Gary Leff, Author at View from the Wing

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 »

United Airlines Matches Varig — or Most Airline — Status

by Gary Leff on February 26, 2007

Feb 26 2007

Continuing my kick of linking to just about anything Upgrade: Travel Better has to say, Mark points to the Star Alliance offer to match status held with Varig. Varig went bankrupt and lost its membership the Star Alliance, so other Star Alliance members are jockeying to pick up the elite frequent flyers in the now-defunct Varig “Smiles” program. The Star Alliance webpage lists the different status match programs that are available to Smiles members until April 30, 2007. Air Canada, Lufthansa, South African, Swiss, and TAP are all granting status matches to Varig’s elites. BUT: United goes one further. Their rules doesn’t specify that the status match is only open to Varig flyers, either on the Star Alliance site or on their own page. So this is where it gets interesting. This is a good…

More on Credit Card Rental Car Insurance Coverage

by Gary Leff on February 26, 2007

Mark Ashley writes about rental car companies’ hard sells for collision damage waiver, the extra “insurance” (it isn’t insurance, it’s a payment so they don’t pursue you in case of physical damage to their vehicle) that drives commissions with many of the lower-end rental agencies. Here he discusses Advantage, my own experience is that the pushiest sales agents are with Enterprise. I’ve gotten stories like “What’s your deductible? You know that if there’s damage to the car you have to pay the deductible, in cash, when you return the vehicle. That’s California law.” It’s interesting that these rental car agents are such experts in law. Ashley points to the claim that credit cards which offer insurance won’t cover ‘loss of use.’ That’s the charge rental companies tack-on to make you pay rental charges on the…

Nominated for the Trevvies

by Gary Leff on February 25, 2007

The polls in Upgrade Travel blog‘s Trevvie Awards for best travel blogs are now open. Voting is here and opening through the evening of February 28. While I don’t expect to finsih particularly well, I am nominated in the category of BEST INFORMATIVE/PRACTICAL TRAVEL BLOG. So vote for me if you wish. Or not. But you can discover some new blogs you may not have been aware of in the process either way.

Delaying the USAirways Reservation System Changeover?

by Gary Leff on February 25, 2007

Feb 25 2007

I’m flying USAirways next weekend and was a bit apprehensive, because that’s supposedly when the airline cuts over from Sabre to Shares (and more specifically, to the America West implemention of Shares called Qik). A Customer Service Director for a USAirways call center details some of the difficulties that the switchover is going to cause in a thread on Flyertalk. It looks like the transition may be delayed because of a data error compromising the privacy of some frequent flyer members. It doesn’t appear to be a widespread problem, but it’s changed the priorities for their programmers. ”We’ve got our entire development team, which is supposed to be working hard on migrating our systems, pulled off and working on this,” Danziger said Friday. “And they are hoping they will have a solution to make an…

Hotel Key Cards and Personal Data

by Gary Leff on February 25, 2007

Kitty Bean Yancey addresses the myth that hotel keycards irresponsibly contain personal information, that you should never leave them behind. This has never been on my list of worries. I deal with giving my credit card information to low-paid clerks all the time. My personal information is available to a tremendous number of data center customer service reps. And there’s no such thing as privacy anymore, in any case. The real key is how you deal with situations — checking your own financial information on a regular basis, disputing inaccurate charges, etc. But the hotel key card thing, it just isn’t so.

Alaska Airlines Introduces One-Way Awards

by Gary Leff on February 18, 2007

Feb 18 2007

Alaska Mileage Plan is now offering one way awards at half the mileage of a roundtrip. This even applies to ‘award sale’ destinations, e.g. one-way San Francisco to Puerta Vallarta currently runs 7500 miles (subject to award space availability). This also means that “split awards” are now possible — used to be that award space needed to be open in both directions to get an award at the standard mileage price, if it was unavailable one-way you’d need to book at double the miles. Now you just book two one-ways, one at the standard price and one at the higher rule-buster price, in order to do a split award. (Their technology doesn’t seem to automate the pricing and you do need to do two separate awards if you want this option.). As always, more choices…

1000 Bonus Miles on Your Next United Roundtrip

by Gary Leff on February 18, 2007

Feb 18 2007

United is offering 1000 miles for a roundtrip costing $350 or more domestically ($700 or more internationally) through May 15. Earn 1,000 bonus miles when you register, then purchase and fly qualifying roundtrip travel in the amount of at least $350 domestic, or at least $700 international,** anywhere United, United Express®, or Ted(SM) flies between February 16 and May 15, 2007. Registration is required.

Delta Skymiles Head Posts to Flyertalk

by Gary Leff on February 9, 2007

Feb 09 2007

Jeff Robertson, who runs the Delta Skymiles program, is now participating regularly on Flyertalk. He’s only made six posts so far, but they’re excellent. By excellent I mean that he avoids the usual marketing speak. Explaining the change to Delta’s mileage expiration policy, he actually says [R]egardless of how “loyal” someone may be to us, anyone who hasn’t had activity with Delta in anyway in the last two years, is not all that valuable to us. Of course, I disagree harshly with Jeff’s assessment (not about the value proposition of customers hurt by mileage expiration, he has better access to the numbers than I do). Making the change essentially retroactive is inherently dishonest. This is a company that years ago advertised during the superbowl that their miles would never expire. Perhaps they now find they…

Two American Airlines International Upgrades

by Gary Leff on February 9, 2007

Feb 09 2007

The Upgrade: Travel Better blog discusses American’s discounted business fares that include upgrades to 3-cabin first class. Meanwhile, American is launching non-stop service from Chicago to Shannon, Ireland using domestic configured aircraft. As with their existing Boston to Manchester, England flights, they’ll use a Boeing 757 with 22 domestic first class seats. Only thing is they’re selling only coach for these flights, and providing coach service. But American and Oneworld elites can reserve these seats like any other. Not a great international upgrade, but better than coach, much like the Premium Economy products offered by international carriers.

500 South African Airways Miles

by Gary Leff on February 7, 2007

Feb 07 2007

The South African Airways Voyager program is offering 500 free miles to promote voting in the Freddie Awards. Since Freddies voting ends February 28, I imagine this offer will as well.

	Bilt Mastercard® Earn Points Paying Rent (up to 100,000 each year) plus earn 3x at restaurants; 2x on travel; as long as you make at least 5 purchases per month. No annual fee.
	Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card Earn 75,000 bonus miles when you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months (See rates and fees)
	Citi® / AAdvantage Business^TM World Elite Mastercard® For a limited time, earn 75,000 American Airlines AAdvantage® bonus miles after spending $5,000 in purchases within the first 5 months of account opening. AAdvantage miles are the currency I've redeemed most.[See rates and fees]

About Gary Leff

Top Posts & Pages

About Gary Leff