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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Complimentary Starwood Gold Status

Sign up for a new Starwood account using this link and enter your Northwest frequent flyer number and email address. Your account will start off with Gold status.One caveat: the promotion specifies that the new account be designated for ‘airline direct deposit’ so any Starwood points accrued from hotel stays would be immediately sent over to your Northwest Airlines frequent flyer account rather than your Starwood account — but if you don’t want this option, it should be simple enough to call Starwood and ask them to end airline direct deposit. The offer also specifies that it is for Northwest Airlines elite members but in practice it should not matter.Update: This offer appears to be targeted and may not work for everyone.

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W Hotels vs. George W. Bush: Who’s the Real W?

Starwood Hotels and Resorts has fired off legal letters to political merchandisers, demanding that they remove the “W” from Bush memorabilia that they’re selling such as W hats, W t-shirts, and other such apparel. They claim such memorabilia erods the brand value of its W hotels. Eugene Volokh has been on a roll outlining the legal issues surrounding trademark and copyright (such as here on the use of corporate logos in film and here on copyright and forwarding messages from email lists). I’ll be interested to see if he’ll comment on this issue. I imagine they’d have a case if merchandisers simply appropriated the same “W” graphic used by W hotels and argued that it ‘really’ applied to Bush. But as long as the W is different (how different?) Bush partisans must be able to…

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$129 at the W Seattle

There’s a great $129 rate available for the W Seattle valid Thursday through Sunday through the end of November. Thursday stays at this rate require Friday stays as well, and Sunday stays at this rate require staying the previous night also. Reservations must be made by August 11th, but are fully cancellable.Since it’s a regular rate available at the Starwood website, full elite benefits and points-earning apply.

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Which Airlines Are Easiest To For Frequent Flyer Award Redemption?

The August issue of Inside Flyer (subscription required) ran a cover story on award redemption, testing a variety of awards over several different timeframes to figure out which programs offered the best award redemption. USA Today offered a snapshot of the investigation’s results. The test involved booking travel on several popular routes one week, one month, three months and 11 months in advance. The result: Testers got free seats on the routes and days requested 73% of the time. For award seats in business class, which require more miles, the success rate was 54%. …Overall, Delta’s SkyMiles frequent-flier program was the top performer, rendering free seats on the desired route and day 85% of the time. American’s AAdvantage program placed second at 80%, followed by United’s Mileage Plus at 79%, US Airways’ Dividend Miles at…

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Starwood Cash & Points Award

Starwood’s last round of cash and points awards expired, but a new set are now available for stays through November 30th and it appears as though there’s an increase in the number of properties participating. The value can be illustrated with a single example: instead of 10,000 points for a night at a ‘categoy four’ hotel (such as the Westin in the Bahamas or the W in Mexico City), the cash and points award gives you that same property for $60 and 4,000 points. Put another way, you’re buying back your points at only one cent apiece. Since I generally consider a Starwood point to be the most valuable hotel or airline currency out there, this is an exceptional value. Not all Starwood properties participate in this promotion. Many do not. But it’s worth checking…

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Starwood Cash & Points Award

Starwood’s last round of cash and points awards expired, but a new set are now available for stays through November 30th and it appears as though there’s an increase in the number of properties participating. The value can be illustrated with a single example: instead of 10,000 points for a night at a ‘categoy four’ hotel (such as the Westin in the Bahamas or the W in Mexico City), the cash and points award gives you that same property for $60 and 4,000 points. Put another way, you’re buying back your points at only one cent apiece. Since I generally consider a Starwood point to be the most valuable hotel or airline currency out there, this is an exceptional value. Not all Starwood properties participate in this promotion. Many do not. But it’s worth checking…

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Starwood Cash & Points Award

Starwood’s last round of cash and points awards expired, but a new set are now available for stays through November 30th and it appears as though there’s an increase in the number of properties participating. The value can be illustrated with a single example: instead of 10,000 points for a night at a ‘categoy four’ hotel (such as the Westin in the Bahamas or the W in Mexico City), the cash and points award gives you that same property for $60 and 4,000 points. Put another way, you’re buying back your points at only one cent apiece. Since I generally consider a Starwood point to be the most valuable hotel or airline currency out there, this is an exceptional value. Not all Starwood properties participate in this promotion. Many do not. But it’s worth checking…

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