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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Cubans Flock to Their Beaches Before Americans Ruin Them

Sep 02 2015

I very much look forward to Cuban modernizing.. for the sake of the Cuban people. Remember that however quaint walking back into the 1950s may be as a tourist, the people of Cuba have been forced to live without the benefit of many of the advances of technology that we too easily take for granted.

Many people want to visit Cuba before it ‘changes’. It turns out, so do the Cubans.

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Could Transaero Imperial Class Awards Finally Become a Reality? Aeroflot Buys Them for One Ruble

Sep 01 2015

Russian carrier Transaero is being acquired by Aeroflot for just one ruble (and assumption of debt).

This is especially interesting because Transaero has one of the most elusive first class products in the sky. And if they joined Aeroflot in Skyteam we’d be able to use Korean Air miles (transferred from Chase or Amex) or Flying Blue points (transferred from Amex or Citi) to book the seats finally!

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Get that Airline Record Locator Right Away. And Use the ‘Correct’ Phonetic Spelling, Darn It!

Sep 01 2015

It’s very important to get record locators from phone agents as soon as a reservation is created. You could get kicked off of a phone call and it would be difficult to retrieve the reservation.

When reading the confirmation to you, you’ll often use a phonetic alphabet, words that stand for letters. And agents make up the darndest words…

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Starwood Transfers to Korean Post on Overnight Sunday/Monday Morning

Aug 31 2015

Two weeks ago Starwood Preferred Guest added Korean Air as a transfer partner. That’s fantastic because Korean has some of the best redemptions in first class (amazing availability), to Hawaii (cheap awards on Alaska, Delta, and Hawaiian), and for business class to Europe (40,000 miles each way with fuel surcharges).

I tested a one point transfer from Starwood to Korean (no minimum transfer is a benefit of being a Starwood Platinum): a Wednesday afternoon transfer appeared the following Sunday night/Monday morning.

That same Monday when I found the points in my account I made another points transfer, looking for another data point for when points would post.

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