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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Delta Launches Paid Elite Status Buy Ups So You Don’t Have to Do a Year-End Mileage Run

by Gary Leff

flight attendant
Dec 04 2018

American’s offer to let you buy back your elite status or buy a higher status launched a month ago. People used to mileage run. Airlines figured out they could charge more taking the money for the ticket plus even more money to save members’ time. Although I already have enough travel booked to requalify as an Executive Platinum they’ll let me lock in next year’s status for a fee right now. Delta’s offer is now live, too. SkyMiles buy ups seemed like they were more expensive at least at the top end — and more expensive than American. Three years ago a common offer for an existing Platinum member was, Buy 2,500 MQMs for $2,195 Buy 5,000 MQMs for $2,495 Buy 7,500 MQMs for $2,795 Buy 10,000 MQMs for $2,995 While someone with lower status…

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Nightmare Scenario: Man Arrested for Impersonating Air Traffic Control, Issuing Fake Takeoff Instructions

by Gary Leff

air traffic control
Dec 03 2018

Two years ago someone was pretending to be Melbourne, Australia air traffic control. A Virgin Australia flight from Gold Coast was instructed to land by this person — the plane came witin 275 feet of the runway before the real air traffic control waved them off. The Boeing 737 climbed to 3800 feet and made a go-round.

Frighteningly that seems not to have been a one-off. A man has been arrested for pulling that same stunt in Buenos Aires.

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Warning: Resorts Covering Up Sexual Assaults

by Gary Leff

beaches negril
Dec 03 2018

The Detroit Free Press carries an important investigative report on reports of sexual assaults in Jamaica where mutiple resorts have taken steps to ‘cover up’ incidents: Failing to make evidence available, encouraging women not to file complaints with the police, even to just ‘forget about it’, and seeking non-disclosure agreements surrounding incidents.

There are important steps to take to protect yourself and your loved ones.

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That’s Alight, Just Leave It There

by Gary Leff

dog pooping in airport
Dec 02 2018

Air travel brings people together from all sorts of backgrounds and experiences. So there are bound to be cultural clashes. And we’re not just dealing with people, we are also dealing with pets. And we’re dealing with how those people deal with their pets.

Walking through Washington Dulles airport on Thursday a passenger in front of me had their dog on a leash….

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Why Airlines Should Charge Passengers to Use the Lavatory

by Gary Leff

lavatory
Dec 01 2018

Whenever Ryanair is out of the news their CEO Michael O’Leary talks about making passengers stand (to cram more people onto planes) and making them pay to use the lavatory. In the U.S. pay toilets are illegal in many states but those prohibitions wouldn’t apply to airlines since they’d be pre-empted by the federal Airline Deregulation Act.

UK pay toilets are often cleaner than free ones. Would airlines charging for lavatories give us better lavatories? Would they give us bigger lavatories since they’d become a profit center?

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