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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Avis for half

In a comment on this post, I was asked how I “managed to get my rental car from Avis for half their lowest web rate and for 25% less than my reservation with Thrifty” when I was in Colorado Springs for the Freddie Awards. Simple story, really. When I checked pricing for a one-day rental in Colorado Springs, Avis and Hertz were showing ~ $40. Thrifty was ~ $28. Since Thrifty was cheaper, and they offer 1000 America West miles even on a one day rental, I went with Thrifty — even though they’re off airport. When I arrived at Colorado Springs I didn’t feel like waiting for a shuttle bus to take me to the rental lot. I wanted to get going right away. So I walked up to the Avis counter and naively…

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But they’re keeping the hammer and sickle

Aeroflot has hired a marketing firm to help it develop a new image. One of their efforts is friendlier flight attendants (perhaps they should take lessons from Flight Club Airlines). Of course they have a big hurdle to overcome: While the airline has had a good safety record in recent years, memories of a series of crashes and near-misses in the early 1990s, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, are still fresh in many people’s minds. During that period, crews regularly took on extra passengers for cash, resulting in dangerously overloaded planes. In the most notorious accident in 1994, a pilot allowed his son to sit at the controls, causing a plane to crash in Siberia, killing 75 people.

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Who’s watching the watchers?

Two TSA security screeners got into a fight with each other on Saturday at Baltimore Washington International Airport. They then assaulted the police officers trying to break up the fight. But they’re there for our protection, and we shouldn’t feel intimidated if we have nothing to hide.

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When the price isn’t the price

Rental car prices are advertised far lower than consumers ultimately pay because of a wide variety of add-on taxes, surcharges, and fees and Ed Perkins is outraged. Adding taxes (of all sorts!) onto the price is pretty standard, but rental car companies seem to be making up their own add-ons for no other reason than to obfuscate the real price of their car and attract consumers by advertising prices lower than they’re really offering.

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But isn’t that the very IDEA of a hotel?

In defending itself against a lawsuit where a guest claims to have gotten crabs from his hotel room, the Quality Inn in Hampton, Virginia claims there is no “implied warranty under Virginia law running from a hotel owner or operator to a guest warranting that the premises are ‘fit for human habitation, would be clean and sanitary, and would be suitable for occupancy.’” You’d think that if there was any obligation at all, it would be just that . . .

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First Thai, Now Breakfast Cereal: Another Miles Snafu

At first I was excited to receive an email saying that I had won 25,000 American Airlines miles from Kellogg’s. Then I started hearing that everyone else had gotten the same email. Turns out that several thousand people got the same email by mistake. Kellogg’s plans to make good by handing out 500 miles to everyone who got the email by mistake.

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