Frequent Travel Expert Gary Leff is Chief Financial Officer for a university research center.
In addition to blogging about his miles and points obsession, he co-founded InsideFlyer.com, a place for frequent flyers to meet and learn using the latest technology.
He’s been called an “Air Genius” and “an airline industry brainiac, who you might think of as the Nate Silver of his domain.” He has also been called “sagacious” by legendary business travel writer Joe Brancatelli and “the godfather of the [frequent flyer] hobby” in Rolling Stone. Ron Lieber in the New York Times describes him as “a travel industry blogger with a specialty in spanking companies that devalue their loyalty programs” and says that his “trenchant blogging about the airline industry gives some executives fits.” Yahoo! Travel declared, “This guy knows points.”
Gary serves as Chair of the Nominations Committee and emcee for the Freddie Awards and was named one of the world’s top travel specialists by Conde Nast for his award booking service, BookYourAward.com (2010-Present).
You’ll see him in the media frequently. Some of those appearances:
- Television: The Colbert Report, The Today Show, ABC World News Tonight, Good Morning America, CNN Business Traveler, CNN The Situation Room, Fox News Happening Now, Fox News America’s NewsHQ, MSNBC News Nation, Fox 5 Morning News (Washington DC), CBS News New York, CBS News Philadelphia, KOMO Seattle
- Radio: WTOP News Radio, the Maggie Linton Show, Rudy Maxa’s World, and the Mary Starrett Show
- Print profiles: Town & Country, Executive Travel, Washington Post, Washington Business Journal
- Award booking service recommended in: New York Times, USA Today, Inside Flyer, Conde Nast Traveler
- Blog recommended by: Wall Street Journal, New York Times
- Quoted by: New York Times, USA Today, CNN.com, ABC News.com, NBC News.com, Washington Post, Associated Press, Financial Times San Francisco Chronicle, Washington Times, Conde Nast Traveler, Business Week
- .. and many, many more (and many of the above news outlets, many, many times)!
Gary has also been a featured speaker at credit card industry conferences. For instance, he was a keynote speaker for Airline Information’s Co-Brand conferences 2015, 2016, and 2017. He’s presenting at the 2018 conference as well. He keynoted Card Forum in 2017 and has presented at Mastercard’s Partner Conference as well. Gary has been both a moderator and panelist at Flightglobal industry conferences as well as CardCon and Fincon. His credit card advice has been featured in places like the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.
Outside the travel arena he is former Chairman of a non-profit that provides networking and professional development opportunities for young people in policy, politics, and journalism and currently serves as treasurer for two non-profits. Through a non-profit fundraising practice he has written under the signatures of two Majority Leaders of the US House of Representatives and a future Vice Presidential candidate and Speaker of the House.
Through his day job he’s been fortunate to work alongside several Nobel laureates in economics, a Director of the Congressional Budget Office, and a member of the 9/11 Commission.
He can be reached at gary -at- viewfromthewing.com
Some links to credit card and other products on this website will earn an affiliate commission. All content unless otherwise noted or quoted is Gary’s own, and not provided or commissioned by any other entity. Opinions are his own, and have not been reviewed, approved, endorsed, or likely even edited for typos and grammatical errors, by any other entity.