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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Be Careful Redeeming American Airlines Miles: Price Goes Up After You Put Award On Hold

by Gary Leff

Jul 22 2023

American Airlines has had technical issues when AAdvantage members put frequent flyer mile award travel on hold, sometimes only holding a reservation for three days instead of the five days promised under their policy. There’s another glitch members are dealing with, and it’s costing them more miles if they don’t pay attention.

Many customers are reporting that when they put an award ticket on hold the flights are stored, but the price quoted doesn’t stick. Here’s one example where a single traveler was asked to pay an additional 122,000 miles:

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Passengers Didn’t Get Breakfast On British Airways Flight For A Strange Reason

by Gary Leff

Jul 21 2023

Normally when passengers don’t receive their meals it’s because of a catering issue. And it’s limited to a few passengers. Maybe they didn’t get their special meal choice, or their first choice wasn’t loaded. If it’s United Airlines, maybe they just ran out of food. But British Airways flight 56 on July 20 may have had the most surprising reason I’ve seen for passengers not to get fed on a long haul flight: the crew rest seats were broken. What does that have to do with feeding passengers, especially since it doesn’t appear that there was trouble catering the aircraft? Crew on an 11 hour flight get rest breaks. Normally on a widebody aircraft they get time in the crew rest area. But if those seats are unavailable they’ll assign business class seats for this…

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4 Reasons American Airlines Is Headed For A Disastrous Third Quarter

by Gary Leff

Jul 21 2023

J.P. Morgan’s Jamie Baker points out that American Airlines has provided guidance that their third quarter operating margin will decline by over 700 basis points, and that American hasn’t done this poorly outside of Covid in the last thirteen years – and they’re guiding to performance over 800 basis points worse than Delta. And they don’t explain what’s going on.

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United Airlines Flight Diverts When Coach Passenger Wouldn’t Stay Out Of Business Class

by Gary Leff

airplane seats
Jul 21 2023

United Airlines flight 871 from San Francisco to Taipei diverted and returned back to the U.S. on Thursday when a coach passenger refused to stay in their cabin. They kept going up into business class, and refused to stay in their seat. In grist for inequality commentators everywhere, two hours into the thirteen hour flight, the captain made the decision to turn back.

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Should You Unbuckle Your Seat Belt Before the Plane Comes to a Complete Stop?

by Gary Leff

airline cabin
Jul 20 2023

After your flight lands you’re supposed to keep your seat belt buckled until the pilot parks at the gate and turns off the seat belt sign. Although if you’ve been on any commercial flight in the past decade you know that’s not what happens.

At the very latest once the plane stops (you might still not be at the gate, and will move again) passengers start to take off their seat belts, gather their belongings and sometimes even make their way into the aisle.

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