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 »

More articles by Gary Leff »

Double BA Miles for Starwood Conversions

It’s really a good idea to read WebFlyer’s Notiflyer regularly. There’s a new one revealing a huge conversion bonus for moving Starwood point into British Airways miles. Through March 31, 2004, Executive Club members who convert Starwood Preferred Guest points into Executive Club miles will be able to do so at a 1:2 rate (one Starpoint converts to two BA miles), double the standard 1:1 conversion rate. What’s more, British Airways will also double the standard 5,000-mile bonus Starwood awards when transferring in 20,000-point increments, meaning a transfer of 20,000 Starpoints, which would normally convert to 25,000 Executive Club miles, will now convert to 50,000 miles. In effect, this calculates to a 150 percent conversion bonus! Before you rush to convert all your Starwood Preferred Guest points, be aware, British Airways has set a limit…

Continue Reading »

Not what you want to hear from your pilot…

An American Airlines pilot, in making remarks to the cabin before taking off from Los Angeles and heading for New York’s Kennedy Airport, asked passengers to identify themselves if they were Christian and suggested that those who weren’t were crazy.Passengers complained, and obviously felt a bit scared of a pilot making religious pronouncements. The pilot then apologized to the crew for putting them in the difficult position of having to respond to complaints.The flight landed safely. (Link via the Volokh Conspiracy.)

Continue Reading »

Slot restrictions and air traffic control

Lynne Kiesling over at The Knowledge Problem relates a tale of woe returning from Washingon’s National airport to Chicago’s O’Hare, and offers some constructive suggestions for pricing takeoff and landing slots to alleviate congestion in addition to noting that pink shoes will be in this spring. Lynne suggests: *Treat the time slot as a property right to a scarce resource, for which airlines must pay. This would enable pricing of 5 PM, 6 PM, etc. time slots to reflect their true value to customers and, through them, to the airline. *If those time slots are really that valuable, then customers would be willing to pay more for flights that land in those hours. Otherwise, they’ll shift to earlier or later flights. This is the most effective mechanism (and yes, it deserves the word) for reducing…

Continue Reading »

For New Readers, All About this Site

Since this website is brought to you in the form of a blog — daily commentary offered with the most recent items first — older items quickly fall off the page. I only display the most recent week’s worth of content at any one time. I like to think, though, that some of the entries retain their value even after the week has passed. And you can still read them — just click on the Archives link or pick one of the entries labeled “Greatest Hits” at the right (under my picture).Don’t want to miss a single deal or offer? Just be sure to enter your email address under Subscribe for Updates and each night you’ll receive an email with the day’s content. And I will never use your email for any other purpose. For…

Continue Reading »

Links are wonderful things

United’s “48 Hour Sale” has been extended for select members. You can click here to be a select member. 🙂You can also click here for 5% off your United flights at United.com. When United’s phone lines are overloaded they offer a 5% discount for folks to use the web instead. The link they use changes each time. But fortunately there’s a permalink.

Continue Reading »