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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Continental Draws a Moral Line in the Sand

Via Online Travel Review, Continental Airlines is apparently taking a stand against cockfighting. In response to the realization that it was shipping large numbers of roosters to Guam to provide fodder for the sport (it’s legal in Guam, by the way), the airline will no longer carry any adult poultry on its planes.

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Double Alaska Airlines Miles

Alaska Airlines is offering double miles on your next two flights taken by January 31. Registration is required, and you have to pick a ‘registration code’ that tells them whether you learned of the offer on their website or from Inside Flyer magazine (which is how I learned of it).

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Le Meridien Khao Lak for 60 cents a night or less

The Le Meridien Khao Lak in Phuket, Thailand has an amazing rate right now, pricing rooms in Ugandan Schillings rather than US dollars. Naturally, this was found on Flyertalk. Go to this link. Change promotion code to “z3r” (for a 3 day stay, z5r may work on a 5 night stay, and of course you can line multiple stays up in a row) Change the special rate plan entry to a blank Pick some dates (must be at lease 3 consecutive days with ‘z3r’, most work at least through early September) Click continue. If you get an error, then see #6. On the left side, put in your dates again, scroll down and put “z3r” in the promo field, click search. Sort the available rates from high to low, you should get some rates in…

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Problem with Miles for Cheese

It looks like the company offering miles for cheese may be backing off on its commitment of 500 American Airlines miles per box. The current scuttlebutt on Flyertalk is that the compan didn’t anticipate the response, apparently assumed most codes wouldn’t be redeemed, and didn’t imagine folks buying up large quantities of boxes just for the points (which likely cost the company more than the sale price of the product, let alone their profit margin).Developing… but in the meantime, I wouldn’t go buying up more cheese.

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Triple points at Sheratons in Asia, Australia, and South Pacific

Starwood is offering triple points for stays at Sheraton hotels in Asia, Australia, and the South Pacific from December 1 through February 28, 2007. Registration required.Note that this is a Sheraton-specific promo and not Starwood-wide, so stays at other Starwood Preferred Guest brands like Westin and Luxury Collection don’t offer the bonus points.

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Halfway to an Award Ticket, Just for Signing Up

Southwest is offering 8 Rapid Rewards credits just for signing up as part of their promoting Washington-Dulles service. Join Rapid Rewards and get 8 free credits. All you have to do is enroll by January 31, 2007. That puts you halfway to a free Award (16 credits). Plus, you’ll receive double credit each time you book on southwest.com and fly by January 31, 2007. That means you can fly 2 roundtrips into or out of Dulles and get 1 roundtrip free (it usually takes 8 roundtrips to get 1 free!) to anywhere we fly.

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New Starwod Category 7 Devaluation Confirmed

Last week I passed along that Starwood would be announcing a devaluation of its points by introducing a new higher category for some hotels requiring additional points. Yesterday Starwood Lurker posted on Flyertalk that just such a change is coming. (I assume the announcement was pushed forward because I broke the news here on this blog and on Flyertalk.) Starwood Preferred Guest will be adding a Category 7 to it’s Free Night Award redemption ladder in February 2007. This new category will feature a limited number of hotels which are often unique and have rooms which may not be standard in terms of size, configuration and/or amenities. Free nights at Category 7 hotels will cost 30,000 Starpoints per night in low season and 35,000 Starpoints per night in high season. Please note that where there…

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Air Zimbabwe Cancels its Profitable Route

Online Travel Review points to Air Zimbabwe suspending its only profitable route, Harare to London, over fears that its aircraft would be seized for nonpayment of debts.70% unemployment and 1200% inflation, the country can’t mine its significant resources because it lacks the hard currency to secure replacement parts for its machinery. Lay this at the feet of dictator Robert Mugabe, whose wife has been known to take the national airline’s planes on shopping trips forcing the carrier to cancel passenger flights.

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