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 Reveals How They’re Doing Improving Award Availability

by Gary Leff

american plane
Sep 06 2018

The percentage of American Airlines seats occupied by award customers has been lower than that of competitor airlines and had been declining ever since US Airways management took over at the airline. American was been filling about 6% of seats with awards compared to nearly 8% at United and Delta and 13% at Southwest.

AAdvantage President Bridget Blaise-Shamai reported in June that they’re “on a path towards putting our availability much more closer to the competitive levels of like a Delta or a United.”

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TSA Security Screening Bins Have More Germs Than the Monkey in Outbreak

by Gary Leff

morgan freeman in movie outbreak in hazmat suit
Sep 06 2018

The TSA makes most travelers take off their shoes, many go barefoot on germ-laden floors. And most of us assumed, I think, that they weren’t doing much to wash or sanitize bins.

Your fellow sick passengers touch the bins, they even put their dirty tissue sand handkerchiefs in them before going through the nude-o-scope. TSA employees get gloves to wear, passengers don’t.

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Media Mogul and Hotel Owner Denied Check-in Because He Wouldn’t Take Off Prescription Sunglasses

by Gary Leff

outside resort
Sep 06 2018

Robert L. Johnson is best known for founding BET, Black Entertainment Television in 1979 and selling it to Viacom for $3 billion in 2000. He serves on boards like Lowe’s, the NBA Board of Governors, the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture and is a past board member of Hilton Hotels, General Mills, and the United Negro College Fund.

He’s an accomplished man, he’s well traveled, and he owns hotels — his RLJ Lodging Trust owns about 150 of them. So he’s certainly used to checking into hotels. But not this one.

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Marriott Fixes Program Rules for Suite Upgrades, Platinums Now Entitled to Standard Suites

by Gary Leff

hotel
Sep 05 2018

When the new Marriott program launched their terms and conditions said that Platinums would get an upgrade if available at check-in to an ‘enhanced room’. That’s not what we were promised.

The terms now say that a Platinum is to receive an upgrade to the best room available up to and including suites. Of course there are some limitations.

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Guess Who Says He Was On the Quarantined Emirates Flight Today? This is Awesome

by Gary Leff

private airplane bar
Sep 05 2018

This morning an Emirates flight was quarantined on arrival at New York JFK with sick passengers on board.

Some initial reports suggested that 100 were ill. Emirates said it was 10. The most recent information we have is that 19 passengers were deemed to have medical issues. Ten were transported to the hospital, while nine declined medical treatment and were released.

What do we know at this point? That Vanilla Ice says he was on board.

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People Pay More to Fly Delta for One Simple Reason

by Gary Leff

delta check in airport
Sep 05 2018

Delta’s Executive Vice President and CFO Paul Jacobson spoke this morning at the Cowen and Company Global Transportation Conference. He put up a standard Delta chart showing that customers like the airline more than their competitors, and so customers are willing to spend more to fly Delta.

Jacobson offered this startling statistic. Delta had 5000 cancellations due to maintenance in 2010 and this year there will be “fewer than 100.” He says that’s “down 99% since 2010.”

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Emirates Flight Quarantined at New York JFK With Sick Passengers On Board

by Gary Leff

ambulance outside plane
Sep 05 2018

Emirates flight EK203 from Dubai to New York JFK landed this morning and was been placed under quarantine awaiting a response from the Centers for Disease Control.

Immediately reaction on twitter suggested possible terror, or pandemic, however such speculation is premature at best. So far there are no reports of other flights with similar issues, or of similar illnesses being reported at the Dubai airport or in Dubai more generally.

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American Relaxes Basic Economy Restrictions Today, Admits It Was All About Making You Pay More

by Gary Leff

airline cabin
Sep 05 2018

American Airlines Basic Economy fares are highly restrictive. The purpose of these fares is to make the travel experience worse, in hopes that you will spend more money to avoid them. However they need to balance that with the risk that you will just give up on them and choose to fly someone else instead.

American Airlines President Robert Isom, speaking at the Cowen and Company Global Transportation Conference, admits that “the premise of basic economy, it wasn’t a price cut…[but] an upsell.”

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