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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United’s 3rd Quarter Revenue Call: Oscar Munoz Has a Plan, But It’s a Secret Plan

by Gary Leff

Oct 18 2016

United held its quarterly call on financial results this morning. And the consistent message throughout the call was that they’re going to do a lot of things differently, they just won’t tell us what yet.

They’re want to talk about things like basic economy fares and about new IT investments. They’re going to talk about how they’re forecasting revenue. But over and over they punted to say they’d talk about those things at next month’s investor day… Here’s what Oscar Munoz’s office looked like after the call:

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What’s Really Standing in the Way of Finalizing the Alaska-Virgin America Merger

by Gary Leff

Oct 18 2016

Alaska Airlines won the frenzied bidding war to acquire Virgin America. They likely overpaid, but saw Virgin America — barely profitable even with low fuel prices — as the only opportunity to pick up gates at congested airports.

The combination makes for the biggest West Coast airline, and buys them a San Francisco hub to diversify away from the intense competition they face from Delta in Seattle.

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New: Redeem Starwood, Marriott Points for Priority Pass Airport Lounge Membership

by Gary Leff

Oct 18 2016

Japan Airlines has announced a partnership with Priority Pass to let members redeem 40,000 miles for a Priority Pass Prestige membership.

Starwood points transfer 1:1 into Japan Airlines Mileage Bank, with the usual 5000 mile bonus for transfers into 20,000 miles. So 35,000 Starwood points transfer to 40,000 Japan Airlines miles. (And of course 105,000 Marriott points transfer to 35,000 Starwood points.)

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How to Leverage United’s 25% Hotel Transfer Bonus

by Gary Leff

Oct 17 2016

Through November 30 United is offering a 25% bonus when you transfer hotel points to MileagePlus. You can earn up to 20,000 bonus miles this way.

Oddly, the 25% bonus applies to transfers from most hotel programs but transfers from Club Carlson are bonused at 40% and transfers from Choice Privileges are bonused at 50%. Bonuses will post “on or before January 30, 2017.”

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Citi Adds JetBlue as a Transfer Partner, No Fee ThankYou Cards Now Transfer to JetBlue

by Gary Leff

boarding plane
Oct 16 2016

Premium Citibank ThankYou Rewards cards — like the Citi Prestige Card and Citi ThankYou Premier — let you transfer their points to airline miles and hotel programs.

They’ve just added a new partner: JetBlue. What’s interesting is that Barclaycard’s new deal to issue JetBlue cards didn’t stop this. And that even no annual fee Citi ThankYou cards can transfer to JetBlue which is a first.

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Alitalia Just Did What?! Doubling of Award Pricing Overnight?

by Gary Leff

Oct 16 2016

SkyTeam member Alitalia has the strangest frequent flyer program in the world. Instead of expiring miles, the program itself used to expire. With each new program every few years you could credit flights to your account to earn back the miles you had.

Now, without notice, the award chart ‘expired’ on Friday and there’s no new published chart. There are reports of awards costing twice as much as before. Hopefully no one took advantage of the current American Express transfer bonus to Alitalia.

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