About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

More articles by Gary Leff »

How the $600 Per Year British Airways Visa Award Travel Statement Credit Works

airplane cabin
Sep 14 2019

This was the first airline card I know of to ever offer a 100,000 point initial bonus offer, and there’s currently an offer to earn up to 100,000 Avios.

The card now comes with up to $600 back each year when you redeem awards. It offers a statement credit for taxes and fees when redeeming British Airways Avios for BA transatlantic flights originating in the U.S.

Continue Reading »

New American Airlines Tool Will Auto-Cancel ‘Backup Flights’ In Your Reservation

plane from a 45 degree angle
Sep 14 2019

American is making it harder once again to deal with irregular operations despite a long hot summer of cancelled flights and displaced passengers.

American has a new system set up to cancel extra backup segments in an itinerary. If agents add extra segments to give you options when things go bad those segments will be removed automatically.

Continue Reading »

Review: Flying Air Tanzania’s Airbus A220 From Lusaka to Dar es Salaam

Sep 14 2019

Five years ago reader Doug Hess shared his experience flying African low cost carrier: Fly540. Since this was something I haven’t done, but I enjoyed hearing about it, I asked if he wouldn’t mind briefly writing up the experience so that I could pass it along.

Now Doug is back with his experience flying an Air Tanzania Airbus A220 from Lusaka, Zambia to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Oh yes, and he did redeem points for the flight.

Continue Reading »

Will the Real Scott Kirby Please Stand Up?

united plane
Sep 13 2019

United Airlines President Scott Kirby spoke yesterday at the Morgan Stanley 7th Annual Laguna Conference. There probably no one in the industry that’s been more ‘by the numbers’ than Kirby, and in my view no one that’s been more an enemy of customer experience. I’ve often called him a destroyer of airlines.

Yet he told the gathering that “more and more” United has to be “competing on quality instead of just schedule and price.”

Continue Reading »