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 »

More articles by Gary Leff »

Earn Double Hyatt Points At MGM Resorts In Las Vegas Through October 15

by Gary Leff

mandalay bay
Jul 13 2022

there’s good value here. It presaged the Hyatt-SLH partnership, and offers the opportunity to credit cheap Las Vegas midweek stays for elite status. I also hope this promotion drives a lot of business to MGM since I’ve heard rumblings out of MGM that they’ve been somewhat ambivalent about the partnership.

Of course Hyatt will be gaining a bigger foothold in Vegas in its own right, bringing multiple brands to prime real estate as part of the renovation and rebranding of the old 2500-room Rio.

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Delta’s Operational Problems Are All Because They Tried Too Hard For Customers

by Gary Leff

Jul 13 2022

Delta just cares about its customers so darned much and wanted to fly them when they were interested in travel again so the airline ‘stretched’ and pushed themselves too darned hard. Now they need to give themselves a break, not hold themselves to the same standard of flying so many trips, in order to sort things out.

Here Bastian is just like the job candidate who answers the question, “what’s your greatest weakness?” with “I work too hard, and don’t focus enough on outside interests.”

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Quickest Way To Business Class Awards To Europe Now, One Card And Strong Award Availability

by Gary Leff

turkish airlines plane
Jul 13 2022

Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles is most known among frequent flyer aficionados for its inexpensive redemptions on United flights. For instance first class to the Caribbean or Hawaii is just 12,500 miles one-way on United when redeeming Turkish miles. However Turkish is so much more than this. They charge comparably few miles and offer more award space to those using their miles than is offered to partner programs.

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American Airlines Companion Upgrades Are Free Starting Thursday

by Gary Leff

economy seats
Jul 12 2022

American Airlines makes companion upgrades free starting Thursday. That’s officially the end of 500 mile electronic upgrades (‘stickers’).

If you have any 500 mile upgrades left in your account they’ll each be converted to 250 status-qualifying Loyalty Points. However if you have any purchased 500 mile upgrades in your account you should contact American and ask to have them converted to 5000 redeemable miles instead.

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Book NOW, Soon Upgrades Won’t Clear To London Heathrow-And You May Not Be Able To Buy Tickets

by Gary Leff

Jul 12 2022

London Heathrow airport is capping passenger volumes at 100,000 per day through September 11, against an average of 104,000 passengers at the airport. Peak travel days exceed this number. In fact during summer 2019 volumes regularly exceeded 200,000 passengers per day, and the airport set a record above 260,000 in August 2019. The airport has asked airlines to suspend ticket sales to accommodate these limits.

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Virgin Introduces New Business Class Seat, Debuting Across The Atlantic This Fall

by Gary Leff

Jul 12 2022

In spring 2019 Virgin Atlantic unveiled a new business class product that would debut on the airline’s new Airbus A350 aircraft. It was a leap forward compared to their existing seat, but hardly revolutionary, and lacked doors.

Now Virgin has unveiled yet another new business seat which will debut on Airbus A330s. They have 16 A330-900s on order, and 3 of them are expected to be delivered between September and the end of the year. With a narrower fuselage than he A350, their old new seat wouldn’t fit and they needed another.

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