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 »

American Airlines Has A New Partner In India

by Gary Leff

Sep 28 2021

American Airlines was reluctant to fly to India for years (after dropping its own Chicago – Delhi service) in part because they lacked a partner in the country. After losing its partnership with Jet Airways to Delta, it had no way good way to feed traffic to and from whatever city it flew to.

Now their entire strategy of relying primarily on a limit set of partners has changed, and they’ve acquired a new partner in India to add connectivity for both of the new routes American plans to launch there this year.

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Two Men Netted $550,000 By Claiming Airlines Lost Their Luggage

by Gary Leff

person pulling lugage
Sep 27 2021

When I was a kid growing up in New York, baggage claim checks were required when leaving the airport with your luggage. I used to only see this at New York-area airports. I helped prevent people from picking up the wrong bag, and also prevent someone from intentionally taking a bag that didn’t belong to them. I haven’t seen that process in a U.S. airport in many years, and of course New York isn’t the city that it used to be when Ed Koch was mayor where this really was necessary.

Maybe that would have stopped two men who have been charged with stealing over $550,000 from U.S. airlines by making false lost luggage claims since 2015.

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New York Police Seize Several Vans Being Sold As Lodging on Airbnb

by Gary Leff

Sep 27 2021

On Thursday and Friday New York City executed an operation to seize vehicles being rented out as lodging on Airbnb. The vans were often advertised for around $100, lacked bathroom or shower facilities, and racked up tickets for being illegally parked. Guests would receive keys to get into the vans for sleeping, but those keys didn’t start the engines. The law enforcement operation was dubbed “Operation Room Service.”

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Wow: Free Air Canada Elite Status For U.S. Frequent Flyers

by Gary Leff

lounge
Sep 27 2021

U.S. residents who are airline elite frequent flyers can get free Air Canada Aeroplan elite status for the rest of 2021, and keep that status for the 2022 program with by booking and flying just one roundtrip on Air Canada (or Air Canada Express or Rouge) by January 15, 2022.

This is huge for anyone with elite status and transferable credit card points, or anyone who also flies United.

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Singapore Airlines Brings Back New York-Frankfurt And San Francisco-Hong Kong

by Gary Leff

flight attendants posing
Sep 27 2021

Singapore Airlines will re-start it’s ‘fifth-freedom’ routes between New York and Frankfurt, and between San Francisco and Hong Kong, which each flight continuing on to Singapore.  These flights will return beginning November 2.  This will mean bringing the airline up to about two-thirds of its pre-Covid U.S. flying, and the airline has re-iterated its plan to restart other U.S. services including Seattle – Singapore non-stop and Houston – Manchester – Singapore as well.

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Hilton Doesn’t Want To Provide Housekeeping Anymore. Here’s What That Looks Like.

by Gary Leff

Sep 26 2021

Hilton’s CEO was first out of the gate publicly declaring that guests should no longer receive daily housekeeping at full service hotels in the U.S. as a cost-cutting measure he believed people would accept after the pandemic. The goal is to charge people more, deliver them less, and improve margins.

A guest at the Hilton Brentwood/Nashville Suites shares what that looks like in practice.

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