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 to Get Free and Discounted Drinks on Southwest Airlines

by Gary Leff

southwest drinks
Jun 12 2019

Just prior to airline deregulation, when Southwest Airlines had to start competing with Texas International Airlines and Braniff offering cheap fares between Houston and Dellas, they started giving out “to go” bottles of alcohol to full fare customers. They became the largest liquor distributor in the state.

For many years Southwest Airlines offered free drinks inflight to all customers. They cut that back to offering free drinks only during key business travel times. And then in 1988 they eliminated free alcohol from their flights, but started giving coupons to frequent flyers.

Here’s how you can get free and discounted drinks on Southwest Airlines today.

Continue Reading »

American Express Shares Details on New Phoenix Centurion and Escape Lounges

by Gary Leff

airport lounge
Jun 11 2019

Back in December I wrote that based on local documents that had been uncovered the current The Club space at the Phoenix airport’s terminal 4 B concourse would be expanded and turned into two lounges, an Escape Lounge and an American Express Centurion lounge. I’ve been tracking progress on this project for over a year.

American Express is now confirming details of the Phoenix lounges, and providing renderings.

Continue Reading »

American Could Give All Passengers Seat Back Entertainment – For Less Than 1/3 the Cost Overrun On Their New Headquarters

by Gary Leff

airline cabin
Jun 11 2019

American Airlines is reportedly spending $1 billion on their new corporate campus and that’s apparently up from a previously-reported $350 million. It’s possible that’s not an apples-to-apples comparison. American has been tight-lipped about the project’s costs. However it fairly clearly represents a project that’s grown substantially more expensive.

Just keep that number in mind for a moment as we walk through the economics of American’s decision not to offer seat back entertainment for domestic passengers, instead streaming content to passenger phones.

Continue Reading »

Captain Freddy’s Final Flight: What Happens When an American Airlines Pilot Retires?

by Gary Leff

pilot
Jun 11 2019

In the movie Up in the Air Sam Elliott plays the chief pilot at American Airlines. He appears in their advertising, and meets customers on board when they hit ten million frequent flyer miles. My own lifetime counter at AAdvantage is only rounding towards 4 million, but I’m pretty sure that doesn’t really happen in real life. One way to see the chief pilot, though, is to retire after a career flying for American.

On May 26, Captain Fred Swaffer flew his last flight for American after 33 years with the airline.

Continue Reading »

TSA: ‘Grow Your Hair or Buy Bigger Boobs If You Want to Clear Security Again’

by Gary Leff

airline cabin
Jun 10 2019

Travel is generally at the forefront of toleration. United, for instance, was first to offer ‘undisclosed’ and ‘unspecified’ gender options when booking a ticket. Air Italy, 49% owned by Qatar Airways, was first in Europe to let customers define gender themselves.

That seems to be the trend everywhere except the TSA where they still apparently expect passengers to conform to whatever gender stereotype matches the preferences of their screeners on any given day. You don’t have to be non-binary to run into problems, if you simply don’t appear masculine or feminine enough.

Continue Reading »