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 »

Using Credit Card Travel Coverage Instead of Travel Insurance

by Gary Leff

airline checker canceled flights
Apr 01 2019

I’m not a fan of travel insurance for most trips. I think it’s overpriced, and often fails to deliver what consumers think they’re buying. The hassle in getting a claim covered can outweigh the value of the claim. To my mind it’s something to consider for a ‘trip of a lifetime’ where a loss really would be catastrophic (a trip that could never be replaced) but not for run of the mill travel.

That’s a different matter from making sure your health coverage extends to wherever you’re traveling and to medical evacuation coverage.

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Have Loyalty Programs Gotten Lazy? They Could Make More Money and Benefit Members at the Same Time

by Gary Leff

credit card with chains wrapped around it
Apr 01 2019

Mark Ross-Smith, who until recently was head of the Malaysia Airlines frequent flyer program, is chock full of insights. He lays out a number of things that most frequent flyer programs aren’t doing, costing them real money, because they’ve gotten lazy — focused on little besides the revenue stream they’re earning from co-brand credit card deals.

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Why Don’t Airlines Make Award Seats Available on Empty Flights?

by Gary Leff

first class cabin
Mar 31 2019

Some airlines make awards available when they load their schedules, which varies between roughly ten to twelve months prior to flight. They might add seats right when schedules load, or they might wait a few days or weeks.

Other airlines will wait until travel approaches. Although in general I find the best time to be searching for award space is about 6 months to departure. And one of the toughest times is two months out — seats made available in advance may be gone, and last minute award space hasn’t opened up yet.

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Marriott Lifetime Titanium Still Available, There are Two Ways to Get It

by Gary Leff

hotel room
Mar 31 2019

Marriott’s new loyalty program doesn’t offer a lifetime status level higher than 50 nights. The old Starwood program didn’t either. However the old Marriott Rewards program offered lifetime 75 night elite status, and those who achieved that status in the legacy Marriott program, got to keep it.

Marriott carved out an exception that let some Starwood members earn it too — but said it could never be earned after 2018. That turns out not to be quite correct.

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How to Score Free Bottled Water at Hotels

by Gary Leff

3 cases of water
Mar 31 2019

The gym is always a go-to source for me. And when a hotel does provide free bottled water in the room I’ll usually hide any bottles I haven’t consumed in my luggage in case the hotel brings more. I wouldn’t want them to think I was already stocked.

In much of the world you can drink the tap water though whenever I’m uncertain I avoid it. I’d rather drink filtered water (hopefully they change the filters) and I want to use my own or a hotel-gifted bottle, not the hotel’s glasses in the bathroom which may or may not be clean.

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Ethical Dilemmas Running This Blog

by Gary Leff

gary leff
Mar 31 2019

There are any number of ethical choices we all make on a daily basis. I don’t have a staff to bounce things off of, no editor, I’m just me and I do the best that I can to write content that interests me (the only way I could possibly still be doing this after 17 years) and hopefully engaging content and do it in a way that let’s me sleep well at night.

That doesn’t make me any more ethical than anyone else, and I’m sure readers will find fault with plenty of things I write, but here’s how I generally think about the blog.

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