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 »

Armrests Used to Move in First Class (Donald Trump Sexual Assault Defense Debunked)

Oct 13 2016

Jessica Leeds claimed that in the early 1980s she was on a flight to New York and was upgraded into an empty first class seat next to Donald Trump. She says Trump lifted the armrest and began to touch her inappropriately (“He was like an octopus”).

Trump spokesperson Katrina Pierson went on television and invoked ‘the aviation defense’ where she just starts naming older aircraft models. Bizarrely she suggests that L-1011s and DC-10s didn’t fly to New York, so we don’t have to look at those aircraft. And first class armrests don’t move. Except they did.

Continue Reading »

No, the American-US Airways Merger Wasn’t Allowed to Happen Because Politicians Were Bought Off. Why Do You Ask?

Oct 12 2016

ProPublica came out with a piece this week on the American-US Airways merger, airline consolidation in general, that suggests lobbying played an undue influence in the Justice Department’s decision to settle and stop blocking consolidation — the upshot being “you’re paying for it.”

I’ve gotten about two dozen emails and tweets about it, and I’ve responded with some thoughts, but given the volume of interest the piece and some concerns about make sense to share more broadly.

Continue Reading »

American’s Award Search Calendar is Broken

Oct 12 2016

In the middle of last month updated flight search on their website. That upended the way they display flights for sale. But it also changed award search, too.

No, they didn’t add any new partners for online booking. But they did screw up the award calendar. Limiting your search to American Airlines flights doesn’t actually limit your search to American Airlines flights anymore.

Continue Reading »