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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Free Memberships for Wholesale Hotel Booking Site End Monday, Sign Up Free Now for a Year While You Can

Oct 27 2016

Club1 Hotels is a membership site, and that lets them sell rooms at a discount, offering lower rates to consumers instead of taking their booking commission. They report that they make money on membership fees rather than individual bookings.

But they’re offering free one year memberships, an offer which they report goes away in a few days.

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CONFIRMED: Full Details on Hyatt’s New Elite Status Program (A LOT More Than Previously Reported)

Oct 27 2016

This morning I wrote about leaked changes to Hyatt’s new elite program that starts in March.

Most of the information was accurate but there’s a lot more here than previously reported. I spoke with Hyatt about the changes this morning and there’s more benefits and also information on the transition. (And another way to qualify for status, too.)

There’s even the long awaited opportunity for confirmed suite upgrades to be valid on award stays, as well as more free nights for all members.

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REPORT: Hyatt Launching New Elite Program

Oct 27 2016

Matthew Klint at Pen and Passport offers up a scoop on changes coming to Hyatt Gold Passport. He says details will be announced November 1 and go into effect March 17.

The upshot of these reported changes is that top tier elites won’t be able to qualify on stays alone anymore, and the night requirement is going up a bit, but this comes with even more benefits than Hyatt already offers.

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Wyndham Rewards Introducing Redemptions at Over 17,000 (!) New Properties Starting Today

firestone estate palm springs
Oct 26 2016

A year and a half ago Wyndham launched a new program that gave members a single award chart price of 15,000 points per night. That was an increase for the cheapest hotels, and a decrease for the most expensive hotels. (They also introduced cash and points awards that are capacity controlled costing 3000 points plus a variable amount of cash.)

Now they’ve got a huge new expansion in the number of places you can redeem points, and next year where you can earn points and receive elite recognition too.

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