Gary Leff, Author at View from the Wing

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 »

New Restrictions on Systemwide Upgrades Would Kill Top Tier AAdvantage Status

by Gary Leff on February 21, 2019

Feb 21 2019

JonNYC tweets about American considering a change to their systemwide upgrades that are provided to Executive Platinum and ConciergeKey members: that they would only be usable by the member themselves (and presumably other passengers on the same reservation) and could no longer be gifted to family or friends. American says no such change is imminent.

This would be all about breakage, making upgrades cheaper to offer because more of them would go unused if they cannot be given away. And by the way they’d be taking away benefits and scaling back costs at the same time they are requiring more revenue from a customer to earn these in the first place.

Uh Oh: IHG Rewards Club Testing Variable Redemption Pricing

by Gary Leff on February 21, 2019

Feb 21 2019

IHG reported its year-end results and noted the importance of their loyalty program to drive direct bookings (no commissions to online travel agencies) and higher revenue (“Loyalty members 7x more likely to book direct, and deliver a 25% stay premium.”).

They also noted that they’re testing variable redemption pricing.

Expedia Blacklists Haiti, Says it No Longer Exists

by Gary Leff on February 21, 2019

Feb 21 2019

There aren’t many big online travel booking websites anymore. For instance Priceline owns Booking.com and Kayal. Expedia owns Travelocity, Orbitz, Hotwire, and CheapTickets.

So it’s concerning when one of the online travel giants decides to blacklist a destination but that’s just what’s happened to Haiti.

Accor Announces New Loyalty Program “ALL”

by Gary Leff on February 21, 2019

Feb 21 2019

Basically all we know is that there will be a new loyalty program, probably mostly marketing changes but I believe some unspecified improvements too, and new partnerships that won’t be super relevant to folks in the US.

Over time we’ll see them better integrate their hotel investments and their non-hotel investments through the new program. For now though the program announcement seems… premature.