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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Leaked Online: JetBlue’s $499 Credit Card Details New Lounges And Mosaic Perks

lounge
Jan 28 2025

While JetBlue is in severe cost-cutting mode, eliminating cities and routes, dropping hot meals from long haul economy, and scaling back its fleet ambitions, they’re planning to add business class lounges – having gotten Barclays to pay for it.

The new premium JetBlue credit card makes the economics of lounges work for them, and the details were allowed to leak out online.

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Delta’s Atlanta Hub Crushes Rivals with 1.1 Million Seats—200,000 More Than Any Competitor

delta airplanes on tarmac
Jan 27 2025

Delta at ATL and American at DFW tower over everyone else. American is anchored heavily at a few fortress airports. United splits big capacity across several mid-continent hubs. Southwest is ubiquitous rather than reliant on just one or two big operations.

Both Los Angeles and New York JFK see strong competition among multiple airlines, which keeps the numbers for any single carrier below that of a fortress-style hub. JFK is slot-controlled, while LAX is gate-constrained.

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From Home Straight To Plane: Lufthansa’s First-Class Test Could Eliminate Airports Completely

Jan 27 2025

Some airlines around the world cover chauffeur service to and from the airport for business and first class passengers. One of the best used to be Etihad, which – in order to compete against Emirates based an hour away in Dubai – offered to take you anywhere in the U.A.E. when you arrived. They’d drive you to Dubai or Sharjah, and pick you back up there as well. And this even used to be available to passengers traveling on award tickets. Other airlines will offer tarmac transfers from the lounge to the plane and back. Air France does this for La Premiere at Paris Charles de Gaulle. Once clearing dedicated passport control, you drive from Lufthansa’s first class terminal to the plane. After all, you’re in a different terminal from everyone else that’s boarding the…

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