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 »

Ignore the Pundits, We Don’t Know What Brexit Means for Travel

Jun 24 2016

The UK has voted to exit the European Union. There’s tremendous gnashing of teeth over what this means for the world and those are very real concerns. There are also concerns within the travel industry, and amongst travelers.

Nothing has actually changed today and while there was much campaigning in favor of British self-determination and against Brussels, as well as against immigration, it’s not yet clear how (or that) UK policy will differ from the status quo going forward.

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One Frequent Flyer Program Makes it Harder to Use Miles Than Any Other

Jun 23 2016

There’s virtually no competition for redeeming first class awards on SkyTeam member Garuda Indonesia. Delta miles, of course, cannot be used for international first class. Citi ThankYou Rewards transfer directly to the GarudaMiles program.

The problem is the byzantine redemption process for GarudaMiles awards. It’s “award redemption in six easy steps.”

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Giveaway: 2 Business Class Tickets Celebrating Air Serbia’s Launch at New York JFK!

flight attendants
Jun 23 2016

Today Air Serbia launches its new New York JFK – Belgrade non-stop with an Airbus A330 they’ve named for Serbian inventor Nikola Tesla.

A reader will win 2 business class roundtrip tickets for this new flight. Entering is easy.

Here’s also what you can do while you’re visiting — and how we’ll you’re positioned to spend time throughout the region on your trip.

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How United Squeezes More Seats into its All Aisle Access Business Class Than Anyone Else

Jun 22 2016

The idea is to make the seat seem like four-across on a Boeing 777 — which gives you fully flat with all aisle access — while actually being configured eight-across to give the airline density.

More seats, without sacrificing passenger comfort, means more revenue. They can attract high yield business travelers without increasing their cost (aircraft real estate) in order to do so.

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The Federal Government Investigated Frequent Flyer Programs. Here’s What They Found.

Jun 22 2016

The Department of Transportation’s Office of Inspector General completed a report on government oversight of airline frequent flyer programs.

The Department of Transportation believes that airlines make available enough frequent flyer award seats and are transparent in the way they operate the programs. However the DOT does not pay enough attention to concerns about changes to programs without notice.

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United Unveils Plan to Improve Financial Performance By $3 Billion (Is Gonna Cost You)

Jun 22 2016

United held a call yesterday morning where CEO Oscar Munoz talked about the ways that the airline would cut costs and generate more money from customers.

United has a lot of catchup to do with the rest of the industry on both sides of the equation. My takeaway was that their plan seems to be to copy and catch up, rather than chart their own course.

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