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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Hyatt Regency Sonoma Wine Country Tried To Pull A Fast One On Hyatt And Program Members

Feb 22 2021

The Hyatt Regency Sonoma Wine Country has been playing games with free room night award availability. Most of the time you’ve been able to use Hyatt points for free nights there. However there’s a trick they’ve been using at peak times, like Memorial Day Weekend, to stop people from redeeming. They’ve been pulling a fast one on program members – and Hyatt. Fortunately after I pinged someone at Hyatt, they cracked down in less than 24 hours.

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Southwest Airlines Sued For Denying Early Bird Check-in Then Refusing Refunds

airplane cabin
Feb 21 2021

A customer paid for ‘Early Bird Check-in’ in order to board earlier – their flight was cancelled and they were rebooked on another flight, they didn’t receive the earlier boarding they paid for (they had to buy it again!) or a refund of their early check-in fee.

Naturally Southwest Airlines argues the case can’t be pursued because it’s pre-empted by the Airline Deregulation Act. They lost.

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Thai Airways First Class Golf Carts And Spa Treatments Will Be Missed

Feb 21 2021

Is it wrong to hope that the airline’s rehabilitation plan includes retrofitting existing long haul aircraft with a first class cabin? That’s probably more of a political move (to appease minor royal relatives and generals) than a business one, but I’ve genuinely valued access to their excess inventory through miles and points over the last two decades.

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Police Respond To Passenger Meltdown After Passport And Covid Test Refused At Check-In

Feb 20 2021

Thanks to a year-old partnership, if you want to buy a ticket from American Airlines to go beyond their destinations in Brazil you’ll generally fly to South America on American and connect to your final destination on Gol. One passenger tried to fly Gol to
São Paulo, connecting to American Airlines on an American Airlines ticket, and wound up in a confrontation with police in the middle of Gol’s ticketing office in São Luís.

Gol first insisted the U.S. citizen required a Green Card to travel to the United States, and then that American Airlines had Covid-19 test requirements that differed from the CDC’s. In the end though it was flying on an American Airlines codeshare that really fouled things up.

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Boeing 747 Engine Parts Rain Down On Cars From The Sky

Feb 20 2021

At least two people were injured when a Longtail Aviation Boeing 747-400 freighter rained engine parts down on a village near the end of the Maastricht, Netherlands airport runway.

The plane was headed to New York JFK and had just taken off when the number one engine suffered damage and turbine blades began to fall, damaging cars and hurting people including an elderly woman wo suffered minor injuries.

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