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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New Hybrid Credit-Debit Card Offers Elite Status, Up to 3% Cash Back

Oct 03 2016

Zerocard is a product planning to launch next year — it works like a debit card but pays up to 3% cash back. It’s an FDIC-insured bank account, with charges deducted from your balance. But it processes like a credit card so they can pay out strong cash back. And the card is all metal.

The account pays interest, allows direct deposit, bill pay and ACH and wire transfers. There are no ATM fees in-network.

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Great Opportunity: 20% Bonus Transferring Amex, Citi or Hotel Points to Etihad Guest

Oct 02 2016

This summer I wrote about outstanding first class award availability on Etihad and walked through the routes between the US and Abu Dhabi that had award space for at least 2 passengers.

Etihad is one of the top airlines in the world for passenger experience. They offer a great connecting point in Abu Dhabi for travel to India and the surrounding region. I’ve used them to travel there as well as to the Maldives and also back from Sri Lanka.

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Yesterday Could Have Been an Operational Meltdown, But American Airlines Nailed It

delta and american plane tails
Oct 02 2016

For pilots the impossible has occurred. The US Airways-America West merger was never actually completed in large measure because pilots kept suing each other over seniority, and indeed even over which pilots could negotiate with the airline on a contract and what they had to ask for. The American merger, by giving US Airways and legacy America West (‘US Airways West’) pilots a raise and pre-committing everyone to an outcome, finally created the ability for pilots to integrate.

Yesterday represented potentially the biggest operational challenge for the combined airline, not dealing with customer reservations or frequent flyer accounts but moving to a single Flight Operating System.

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