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 »

American Award Space ‘Back to Normal’ (Cough)

by Gary Leff

Jul 05 2015

I value my American miles for partner awards, but most members look to redeem American miles on American flights and that’s gotten very hard. It used to be exceptionally easy. Sometime in mid-2012 premium cabin awards to Europe really tightened up. About 18 months ago premium cabin awards to Asia tightened up, and awards to South America did as well.

About a week ago I wrote about American removing saver awards entirely from some domestic markets. Starting a month from now, there were only three days through the end of April where you could find a saver award flying Austin – Dallas. That’s a short, cheap one hour flight where American offers at least 14 flights a day.

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How to Get Emails When Delta (And Other Airline) Award Seats Open Up

by Gary Leff

Jul 05 2015

Expert Flyer is one of my favorite tools. It has several important uses for frequent flyers — but since September Delta has prevented the site from displaying anything about the airline’s flights.

Fortunately they’ve brought back searches for Delta saver awards, and that means you can use their automated tool to email you when the award seats you want on a given flight open up!

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American Eliminating First Class From 2 Of Their 3 New York – London Flights

by Gary Leff

first class cabin
Jul 05 2015

As American retrofits its Boeing 777-200 fleet, their only aircraft that will retain a first class cabin is their Boeing 777-300ERs.

The 777-200s get a good business class seat (similar to American’s 787 business seat), but once reconfigured no longer have a first class cabin.

Effective December 17 American is putting reconfigured 777-200s in for 2 of their 3 New York – London flights, apparently to free up aircraft for Sydney service.

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What’s the Best Hotel Breakfast?

by Gary Leff

Jul 05 2015

I’ll take a good quality restaurant breakfast (not the standard US airport hotel buffet) over a club lounge, foregoing evening options. But for a mediocre restaurant breakfast I’ll prefer the quick service of the lounge.

There are hotels that offer some amazing breakfast spreads, especially in Asia. If I had to pick one city with the highest average it’s Kuala Lumpur. The best single hotel breakfast I’ve had was probably the St. Regis Bali. And the chain with the best breakfast benefit for top elites is unquestionably Hyatt.

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What’s the Best First Class for West Coast – Asia?

by Gary Leff

Jul 05 2015

The choice here is ultimately going to be driven by availability, although there are plenty of airlines worth checking given the miles that are available.

Consider that it’s entirely possible to use a different airline for the outbound as the return — not just to try different products, but because schedules and availability may differ, especially for an outbound to North Asia and a return from Southeast Asia.

I’d generally rank the first class products of airlines flying from the US West Coast across the Pacific as follows:

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Review: Delta Business Class, Sydney – Los Angeles

by Gary Leff

Jul 05 2015

After missing my Virgin Australia flight to Los Angeles and spending the night at the Rydges hotel at the airport, I was re-booked onto Delta’s own Sydney – Los Angeles flight.

I was actually excited to be able to compare Virgin Australia’s 7-across business class to Delta’s four-across. Delta operates the flight with a Boeing 777 fitted with (not reverse) herringbone seats and unfortunately no internet. So not the airline’s best product, but decent enough.

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How the Selfie May Limit Your Credit Card Rewards

by Gary Leff

Jul 04 2015

Some people sign up for credit cards in the name of family members (who are willing participants) — they want the bonus miles, but spouse or sibling doesn’t want to deal with meeting minimum spend and doesn’t themselves value the miles.

Things get tricky when it comes time to cancelling, a male voice may have a hard time calling to cancel a woman’s card (so cancel by mail or online). And meeting minimum spend either needs to be done with an authorized user card, or online.

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Review: Air New Zealand Temporary Lounge Sydney

by Gary Leff

Jul 04 2015

The last stop on my Sydney lounge tour was the Air New Zealand temporary lounge.

The temporary lounge was.. interesting. It’s a drab, windowless space that was definitely too small for all of the passengers it was servicing. Like the rest of the downstairs lounges, the ceilings weren’t especially high. This one had no windows.

But it did retain the Air New Zealand hot dog stand.

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Review: Skyteam Lounge Sydney Airport

by Gary Leff

Jul 04 2015

Right beside the American Express lounge is the Skyteam lounge, and as a Delta business class passenger I had access. So that became my second stop on the day’s lounge tour of the Sydney airport before my flight back to Los Angeles. Hence I have the opportunity to offer this Skyteam Lounge Sydney review.

The lounge features internet, showers and power at each seat. The lounge is about 8000 square feet and advertised to support either 140 or 150 passengers.

There’s ample seating and tarmac views to be sure, though I found the ceilings a bit low and the overall feel of the lounge to be less uplifting than the windows and bright furnishings would have you expect.

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