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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This San Francisco

This San Francisco Chronicle article describes the general trend of cutbacks by the major airlines that I’ve been talking about for the last several days.

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This morning’s Washington Post carries

This morning’s Washington Post carries a column by Jackson Diehl that details the $25 million that the US Agency for International Development is giving to Egypt this year for democracy promotion. The U.S. has given Egypt the right to review and veto any of the projects. The US is funding “democracy” projects that a non-democratic government approves of. Most of the funds are going to the country’s courts which “used to throw democracy advocates in prison.” Moreover, “not a dollar is going to the independent Egyptian groups that, at great risk, are trying to advocate democratic reforms for Mubarak’s rotting autocracy.” It’s not only that the huge AID bureaucracy in Cairo chooses to ignore the fact that the courts it is funding in the name of democracy are being used to destroy Egypt’s most important…

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Laundering points through Amtrak. Need

Laundering points through Amtrak. Need to top off your United Mileage Plus account? Did you know you can transfer Continental and Midwest Express miles into United miles, 1:1? They don’t advertise it this way, but here’s how it works. Open an Amtrak Guest Rewards account. You can transfer Midwest Express miles and Continental miles into your Amtrak account. You can then transfer these Amtrak points into United miles. This all should be done in 5000 point increments. You can also transfer Continental —> Amtrak –> Midwest Express. However, you can not transfer United –> Amtrak, so you can’t turn your United miles into Continental or Midwest Express miles. Now is a good time to get rid of any Midwest Express miles you may have. Starting October 1, it will take 25% more miles for a…

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