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 »

Federal Government Blinks, All State Drivers Licenses Still Accepted at Security for at Least 2 Years

Jan 09 2016

The federal government was threatening not to accept drivers licenses from 9 states at airport security checkpoints.

The story was being broadly reported that this would happen, since: states aren’t complying with the federal ‘REAL ID’ Act., therefore the federal government wouldn’t accept IDs from those states.

But it is not happening and won’t for at least two years.

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Delta Just Made Changes to Their Secret Award Chart Without Notice

Jan 08 2016

Delta has made changes to its secret award chart for travel starting October 1. Only they haven’t bothered to tell anyone about it.

Despite eliminating award charts, Delta does have an award chart. There is saver award inventory (all partner awards are saver awards), and the price of awards is fixed when it’s available. Delta just doesn’t publish the chart any longer.

Delta wants to go revenue-based on redemptions, but revenue-based redemptions are transparent…

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Worst Case Scenario: What to Do If Your Frequent Flyer Account Gets Audited

Jan 07 2016

Getting audited isn’t common. Usually when they contact you it’s because there’s a pretty strong indication that you have broken rules. The flip side is that folks who aren’t breaking rules don’t often come into contact with a frequent flyer program’s auditing department.

It’s useful to understand what triggers audits, and what you can do if you get audited.

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Airlines are Killing Frequent Flyer Programs, but Long Term Technology Will Do It For Them

Jan 07 2016

Back in 2008 and 2009 banks were buying miles super cheap. Now with airlines in a stronger position financially, with fewer airlines to do deals with and banks in a healthier position to compete for those deals, the price of miles has swung up closer to two cents than one.

Meanwhile airlines haven’t needed to spend as much on marketing to fill planes. They’ve been able to devalue their frequent flyer programs. Miles are costing the banks more. Those miles are worth less. Frequent flyer programs may find themselves killing their multibillion dollar goose in the medium-term, though it’s likely on a long-term decline no matter what they do.

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