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 »

American Airlines Five Star Adds Blade Helicopters and LAX Private Suite Experience, Now Sells Flagship Lounge/Dining

by Gary Leff

Feb 19 2019

More premium services on offer are better and American Airlines just announced several. It can be better to buy LAX private terminal access via American, in conjunction with a premium flight, than to buy it direct. Whether helicopter transfers represent a deal is more questionable. Both offerings have been done by competitors over the past two years.

The more innovative piece is monetizing access to their excellent Flagship lounge and dining products, which is a nice perk for those interested in paying the freight. The only downside here is increased usage.

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Wyndham Doubling Redemption Prices at Top Hotels, Making Many Other Changes

by Gary Leff

wydham on beach
Feb 19 2019

In October I wrote that I expected Wyndham to abandon their one price for all hotel awards and move to a tiered award chart.

Specifically four years ago they introduced 15,000 points per night at all hotels and when they introduced redemptions for timeshares and vacation rentals those were also priced at 15,000 points (per bedroom) per night.

That’s happening. They’re also tweaking elite benefits and adding new earning and redemption partners. And there’s a last chance to transfer La Quinta points without losing half their value.

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America’s Next Top Model Winner Blasts United Airlines Over Wheelchair

by Gary Leff

person moving wheelchair
Feb 18 2019

American’s Next Top Model winner Nyle DiMarco claims United Airlines had a wheelchair meet him on arrival because he’s deaf, as though that means he’s unable to walk through the airport on his own. The man also won Dancing With the Stars.

Oddly this keeps happening to DiMarco and he can’t strictly speaking just blame United here. In December he made news when Delta did the same thing. Which suggests to me the airline isn’t likely the one deciding on their own to assist him with a wheelchair.

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American Explains How Their Winning Move at New York JFK is Not to Play

by Gary Leff

jfk art
Feb 18 2019

At an employee question and answer session with American Airlines leadership this past week American’s Vice President – Planning, Vasu Raja, talked about my post about the airline’s service cuts at New York JFK. He defends focusing on flying to hubs, a limited number of international destinations, and smaller cities where they have a strong customer base.

American has withdrawn from being a player in the New York market, with each retrenchment helping to accelerate the next retrenchment. American can no longer compete for the wallet share of business customers, and is only able to pick up business on a limited set of routes. As a result customers can’t remain loyal to the carrier and pay a revenue premium to go out of their way to do so, but choose it when they represent the best choice (with their limited schedule or based on price) on a one-off basis.

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Avatar Airlines Has a New CEO and is Looking to Source 14 Boeing 747s on Social Media

by Gary Leff

Feb 18 2019

Family Airlines started about 27 years ago. The idea was fly 747s between Las Vegas and Los Angeles as well as Newark, later adding cities like Miami and Honolulu.

The government refused to process an application for service, reportedly insisting that founder Barry Michaels give up control of the project. Nonetheless, he continued raising money and the SEC filed suit over a securities offering.

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How American is Planning to Use Their Boeing 787s, in Philadelphia and Beyond

by Gary Leff

american plane
Feb 17 2019

Last month American said that they’ve got too much Boeing 787 capacity because Europe is seasonal, they cancelled 787 flights out of Chicago, and because they keep waiting for their joint venture with Qantas to be approved which would allow them to deploy more 787s on South Pacific routes.

Last year though American ordered 47 more Boeing 787. So what are they going to do with them?

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JetBlue Named a Plane “Born to Be Blue” — then a Baby Was Born On Board

by Gary Leff

jetblue plane
Feb 17 2019

A baby was born on board JetBlue’s 10 p.m. San Juan – For Lauderdale flight Saturday night. Flight 1954 was operated by an Airbus A320, registration N523JB, which is named “Born to Be Blue.” And so that happened.

The airline suggests this is the first time a baby was born on one of their flights, and they’re promising gifts (including re-naming the plane for the child).

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The Full Set of Outstanding New American Airlines Amenity Kits

by Gary Leff

Feb 17 2019

I absolutely love the international This is Ground bags, especially the tan business class bag and the first class bag.

The transcon bags don’t feel nearly as premium and differentiating transcon business and first class bags more is a miss. Nonetheless they’re perfectly fine, and of course they’re given out on flights that usually hover around six hours, not 10 or even 14. Meanwhile the premium economy bag is nice and functional.

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