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 »

Biggest Starwood Points Sale Before the Program Effectively Ends Next Month

by Gary Leff

hotel lobby
Jun 17 2018

Starwood is offering a 35% discount on buying Starpoints through July 20. They’re actually letting you buy points at a price which those points are worth which is great.

Technically Starwood Preferred Guest will still exists August 1, but that’s a legal distinction. Marriott, Starwood, and Ritz-Carlton will all have the same program at this point just with different names because contractual issues prevent them from calling it one program. For all intents and purposes though this is the last sale of Starpoints qua Starpoints.

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Airport Bans Sleeping and Sitting on the Floor, Employs Monitors to Wake Passengers

by Gary Leff

small room with cot
Jun 16 2018

Sleeping in airports is a time-honored tradition. It happens regularly during major storms, when flights are cancelled and airlines aren’t giving out hotel vouchers or nearby hotels are booked solid. Airports sometimes bring in cots.

Passengers with long layovers after an overnight flight may lay down in a quiet spot on the floor, too. There’s even a guide to sleeping in airports.

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Passenger Clapping Turns to Screams at Plane Goes Off the Runway

by Gary Leff

plane off of runway
Jun 16 2018

On Thursday a Bravo Air MD-83 left Antalya, Turkey bound for Kiev, Ukraine. There were 169 passengers and 6 crew on board. On arrival the aircraft landed but veered off the runway before coming to a stop.

A passenger was videotaping the landing from inside the cabin. At 22 seconds you can hear clapping after touchdown, but at 37 seconds you can hear in turn to screams. It’s incredibly eerie.

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What Are the Least Racist Airports to Go Through US Immigration?

by Gary Leff

passport getting stamped
Jun 16 2018

There’s no question that immigration and customs develops a different culture and reputation at different airports in the U.S. While you’d hope they would apply standards and procedures from their handbook uniformly, there’s a difference between de facto practice and de jure rules.

People learn procedures by watching other people, and by discussing how to go about doing their jobs with colleagues. In other words, customs and immigration procedures are carried out by people.

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Report: Sick Passengers Refused Water, Threatened With Arrest During 4 Hour Delay on Singapore Flight

by Gary Leff

people fighting on plane
Jun 16 2018

On Friday’s Singapore Airlines flight SQ516 from Singapore to Kolkata, India was delayed four hours due to non-working air conditioning onboard. But apparently crew didn’t keep passengers informed about what was wrong or what it looked like to fix the aircraft.

There weren’t any refreshments served during the delay that stretched as long as the block time for this four-times weekly Airbus A330. Allegedly sick passengers were refused water.

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American Will Pay $45 Million to Settle Claim They Illegally Colluded With Other Airlines

by Gary Leff

american plane
Jun 15 2018

Three years ago the Department of Justice announced that they were investigating the US airlines for unlawful collusion to limit capacity and increase airfares.

DOJ walking away from its case didn’t end matters. There’s still a private lawsuit. It argues that the major US airlines colluded to restrict capacity through their public statements calling for capacity discipline.

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675 American Airlines Regional Flights Cancelled, Here’s What American is Telling Employees

by Gary Leff

american eagle plane
Jun 15 2018

This has gotten some coverage but since it’s an outage at regional carrier PSA — a wholly owned subsidiary that operates as American Eagle — rather than at mainline American it’s relatively undercovered considering the magnitude of travel disruption.

PSA operates over 100 Bombardier CRJ regional jets. Their largest operation centers around American’s Charlotte hub.

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