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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Cheap Air China Roundtrip First Class 75,000 Mile Award Tickets Going Away Tuesday

temple
Apr 28 2018

That’s literally a 114% increase for business class and 167% increase for first class.

Search Air China award space on the United, Aeroplan, or LifeMiles sites and then ring up Virgin to book. Have them set up the award over the phone and then transfer points online while you wait with the agent to issue tickets. I’ve only ever booked roundtrip but reportedly one ways are now possible.

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China Now Regulating US Airline Speech, Threatens United and American

wall of china
Apr 28 2018

In January China flexed its muscles against Marriott at a time that the US President began making rumblings of a trade war. They shut down Marriott’s booking engines in the country. Marriott Marriott fired an hourly worker who rather innocuously ‘liked’ a tweet about Tiber and even removed a banned book from one of their hotels.

At the time I wrote that China would be cracking down on airlines, too. American’s website for instance listed Taiwan separately from China.

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You’re Getting Hosed By the Big Airlines In the New FAA Bill and You Don’t Even Know It

back of airplane seats
Apr 27 2018

I wrote the other day that the draft FAA bill being debate by the House included criminalizing passenger speech. If you ‘verbally assault’ an airline employee, you probably shouldn’t be allowed to fly, but this law will raise the stakes with law enforcement too.

That’s not all that’s in the bill that passed the House and now moves on to the Senate.

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