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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5000 Free Miles for Signing up with Delta Skymiles

by Gary Leff

5000 Free Miles for Signing up with Delta Skymiles
Apr 14 2007

Sign up for Delta Skymiles by June 15 and receive 5000 Delta Skymiles — no other activity required. This doesn’t appear to be targeted. While there’s the usual boilerplate about taxes and fees on awards and Skymiles redemption seats being limited yadda yadda, the stuff that’s actually specific to this promo in the terms and conditions is quite limited:Bonus mile offer valid for new SkyMiles members only. Valid e-mail address required for enrollment. Please allow 2-4 weeks to receive confirmation of bonus miles.

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500 Free Miles with United, Continental, or Delta

by Gary Leff

500 Free Miles with United, Continental, or Delta
Apr 14 2007

“Thanks Again” is a program that offers miles for shopping with small merchants that don’t have their own rewards programs, so far mostly dry cleaners. You register a credit card and when you spend with participating companies you get miles for the transaction, a la iDine (aka Rewards Network). There aren’t a whole lot of companies working with them, at least so far, so it’s not that attractive. Plenty of folks may be skeptical of giving them credit card numbres, although they do appear quite legitimate. Personally I used a Visa gift card with about $7 left on it, although some might prefer to use one-time use credit card numbers. Why? Signup bonuses. You can earn your choice of 500 United, Continental, or Delta miles just for signing up. The program is also available with…

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Alaska Visa Signup Bonus Extended

by Gary Leff

alaska airlines
Apr 14 2007

The current expiration date for the Alaska Airlines 20,000 mile bonus for new Visa signup is April 30. It may be extended — it’s been extended twice already — but if you’re interested, grab it now.20,000 miles is enough to upgrade a transcon roundtrip, plus they throw in a couple of club passes and a $50 companion certificate. Not bad for $75.

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Visiting Cyprus Thanks to Alitalia

by Gary Leff

A couple of weeks ago I visited Cyprus for the first time, taking advantage of the Alitalia mistake fare from a year or so back (CAD $39 + tax, Toronto to Cyprus via Milan and/or Rome with stopovers permitted in both directions). This was perhaps the best mistake fare ever. Oh, sure, British Airways once published North American to pretty much anywhere in Europe in World Traveller Plus for $20 + tax. But this was a business class fare, earning business class miles, and turned out to be changeable without a refare (once-only, via a special Alitalia representative in New York). However, it was an Alitalia fare and they’re not the easiest carrier in the world to deal with. I suffered several delays (3.5 hours on my return flight due to an aircraft change and…

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PointMaven, from the makers of MileMaven

by Gary Leff

Upgrade Travel blog profiles PointMaven, the sister website of MileMaven.PointMaven is a search tool for hotel bonus offers, just like MileMaven helps find airline bonus offers. If you’re not tied to a specific program for loyalty (e.g. elite status – upgrades) reasons, you may want to choose your travel provider based on the points you can earn. Of course, price doesn’t come into the equation with this tool, just miles and points. But it’s a great way to find bonuses you’d have never known existed. And for that matter, if you’re clearly stuck in a specific property or flying a specific airline, it’s a good idea to check this site anyway for possible bonuses to register for and rack up more points for the travel you’re going to take anyway.

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Polo Discount

by Gary Leff

Through April 16, friends and family promo code RL2007SP offers 30% off (and free shipping on orders over $175) at Polo.com. Used is successfully yesterday on some new shirts.

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Video Tribute to Alitalia’s DRTCA9 Mistake Fare

by Gary Leff

Flyertalk member KVS produced a short video tribute to the Alitalia $39+tax business class fare error from Toronto to Cyprus. It was a year ago today that the fare was on offer, and the tickets were valid a year from date of issue, so we now say thanks and rest in peace to perhaps the greatest of all mistake fares.I’ll share details of my own Toronto-Milan-Cyprus-Milan-Rome-Milan-Toronto trip shortly.

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Up to 25,000 Bonus Miles for Partner Activity

by Gary Leff

delta-airline-plane
Apr 05 2007

Delta is offering up to 25,000 bonus miles for activity with their partners. Registration is required. The offer is 5000 miles for each 5 unique partners with activity during the qualifying period of April 1 – May 31 (too tight a timeline for my tastes). Airline partners don’t count. Each partner counts only once, so only one Hilton stay would count as a partner (but a Hilton stay and a Marriott stay would be two partners). Transferring points into Delta should count, and each source should be a different partner, so I may transfer points in from Starwood, American Express Membership Rewards, and Radisson Goldpoints.Read the terms and conditions on the promo, but it should be pretty easy to rack up 5000 bonus miles — much harder to hit a full 25,000.

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First Class Norfolk, Virginia to/from San Francisco for $368 round trip

by Gary Leff

It’s available in either direction and it’s refundable. Search for first class tickets at delta.com or expedia. There’s no minimum or maximum stay, these are actually one-way fares ($368 is just the all-in roundtrip price, although may vary slightly depending on the connections you make). It’s a refundable YUP fare, fare basis YUPBV. Discussed on Flyertalk here.

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