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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New Status Match Concierge Service Gets You Elite Status Approved Quickly

Aug 10 2021

This new site is a status match concierge service for customers. So far it’s just airlines but in the next few weeks they’ll add hotel programs and eventually cruise lines, casinos, and car rentals (the need here is to get agreements into place).

A lot of airlines would do status matches if they had a formal process for it. Instead customers make unprompted asks to programs and get ignored or rejected. And they have contracts or relationships with several airlines.

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Southwest “Karen And Karen 2.0” Booted Off Flight For Demanding Aisle Seats On Full Flight

Aug 09 2021

Two women on a delayed July 15 Southwest Airlines flight from Sacramento to San Diego have been dubbed “Karen and Karen 2.0” after boarding late onto the aircraft and screaming at passengers that they should move so that the mother and daughter duo could sit together with an aisle.

The two hour delay turned into a three hour delay, with the rest of the flight’s beleaguered passengers applauding the women being escorted off the aircraft as a consequence of their flight privilege.

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How To Keep Air France KLM Miles From Expiring (What The Program Rules Don’t Tell You)

air france plane
Aug 09 2021

I recently wrote about my reasons for not transferring points speculative into Air France KLM’s Flying Blue program – even when there’s a great bonus to do so – I explained that it’s because of their expiration policy.

What I failed to point out is that the official policy isn’t always enforced, in fact I was able to extend my miles by two years without taking a flight or putting a charge on their credit card.

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Passengers Revolt, Get Racist Flight Attendants Kicked Off Flight

Aug 09 2021

Two men ‘huffed’ at a flight attendant when asked to put on their shoes for the plane’s takeoff as the aircraft taxied out. The crewmember appears to have escalated the encounter, and asked the pilot to head back to the gate – where police were called and armed officers entered the aircraft to remove the men who were described as “disobedient.”

Video of the incident shows other passengers objecting to what was going down. You can hear “don’t get off” and “sit down.” The men were allowed to stay, and the flight attendants were taken off.

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