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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Rich Anti-Vaxxer Offers Passengers $100 – $100,000 To Take Off Their Masks Inflight

Mar 11 2023

Serial entrepreneur Steve Kirsch, who co-invented the optical computer mouse in 1980, has developed a real hatred for mask-wearing. It isn’t just that he doesn’t want to wear one. He doesn’t want anyone else to, either. When he flies, he offers other passengers money to take theirs off.

And he has a lot of money. He founded an internet search company in the 90s that he sold to Disney, and built several other companies including a anti-spam provider. So he thinks nothing of starting out with an offer of $100, and going up from there.

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How To Get People To Stop Talking To You On Planes And In Hotel Bars

Mar 10 2023

Your seat opponent starts chatting away, and you’re tired and just want to rest, or you want to work. You’re not up for a conversation, don’t really care about their kids or that their monthly flights and co-brand credit card shows how much they know about the airline and its loyalty program.

So you put on noise cancelling headphones but that doesn’t quite do the trick. Sure, you opt for over the ear rather than ear buds just to make it more blindingly obvious yet somehow it isn’t. You also look down at your phone, which is a universal sign for ‘I’m not paying attention to you.’ But maybe it’s not so universal?

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