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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Ebay for Upgrades – an Airline Starts Auctioning Off Upgrade Seats

Upgrades aren’t just for elites anymore (or, on US airlines in premium cabins, for employees). For several years US domestic carriers have offered buyups at the airport. With unlimited complimentary upgrades it might have been rare for a general member to receive a buy up offer, though on some routes they’re quite common such as the US Airways ‘shuttle’ in the Northeast corridor. United has been perhaps the most aggressive with buyup offers to first class. They offer two kinds of upgrades — offers to allow customers to pay the difference between their fare and a coach fare with confirmed upgrade without paying a change fee, and inexpensive options that are supposed to only be made when all elites on the upgrade list are expected to be cleared. This latter has become known as “Tens…

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A Pedestrian Trip, the Marriott Boca Raton

One of my frequent destinations is Boca Raton, Florida. Unfortunately there’s no Hyatt nearby. There’s no Starwood, either. And other than the Boca Raton Resort & Club, there’s nothing in town that purports to be especially nice. I’ve schlepped from the Hyatt Pier 66 when I’ve had competing reasons to be closer to Ft. Lauderdale along with trips up to Boca on multiple occasions, and my old go to used to be the Westin Diplomat for these trips but I’ve tired of 45 minute drives each way when I can stay mere blocks from where I need to be. Naturally to the North there are plenty of nice properties in Palm Beach. But you do have to go to Fort Lauderdale or Palm Beach to broaden out options for a ncie hotel. Starting in July…

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Is ExpertFlyer.com the Right Tool for You?

Expertflyer review: Expert Flyer is a collection of tools for the frequent flyer, some of which duplicate offerings found elsewhere and some of which are really unique and that I find absolutely worth paying for. They offer a 5-day free trial, otherwise it’s $5 (for limited access) or $10 (for unlimited access) a month, the $10 a month plan can be purchased for $100 a year. There’s also a free account that allows you to access only “seat alerts,” which I’ll describe below. The site offers the ability to search for award and upgrade seats on some airlines, plus flight availability similar to FlightStats.com but that doesn’t exclude American Airlines, flight status, seat maps, fare rules (including “maximum permitted mileage” for a route), and the ability to set up e-mail alerts for seats to open…

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Bits ‘n Pieces for June 9, 2012

Here’s what’s going on: Frequent Miler gives a lot of good reasons to make Kiva loans (and by the way you can use them to meet minimum spend requirements on a mileage-earning credit card, withdrawing the funds when the loans are paid back), and also explains how to make a $25 loan to an entrepreneur in the developing world that won’t cost you a thing. Mommy Points asks you to do this as well, and to smile. Deals We Like is on board, too. This one is becoming an avalanche, you’re gonna need to join all the cool kids, c’mon and make this happen… The Points Guy flags a bonus for signing up for Delta’s business program, SkyBonus – register and take a qualifying flight by August 7 for 25,000 SkyBonus points. I wrote about…

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Easy LIFETIME Star Alliance Gold Status

Aegean Star Alliance Gold is Easy and for Life: Last week I posted that I had received a status match with Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles. I wanted Gold status a new non-U.S. Star Alliance program now that my beloved british midland was gobbled up by British Airways (oh, don’t cry for me, that gets me British Airways Gold status for 22 months — and access to American’s Flagship Lounges even when flying domestically). Turkish has an interesting program, their status lasts for two years, and I just need 37,500 qualifying miles in that time to requalify (and I can even buy up to 10,000 of those miles). So I thought I was done. Then I read on Milepoint that Aegean was offering status matches to british midland elite members. They’re the Greek airline that joined Star…

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15 Minutes of Free Internet Through Labor Day on Alaska Airlines Flights

Via NotiFlyer, Alaska is offering 15 minutes of free Gogo internet. Passengers on Alaska Airlines can access Gogo for free for 15 minutes on Alaska Airlines through Sept. 3, 2012. The offer is valid on flights within and between the West Coast and Alaska. Just like that darned drug dealer standing on the corner by the elementary school. Fifteen free minutes of internet crack and you’ll be hooked. You’ll want to send your response to the email you just downloaded. Or finish watching that clip of South Park parodying What What in the Butt (which the Seventh Circuit just affirmed was fair use and not a copyright infringement). Of course you can turn down the offer to pay for Gogo internet, and just get hooked on the Milepoint.com frequent flyer community which you can access…

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A FlightStats.com Primer: How to Access Airline Fare Class Availability for Free

The FlightStats.com website is a really useful tool — not just for tracking flights, to see whether they’re on time, and looking up historical flight reliability data (which is how most savvy fliers use it) but also to look up availability of seats on specific flights, including availability by specific “fare classes” which are the letter codes of the different buckets of inventory that airlines use. That may not seem like something that matters to you, but it’s incredibly useful! Here are some examples of how you can use the information. For awards: Say that you have Delta miles and want to know whether Saudi Arabian has business class award space from New York JFK to Riyadh. Or you have Chase Sapphire Preferred points and want to know whether it makes sense to transfer those…

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American and Air Tahiti Nui to Introduce Codesharing

American will be codesharing with Air Tahiti Nui on the Los Angeles – Papeete route. You can already redeem American miles for Air Tahiti Nui award travel, and used to be able to earn American miles flying Air Tahiti Nui but that option was eliminated in 2009. Now, flying American’s codeshare, you’ll have the opportunity to earn both redeemable and elite qualifying miles on travel from the US to French Polynesia. Nice! Currently the only way to earn miles flying from the US to French Polynesia – other than crediting Air Tahiti Nui flights to Club Tiare – is to fly Air France Los Angeles – Papeete (3 times weekly service) or Hawaiian Airlines Honolulu – Papeete (Saturday service). For most, paid travel to French Polynesia was simply a miles opportunity wasted. I was fortunate…

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My Club Carlson 50k Bonus Posted

The night of the Star MegaDO launch party, I checked into the Radisson near National airport in order to earn the Club Carlson 50,000 point bonus. It was a Saturday night stay, and points posted last night. One rule that struck me curious about the promotion was the requirement not just to check in in person (so that one person couldn’t go do a mass check-in for 50 people) but also to check out in person. I didn’t think it would actually be enforced. Were they really going to make hotels verify who had come to the desk for checkout? Were they really going to add that as an IT capability? It seemed a stretch. And in my case, it certainly wasn’t enforced.

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How Easy is it to Obtain Starwood Stay and Night Credit on an Award Redeemed from Someone Else’s Account?

My stay in Iguazu Falls at the Sheraton was on points, a reservation gifted to me by a friend with more Starwood points than he can shake a stick at. Points for incidentals at the hotel (e.g. my bar tab!) didn’t post automatically to my account, so I scanned a copy of the bill and sent it in for credit. The points were promptly added to my account. Strangely, though, my stay and night counter for elite status didn’t go up. Now, it doesn’t matter a great deal for me. I have Gold status through the American Express Platinum card. I’ll earn Gold status on my own, anyway. And I’m not expecting to hit Platinum as tempting as this year’s changes to the program make it to do so. But it’s the principle of the…

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