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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UK Woman Deported From Thailand Because She Used Her Passport as Toilet Paper

by Gary Leff

Feb 26 2016

This woman — who was neither from Germany nor from Florida — ripped pages out of her passport and used them as toilet paper. The Thai government didn’t accept her altered passport, and deported her.

The lesson though may not be not to use a passport as toilet paper. The lesson is that if you do you should follow up and have the passport replaced. Ultimately it’s probably not any rougher than much of the toilet paper I’ve found in Europe. And indeed I’ve traveled plenty of places in Asia where, if one didn’t plan ahead, they might well find themselves without better options.

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American Express Further Restricts Signup Bonuses, and Why That May Shoot Them in the Foot

by Gary Leff

credit cards
Feb 26 2016

In 2014 American Express changed their signup bonus rules to allow one bonus per card type in a customer’s lifetime.

That’s a policy they had in place a decade earlier. It doesn’t just cut off the sorts of customers that Amex wouldn’t want. They cut off customers that are after signup bonuses, but also customers who — despite being clearly savvy in the world of rewards cards — aren’t even aware of the restrictions on personal cards that you’re only eligible for one bonus per product during your lifetime.

American Express backed off of this policy once before. After losing the Costco partnership, American Express wanted to show growth – to show Wall Street it was still a growth company – by any means necessary. I had hoped that would shift them more towards ‘customer acquisition mode’. But after a series of further setbacks they appear to be entering cost cutting mode.

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How the Airline Industry Uses Congress to Stack the Deck Against Consumers

by Gary Leff

Feb 25 2016

Congressman Bill Shuster is Chairman of the House Transportation Committee. He’s the son of former Congressman and House Transportation Committee Chair Bud Shuster, who resigned his seat amidst a scandal with a lobbyist.

The current Congressman Shuster dates the Vice President for Global Government Affairs for airline industry lobbying group Airlines for America. Once his divorce was final and he openly acknowledged this relationship she stopped lobbying him, and only lobbies his congressional committee.

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Finally! American Opens Up Premium Cabin Awards Between the US and South America

by Gary Leff

Feb 24 2016

American’s revenue management has been notoriously stingy about releasing seats for premium cabin international travel over the past three years.

However American has been going to lengths to improve their premium cabin award availability. We’ve seen that with transatlantic space, with Asia flights, and even with Auckland, New Zealand.

And now we’re starting to see much better award availability with South America.

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Ranking Hotel Elite Program Breakfast Benefits

by Gary Leff

Feb 23 2016

One hotel loyalty program executive relayed the common refrain she got from hotels in the chain when they first began rolling out a breakfast benefit for their top tier elites — “you mean we have to feed them, too?”

And yes – they do — because breakfast is a common benefit of hotel elite programs, at least at the time tier, and it’s something that the better programs need to offer in order to remain competitive.

The most coveted hotel elite perk is upgrades, especially to suites. But perhaps the second most coveted hotel elite status perk is breakfast.

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