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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United Airlines Change Means They Can Ban Customers Who Complain Too Much About Delays

united plane
Feb 21 2023

United Airlines has added language to its Contract of Carriage to say that they will not honor mistake fares, but that if you book one and incur non-refundable costs as a result they will reimburse those costs.

The airline also now says that booking flights likely to be delayed, and then complaining about the delays for compensation, is grounds to be banned from the MileagePlus frequent flyer program.

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How American Airlines Decides Which Flights To Delay And Cancel During Bad Weather

american plane
Feb 21 2023

During a meeting with pilots last week, American Airlines Chief Operating Officer David Seymour reviewed the carrier’s recent performance from the holidays and February storms, noting that “[Dallas – Forth Worth airport] does not deal with ice that well.” DFW is known colloquially as ‘Doesn’t Function Wet.’

Kendall Lock, American’s Vice President for Airline Operations Technology, reviewed how the new HEAT system works to choose which flights to delay in order to end up cancelling fewer trips.

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USELESS: Delta Now Charges Over 500,000 SkyMiles One Way For Some Economy Travel

Feb 20 2023

If you’ve wanted to get value out of SkyMiles you’ve needed to (1) usually fly coach, and (2) luck out with one of their ‘flash sales’ on domestic routes and travel to the Caribbean.

Even coach travel, though, is no longer reasonable even when it’s seats that are likely to go unsold in coach. They’ve started charging over 500,000 miles one way for some economy partner awards to Asia.

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United’s New Family Seating Policy Helps Customers, Hurts Competitors, And Curries Political Favor

Feb 20 2023

United’s seat map tool seeks out available adjacent seats during the booking process. They’ll use this to make more adjacent seats available, even in more costly coach seats, when children under 12 are part of a booking. A full rollout of the capability will happen by next month.

The airline will also allow free flight change without fare difference when adjacent seats aren’t available prior to travel. Their new policy applies even on basic economy fares.

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As Sam Bankman-Fried’s Legal Chances Dwindle, Even His Travel Is Being Downgraded

Feb 19 2023

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s legal chances are dwindling as he faces charges over billions of dollars in fraud. He’s no longer flying private. He’s no longer even flying lie flat business class from San Francisco back to court hearings in New York. He doesn’t even get to fly into JFK airport.

SBF’s travel has taken a huge hit as the case continues.

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