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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Hotel Apologizes To Honeymooners Because People Could See Into Their Mirrored Sauna

Feb 20 2021

The five star Grand Josun resort in Jeju, South Korea is apologizing for a ‘mistake’ that allowed honeymooners to be seen honeymoooning in their sauna.

The sauna’s windows are coated to prevent seeing in during the day, but that doesn’t prevent people inside from being in full view at night – so blinds are supposed to come down when it’s dark. But they didn’t – and guests didn’t know this needed to happen.

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A Loophole To Avoid Canada’s New Quarantine Requirement

Feb 20 2021

Canadians are used to driving across the border into the U.S. to find cheaper airfare – even to get other places inside Canada. Flying from Canada to Mexico and back to Canada used to be known among frequent flyers as ‘the Mexican Hat Dance’. And the challenge of sky high fares for Canadians may get worse in the future with Air Canada acquiring Transat.

However Canadians have a new reason to make use of U.S. airports: a loophole that allows them to circumvent mandatory quarantine on arrival.

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Say Goodbye To Covid, TSA Is Hiring 6000 Screeners For Big Summer Travel Surge

tsa people singing
Feb 19 2021

The TSA, which manages security at most U.S. airports, is looking to hire 6000 screeners because they “expect to screen a higher number of travelers regularly by the summer months.”

There’s a worry over faster spread from the B.1.1.7 U.K. variant, and reduced effectiveness against vaccines from the South African variant. But there’s real reason for optimism that even with a virus that spreads faster, and even with one that can better evade antibodies, the summer at least should be ‘pretty normal.’

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The Internal Details Of The New American-JetBlue Flights They Didn’t Share In Their Press Release

Feb 19 2021

American and JetBlue announced new flights and are now codesharing out of New York and Boston. But there’s more to the story than has been reported, based on internal documents reviewed by View From The Wing.

Here are details on which routes are open for codesharing, some restrictions involved, and what mileage-earning is possible so far – as well as customer service plans for itineraries involving flights on both airlines.

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WOW: Several US Cities To Brazil Business Class From $470 Roundtrip

first class cabin
Feb 19 2021

I’m going to argue this isn’t a mistake fare, but you can currently fly roundtrip business class to Brazil from $470 roundtrip. Routings to Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo are on American Airlines, with São Paulo about $50 more.

If you want to continue to other Brazilian cities for about $20 more than that, connections beyond São Paulo can be included on American’s partner Gol.

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