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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Passenger Forgot to Put Their Pajamas On Before Coming Out of the Lavatory

Jul 31 2017

When I get on a long flight the first thing I do is take my pants off. That is, I change into pajamas. If I’m flying first class the airline usually gives me a pair (to keep, though my home is full of airline pajamas I rarely taken them along anymore).

If I’m flying business class some airlines provide pajamas, others don’t. United offers them on flights of 12 hours or more but only stocks enough for 60% of passengers to take them.

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Uber Launching Co-Brand Credit Card from Barclaycard

hand holding phone, car in background
Jul 31 2017

This fall Barclaycard will launch an Uber co-brand Visa.

Uber is losing a billion dollars per quarter but the biggest co-brand credit card deals run into the billions, it would be a twist if like the airlines which flew through rough times to preserve the underlying credit card business the ultimate road to profitability for Uber rode through the banks as well.

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Why American and United Think Basic Economy is Worth $1 Billion a Year (and Why They’re Wrong)

united plane
Jul 30 2017

Scott Kirby when he was President of American Airlines talked about Basic Economy as something that would be worth $1 billion to the airline. He modified somewhat to talk about segmentation (basic economy and premium economy combined) as worth $1 billion. He’s used the $1 billion figure at United now that he’s President there as well.

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Air France KLM Still Shutting Down Accounts, Sending People to Airport to Ticket Awards

Jul 29 2017

For the last two and a half years I’ve written about customers having their accounts shut down by Air France after transferring points in from a bank partner and redeeming an award.

An Air France auditor claimed at the time, “[T]he use of our frequent flyer accounts as boxes opened to transfer miles with our non air partners won’t be allowed anymore.”

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