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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Subscription pitch!

by Gary Leff

rssfeed
Jan 01 2005

Don’t worry, it’s free… Sign up to receive each day’s content by email. Just enter your email address underneath my picture at right and each day’s entries will be sent to you overnight. I’ve never used the email list for any other purpose, so you don’t need to worry about spam either. It’s a great way to keep up with the latest deals. Another way is to subscribe to my RSS feed: http://blogs.flyertalk.com/viewwing/index.rdf (You can even get it on your mobile phone at http://www.winksite.com/gleff/blog)

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Free the First Year American Express Platinum

by Gary Leff

amex
Jan 01 2005

Now that banks are able to issue American Express cards, some interesting offers may be coming down the pike. The first one that I’ve noticed is from MBNA, which is offering the American Express Platinum card free the first year and $195 after that. The card comes with MBNA Worldpoints as its rewards program rather than Membership Rewards. As far as proprietary rewards programs go, this one is pretty good but I still don’t like it as much as the various airline and hotel programs. So I wouldn’t put much spending on the card. Instead, I’d use the card for its benefits like airline lounge access. Amex Platinum cards come with access to Delta, Continental, and Northwest lounges when flying on the respective airline. The Platinum card is usually more expensive than straight lounge access,…

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Donate Miles in Addition to Money

by Gary Leff

tsunami
Jan 01 2005

Here’s an updated list on how to donate miles for tsunami relief efforts in Southeast Asia. Not everyone can spare tons of cash, that’s certainly understandable although in times of severe crisis I hope that folks will dig as deep as possible. But those of us with even a small amount of spare frequent flyer miles — possibly not even enough to use for free tickets — can help provide free travel for relief efforts. While minimum donations vary by program, in some cases you can give as few as 1000 or 5000 miles. You may have this laying around in an otherwise-forgotten account. These miles might even expire on their own, going to waste. But you can do some good with them. And since most frequent flyer programs keep accounts active with any activity…

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The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly… Or an Update on Correspondence About Free Electronics

by Gary Leff

free electronics
Jan 01 2005

Regular readers of this site are familiar with the free electronics offers from Gratis Internet. I’ve received several items myself, several readers have, and I’ve seen boxes arriving at my office for colleagues. Free Game System. Free designer handbag Free photo iPod. Free iPod. Free flatscreen TV. Free desktop computer But not everyone has had a perfect experience, so I wanted to note that as well as offer advice on dealing with bumps in the road to getting these items. Reader Gail took great umbrage at my discussing the Gratis Internet offers. I don’t mind that you say they are legitimate and that you have received your items. I do think it is unethical for you to avoid noting that at least one person – me – has been unsuccessful in receiving credit for completing…

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Gutting another Rewards Program — Dining for Miles Becomes Just Another Program

by Gary Leff

dining
Dec 31 2004

Rewards Network’s Dining for Miles programs are being revamped, a.k.a. gutted. You may know the program as iDine (what I’ll always call it), and its precursor was Transmedia — the old program where you paid to sign up and had a membership card which you needed to present at restaurants for a cash discount. The program awards frequent flyer miles in the program of your choosing when dining at a participating restaurant. Traditionally the award was 10 miles per dollar, although increasingly of late some restaurants only offered 5 miles per dollar spent and some restaurants gave miles only on certain days of the week. Now comes the announcement that earning in the program is being changed dramatically. Instead of a default of 10 miles per dollar (plus frequent bonuses), most members will only earn…

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An end to the Amtrak-United Partnership

by Gary Leff

The Amtrak/United partnership has ended, apparently effective immediately. It used to be possible to transfer Amtrak points to United miles at a 1:1 ratio, up to 25,000 points per year (50,000 points for Amtrak elite members). That option is apparently gone, removed sometime in the past 48 hours, with no notice whatsoever. This is a real blow to the value of the Amtrak program for several reasons. I used to recommend the Amtrak Mastercard as the best free points-earning credit card. It had several benefits: Obviously, it was free Points could be transferred to United, Midwest, Continental and Hilton It’s issued by MBNA, so the foreign currency conversion charge is only 1% (rather than 3% for most issuers) In fact, it was a better way for most people to earn United miles than the United…

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Bonus miles for filing taxes

by Gary Leff

delta-airline-plane
Dec 30 2004

American Express OnlineTax is offering 1000 Delta miles for using their online tax filing service from January 1 to April 15. $34.95 buys filing of your federal and state returns, which is somewhat higher than other online services I’ve seen and likely higher than the after-rebate price of some software packages.

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