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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Talk About Point-to-Point Travel, Uber Says It Will Introduce Flying Taxis in 2020

phone with uber on it
Nov 08 2017

Paypal co-founder and early Facebook investor Peter Thiel famous expressed disappointment in the revolution of tech saying something to the effect of, ‘we wanted flying cars and all we got was 140 characters.’

We’ve been expecting self-driving cars to eventually replace people — drivers are to Uber what DVDs in the mail was once to Netflix. But planes?

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The Airline Executive of the Year Wants to Create a New Mega Carrier

Akbar al Baker meeting Trumps
Nov 08 2017

Qatar Airways CEO Akbar al Baker was just named Aviation Executive of the Year by the CAPA Centre for Aviation. Which is kind of like when he was the French Legion of Honor.

I’m not sure I agree with CAPA’s assessment of the man but there’s no more interesting or colorful person in aviation. I can’t wait for his next followup to claims like ‘Delta flies crap airplanes’ and that the major US airlines’ executives ‘are sitting around smelling glue’.

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Early Black Friday Sale on Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones

Nov 08 2017

Bose QuietComfort 25 Acoustic Noise Cancelling Headphones are marked down to $179 at Amazon reportedly part of an early Black Friday sale.

Bose noise cancelling headphones are the frequent traveler standard, and I highlighted a year ago when they were briefly marked down to $199 which was a heck of a deal. I haven’t seen that kind of a deal since, and this time it’s even lower.

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How American is Handling LAX Catering Since Their Contractor Was Found With Listeria

Nov 08 2017

A week ago American Airlines suspended most of their catering at LAX after trace amounts of listeria was found at Gate Gourmet, which catered most of their flights (along with Delta, and several international airlines). That’s a smart precaution to take, but it created big operational problems. For a few days it’s meant double catering some flights into Los Angeles so there’d be food and beverages for flights out of LA. It’s meant providing food for passengers to bring onboard. American Airlines Gate-side Food Carts, 1990s – early 2000s And it’s simply meant onboard catering that doesn’t meet customer expectation. American has been providing travel certificates as apologies. Virgin Atlantic, another Gate Gourmet customer, has been handing out vouchers to each in the terminal. Via the Forward Cabin is appears that LAX has their catering…

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Drunk Iranian Woman Hacks Sleeping Husband’s Phone, Causes Bali Flight to Divert to India

qatarplane
Nov 07 2017

Two Iranian passengers flying Qatar Airways flight QR962 from Doha to Bali got into an altercation that caused the flight to divert to Chennai, India on Sunday.

The married couple were traveling with their child. The husband fell asleep, and the wife — apparently drunk — used her husband’s finger to unlock his cell phone. She began combing through it and uncovered evidence that suggested he was cheating on her.

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