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 »

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American Airlines Club Lounge Wine: The Best Bottles From Their New Wine Program

by Gary Leff

wine glasses on table
Jun 16 2019

American Airlines rolled out a new wine program this month, with new complimentary and paid premium glasses of wine in its Admirals Clubs and updated selections in its business class Flagship lounges and first class Flagship Dining rooms inside of those lounges.

I tasted their new complimentary wines and scoured the lists of paid club wines as well as bottles on offer in their business class Flagship lounges and first class Flagship First Dining facilities. Here are the best ones to choose.

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Passengers Show Up at Airports, Find Their Airline Doesn’t Exist. What Do Online Booking Sites Owe?

by Gary Leff

via air plane
Jun 16 2019

Online travel agency websites complain that Google is delivering travel results directly to customers instead of sending people to their websites where they can collect a toll (commission) on the transaction. And they want the government to step in and force Google to deliver customers to them.

I say that online travel agency websites should be better, should add value to customers, so that customers will want and prefer the service that they’re providing.

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Pay Bills With Your Credit Card and Earn Miles: 1.5% on Up to 3 Payments This Month for Some

by Gary Leff

check
Jun 16 2019

Plastiq.com is a service that will charge your credit card and mail checks on your behalf. (With some vendors they also make electronic ACH payments.)

Their usual fee for this is 2.5%. It’s worth it to incur that fee if you’re earning a signup bonus with the credit card charges, or you’re meeting a spending threshold for a bonus.

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Premium Cabin Airline Seats Haven’t Improved in 30 Years

by Gary Leff

airplane seats
Jun 15 2019

Thirty years ago airlines offered a mostly flat comfortable seat at the front of the plane with upgraded dining. They called it first class. They also offered a middle cabin featuring recliners and 38 to 40 inches between seats, along with upgraded privileges like priority boarding. They called it business class.

Today airlines offer mostly flat seating up front with upgraded dining. They call it business class. They offer a middle cabin featuring recliners and 38 to 40 inches between seats, along with upgraded privileges like priority boarding. They call it premium economy.

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Fare Alert: Summer and Holiday Business Class to Europe From $1835 Roundtrip

by Gary Leff

airline seats
Jun 15 2019

American Airlines is running all of its Europe and deep South America flights from New York JFK with Boeing 777s. That’s too much capacity even for a joint venture partner’s hub like Madrid (Iberia). They really ought to be basing some smaller aircraft, like Boeing 787s, out of New York and serving more destinations profitably.

During peak summer months and during fall and winter holidays there’s often fare compression, business class tickets go down in price (especially for restricted fares that leisure flyers can buy) while coach gets more expensive. We’re certainly seeing that on American’s New York JFK – Madrid route, where they’re discounting business class. For about the same money you can also fly their partner Iberia’s business class non-stop as well.

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Korean Air Lets You Pick First Class Seats When Flying Business Class (Airbus A330, Boeing 777-300)

by Gary Leff

flight attendant showing phone
Jun 15 2019

A little over a month ago we learned that Korean Air would be dropping first class from many of its routes.

While Korean Air’s first class lags in quality behind many other Asian carriers, I’ve especially liked that I could fly to Asia in first class and connect onward in first class as well because much of their intra-Asia route network offered a first class cabin.

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Video of American Airlines Supervisor Yelling at a Mechanic Was Leaked with an Agenda

by Gary Leff

american workers are worth it poster
Jun 14 2019

The viral video of an American Airlines employee yelling at one of their mechanics turns out to be from back in November.

This not safe for work video is a snippet of a supervisor yelling at a mechanic over writing up items on an aircraft and then not fixing them, because the mechanic’s shift was apparently over. I didn’t cover the video when it was making the rounds at the beginning of the week because there just wasn’t enough context around it. Now we know the story.

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