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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$100 Ritz-Carlton Discount (and Other Amex Rebates You Can Use) Available Via Twitter

view from hotel with pool
Aug 11 2017

A few days ago several blogs wrote about an American Express offer of a $100 statement credit when spending $500 with Ritz-Carlton. That’s great, but the offer was targeted. It wasn’t available in my account.

And I don’t usually write about targeted offers unless they’re noteworthy for some other reason such as indicating testing that a program is doing that may paint the program’s future direction.

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Buffalo Thinks It’s Going to Get Transatlantic Flights. That’s Nuts.

Aug 10 2017

Europeans want to fly to Toronto and want to fly to New York. Buffalo simply is neither a business nor leisure market for them. Carriers would be relying largely on the local Buffalo market. And the striking thing about the airport’s case for transatlantic service is that they seem to mention everything other than the number of people in Buffalo flying to Europe.

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In Venezuela Flight Crews Get Robbed and the Government Loots Checked Luggage

toilet paper rolls
Aug 10 2017

Back in 2008 Venezuela’s currency controls were considered an airfare arbitrage opportunity.

But it was risky even then to holding Venezuelan assets, something underscored when the country nationalized a Hilton. (Not even a first in Venezuela for that brand.) Apparently Hugo Chavez didn’t like the hotel meeting contract, so he decided to take the hotel.

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