoned off by individual civil servants.

It is an industry practice for airlines to give loyalty points based on the mileage travelled, which can be converted to free tickets or other gifts.

Muhammad Shaani told Bernama that the government was one of the biggest clients of the airlines because thousands of civil servants travelled around the world yearly in the course of their duty.

In the absence of clear-cut regulations, what was happening now was that these points were accumulated in individual names and the government was deprived of the benefits.

He said that in principle, the government, being the pay master, should be entitled to the benefits and not the individual officers.

Muhammad Shaani suggested that the chief secretary to the government issue a circular to make it compulsory for these officers to declare their points earned and return them to the government.

The same principle should apply to other industries that gave such loyalty points, he added.

For example, he said, petrol companies gave such points and civil servants who get petrol allowance should return the points to the government.

- Bernama