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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Alitalia’s Old Frequent Flyer Program Sells For Less Than $5 Million?

alitalia plane
Apr 01 2024

ITA Airways is the new Alitalia – a small Italian state airline that the EU keeps slow-walking Lufthansa’s ability to buy. It’s Alitalia with a new name, without some of its legacy costs, but with many of the same problems with its business model.

One thing that’s different about ITA Airways, though, is the frequent flyer program. ITA Airways is a member of SkyTeam but it only has limited participation. They don’t fully link up with all other members of the alliance.

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Bad to Worse: How a Single Clogged Toilet Caused a Boeing 777 to Abandon Its Transatlantic Journey

lavatory
Apr 01 2024

On Friday, United Airlines flight 59 from Frankfurt to San Francisco had to turn around when a toilet overflowed. The Boeing 777-300ER was at 30,000 feet around 70 nautical miles northwest of Amsterdam when pilots asked to enter a holding pattern to troubleshoot the lav. Half an hour later they turned back.

Apparently one of the lavatory toilets “overflowed” and what was called “the soup” spilled into the cabin, with an unbearable stench.

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Maximize Your Rewards: The Little-Known Pitfall In Paying Your Taxes By Credit Card

Mar 31 2024

Tax day is right around the corner, and so is the year’s first quarterly Estimated Tax deadline of April 15th.

Many people pay their taxes due via credit card. It can be worth it for earning credit card initial bonuses, threshold spending bonuses and credit towards status, and for high rebate cards even just earning the spread between cost and reward value

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Doctor’s Viral Hack For Bringing Coconuts & Burgers on Planes To Beat High Airport Prices Is 100% Unhinged

Mar 31 2024

A doctor shares his travel hacks to bring liquid and meals past TSA security at airports, so he doesn’t have to buy water and gets to eat what he wants. The government won’t let you bring a bottle of water into the airport (unless you freeze it first). He brings a whole bag of coconuts so that he can drink coconut water on the plane. And he brings burgers.

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