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 »

New No Annual Fee, 50,000 Point Offer for Frontier Mastercard

by Gary Leff

frontier plane docked
May 03 2021

Frontier Airlines won’t offer you business class award tickets to the Seychelles. But if you live in a Frontier Airlines city, and you’re reasonably likely to fly them, the credit card can be a great deal because every purchase on the card counts towards elite status with $1 of spend earning 1 elite qualifying mile.

And Frontier’s elite program offers real benefits – top tier 100,000 mile flyers see no fees at all, which is impressive with a fee-based ultra-low cost carrier.

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Boy Dives Onto Baggage Conveyor Belt While Family Checks In Luggage, No One Realizes He’s Gone

by Gary Leff

May 02 2021

A 9 year old boy got caught up in the inner workings of the Minneapolis St. Paul airport baggage system on Saturday but after nearly 5 minutes inside wound up unscathed.

About 20 people were checking in baggage together for a trip when the child “dove onto the bag belt as it left the ticketing lobby to go down into where all the conveyors separate the bags to wherever they’re going to go to the proper airplane.”

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Southwest Passengers Broke Out In Dance On The Jet Bridge – And The Crew Joined In

by Gary Leff

May 02 2021

Passengers broke out in dance on the jet bridge of a Southwest Airlines flight and “got the pilot and the attendant to dance” too. The video has been viewed nearly a million times since yesterday and commenters seem to love most that the pilot, who didn’t know the moves, tried his best to step into it.

On the return trip home this group hit the airport dance floor while waiting for their flight, too.

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Leukemia Is About To Cost This Reader A Huge Mileage Balance

by Gary Leff

british tail plane
May 02 2021

If you’re an American AAdvantage member and you’re Under 21, your miles don’t expire. If you’re a United, Southwest, Delta, Hawaiian or JetBlue member your miles don’t expire.

But if you’re a lifetime elite member of American AAdvantage, having accumulated over 2 million miles, you have to stay on the treadmill of either earning or burning points every 18 months to avoid losing all your accumulated points.

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Ex-Airline CEO Faces Huge Fine For Skipping Mandatory Hotel Quarantine

by Gary Leff

airplane docked
May 02 2021

James Hogan, founding CEO of Etihad, was bounced from that carrier in 2017 after buying stakes in troubled airlines around the world and mounting losses that reached as high as $2 billion a year. These investments included stakes in air berlin, Alitalia, Jet Airways and Virgin Australia.

The dual Australian and U.K. citizen is accused of using his two passports, and flying to the U.K. via a third country, in a scheme to avoid mandatory quarantine – and now it’s believed he may have done it before, too.

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How to Look Like an Idiot Trying to Upgrade to First Class

by Gary Leff

upgrade shirt
May 01 2021

Travel & Leisure is promoting dressing up so you look like someone airlines want to upgrade. That doesn’t work, but reminds me of an equally silly claim in Bloomberg that there’s two magic words that work every time that do not work at all.

These are great examples of the genre of travel writing that claim you can fly first class just by pretending it’s your honeymoon. I prefer equally silly — and equally effective — suggestions that might be a little more fun.

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Court Rules “Too Hot To Handle” Stars Must Pay $800+ To Each Flight Attendant He Abused Inflight

by Gary Leff

May 01 2021

Three passengers on the February 7, 2021 British Airways Miami – London Heathrow flight have been fined for their behavior on board – and the court ruled they must even compensate the flight attendants they abused.

Enroute back from Turks & Caicos where they had been filming the Netflix reality show “Too Hot To Handle,” the group was tossing back margaritas in the airport. Then on board two members of the group were “kissing and behaving intimately.” And since face masks would get in the way, they wouldn’t wear those either. Things went downhill from there.

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Confidence In Return To Travel: We Do It By Doing It

by Gary Leff

May 01 2021

The first time back is a little weird at first, but it’s not something that really lingers. You get over the strangeness of it all by doing it. One trip back and you’re an expert at it again.

What does go a long way is a welcome and kind confidence from employees. It makes you feel like they’ve been there, they’re fine, and they know this is all going to be ok.

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