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 »

Why One Mile At A Time Is Wrong To Excuse The Alaska Airlines Devaluation

airline cabin
Feb 05 2022

The value of a currency is based on trust – how well it will hold value. So it makes me downgrade how much I value an Alaska mile. Although seeing the direction of award pricing with new partners I’ve begun to do that anyway, since they clearly appear to be on a downward trajectory (as I predicted would be the case as part of joining oneworld), and I tend to expect that as bilateral contracts for award redemption get renegotiated we’ll see more increases even for legacy partners

Continue Reading »

Major Ice Storm Cancelled 40% Of American Airlines Flights, But The Lack Of Recovery Is On Them

Feb 05 2022

Nearly 40% of the American Airlines schedule was cancelled on Friday. Thirty percent of its schedule was cancelled on Saturday. And that shouldn’t come as any surprise. Texas experienced a severe ice storm, and American Airlines is headquartered at Dallas – Fort Worth airport.

The problem isn’t just that they couldn’t take off and land on ice Thursday, or through continued challenging conditions on Friday. It’s that the airline doesn’t recover well.

Continue Reading »

Alaska Airlines Raising Some Award Prices, Effective March 1

airline cabin
Feb 04 2022

Imagine spending 190,000 miles roundtrip just to fly Alaska Airlines!

The cost of first class awards on Alaska Airlines flights may in some cases be 37% higher on March 1 than they are today and throughout the month of February. So if you redeem Alaska Airlines miles for Alaska Airlines travel in first class, potentially paying more than the lowest published mileage price for the flexibility of choosing your day of travel and preferred flight, you’ll want to do so now. Here’s what concerns me most, though —

Continue Reading »

The One Thing Stopping The Biden Administration From Lifting Air Travel Mask Mandate

Feb 04 2022

There’s a chance that restrictions get lifted but the Omicron wave turns out not to be the last gasp of the virus. That would make it thinkable that restrictions could make sense again. But the political calculus is that looks like the administration ‘made a mistake.’ And this administration’s fear of appearing to make an error is balancing out its need to declare victory. And that could delay lifting the transportation mask mandate.

Continue Reading »