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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Great Award Availability on Hawaiian’s New Lie Flat Seats to Japan and Australia

by Gary Leff

Oct 16 2016

Hawaiian Airlines is retrofitting its Airbus A330 aircraft with lie flat business class seats. They’ll have three rows of six seats, so only the middle seats have direct aisle access, but it’s generally a good product for Hawaii flying.

The product launched in June, and they’ve been adding US West Coast flights. New international routes will be getting the seats before the end of the year. We’ll see them on Tokyo, Brisbane, and Auckland (December 5) as well as Sydney (December 13.

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DON’T WAIT: Buy Your Holiday Airline Tickets Now

by Gary Leff

The way airlines are pricing tickets has changed. You can often buy cheap fares at the last minute now. You used to have to buy 14 or 21 days in advance for the lowest fares, and that’s one way airlines separated business from leisure travelers, but ultra low cost carriers like Spirit, Frontier and Allegiant have changed that model and advance purchase alone is no longer a guaranteed way for airlines to charge business travelers more.

You can still get the best airfare deals in advance though (last minute can be a risk). And those last minute deals are especially unlikely to happen around holidays, because planes will be full.

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Are People Transferring More Points to Marriott or to Starwood, and How are They Redeeming?

by Gary Leff

Oct 15 2016

There are some important lessons to be learned from traffic flows. For instance which way traffic went over the Berlin Wall said almost everything you needed to know about socialism.

We’ve got some early indication of which way points are flowing now that members can freely move points between Marriott Rewards and Starwood Preferred Guest at a ratio of 3 Marriott points to 1 Starwood point.

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$100 Airfare Discount is an Authorized User Benefit?!

by Gary Leff

Ritz-Carlton Rewards® Credit Card Earlier this week I wrote about how to leverage the $100 Visa Infinite companion airfare discount that’s one of the many great things about the Ritz-Carlton Rewards® Credit Card. The card offers Gold Elite status (which is honored at Marriott hotels (complimentary the first year and that you retain each year you spend $10,000 on the card); a $300 Airline Fee credit, $100 Global Entry credit, and unlimited use $100 Airline Ticket discounts when buying for 2 or more passengers; 3 complimentary upgrades to The Ritz-Carlton Club® Level each year valid on paid stays of up to seven nights; plus airport lounge access and a premium concierge, the card gives you: And it has a great signup bonus of 3 complimentary nights at any participating Tier 1-4 Ritz-Carlton hotel after $5,000…

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Delta Award Space for the Whole Family to Hawaii for Just 25,000 Miles Roundtrip

by Gary Leff

Oct 14 2016

US frequent flyer programs overcharge for Hawaii awards relative to ticket price — at 45,000 miles roundtrip, even from the West Coast, you’re not getting much for your miles. But Hawaii awards are in high demand, people earning miles for business travel and wanting to use them for leisure often want to take the family to Hawaii.

But non-US frequent flyer programs offer better deals with miles, even though you’re flying US airlines between the mainland and Hawaii. Delta is notoriously tough for award space, but right now there’s some good availability.

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RUMOR: Chase to Remove 5x Earning Categories on Ink Cards

by Gary Leff

I’ve seen this a couple of places, and I do not have first-hand information about the veracity of the information. Doctor of Credit has the best summary of the rumor that is going around: A good source indicates that Chase has imminent plans of changing the 5x category on the Chase INK line cards to earn just 3x. This change will not affect existing cardholders. Only new card applicants. The new 3x category has been in the planning stages for quite some time, and will probably go into effect sometime within the next few months. The news is not all bad, though. According to the source, all 5x and 2x categories will become 3x. Therefore it would be wise to consider signing up for an Ink card now, if the rumor is true then you…

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