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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The Most Generous Hotel Program is Offering Up to 100,000 Bonus Points for Stays

Jan 08 2017

Arguably Club Carlson has been the most rewarding program for in-hotel spend since they launched in 2011.

That’s even after they devalued points transfers to airline miles (and not for the first time), devalued the program across the board, and eliminated the second night free on award stays benefit for co-brand Visa cardholders.

The problem of course is: do Club Carlson’s hotels, like Radisson and Park Inn, work for you?

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[Disturbing] Video of First Shots Fired at Ft. Lauderdale Airport and What It Means for Travel

Jan 08 2017

This week’s shooting at the Fort Lauderdale airport was horrible. I’ve held off writing about it until now, because so much of the information immediately following an event like this turns out to be wrong. With wraparound coverage of the event online and on television, there simply wasn’t much that I could add.

This was a terrible thing that happened. It appears to have been carried out by someone who was mentally ill, rather than a coordinated terrorist attack. There’s an old saying that two anecdotes makes a regulation and three makes a law. Nonetheless these incidents are rare, flying remains safer than driving even factoring in what happened in Fort Lauderdale, and I’d rather mourn the people who actually lost their lives than use them as tools to make a pre-existing political point.

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Availability Alert: No Fuel Surcharge Business Class Awards to Europe for the Whole Family

Jan 08 2017

Star Alliance member Scandinavian Airlines has great business class award space through the beginning of April for 4 or more (and even 8!) passengers from several US gateways.

You can use miles with United, Aeroplan, ANA, LifeMiles, and many other programs to book awards to and through Copenhagen to most places you’d want to go in Europe. Aeroplan doesn’t add fuel surcharges to SAS awards.

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