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 »

United is closing

United is closing all City Ticket Offices as of January 28th and converting several cities to United Express-only service: Eugene, Ore.; Medford, Ore.; Cedar Rapids, Iowa; White Plains, N.Y.; and Syracuse, N.Y.

Continue Reading »

List of airports

List of airports where a boarding pass is required to get through security; that is, where a printed reservation/e-ticket document is not enough, so you have to check in out in front of the terminal or on-line rather than at the gate.

Continue Reading »

The TSA (also known as

The TSA (also known as (T)housands (S)tanding (A)round and (T)remendously (S)wollen (A)gency) has grown alot since it was formed after 9/11. Congress set it on a rapid growth path, but capped its growth at 45,000 employees. So how did the TSA grow to 64,000 employees? They circumvented the cap by hiring employees under 5-year “temporary full-time” contracts.

Continue Reading »

Woman gets $30,000

Woman gets $30,000 for refusing to wear pants. Gotta love those EEOC consent decrees. Brinks security hired her back, accomodated her preferences, and still has to pay damages.

Continue Reading »

Hilton website hacks. Hilton doesn’t

Hilton website hacks. Hilton doesn’t currently offer award redemption online, or does it? (Thanks to djohannw from Flyertalk.) Go to any Hilton hotel you want to book an award stay at and select “Book a room.” When the main reservation page comes up where you select dates and preferences, add the following text to the URL in your browser’s adress line: &spec_plan_desc=HHonors+Redemption&spec_plan=HH Press return to reload that page. You now will see the same page as before with a checked field “HHonors Redemption”. Now enter your requested dates and click on “Next.” On the rates page, you will now see the HHonors certificate rate if the hotel has award rooms available. The rate description for that looks as follows: HHONORS REDEMPTION (HH) BOOKABLE BY HHONORS MEMBERS WITH A VALD CERT Plan Description: HHONORS REDEMPTION BOOKABLE…

Continue Reading »

New USAirways members

New USAirways members earn 2,500 or 5,000 miles with their first flight. I’ve posted this before — but I just realized it expires December 31, 2003 and I thought it expired at the end of 2002.

Continue Reading »