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 »

Flight Attendant Is Suing Southwest Airlines For Killing Her Husband

by Gary Leff

Apr 28 2021

It’s amazing that lawsuits over Covid-19 haven’t been nearly as significant as feared. At one point Covid-19 legislation was being held up in Congress over disagreements about including lawsuit immunity for employers (predictably Republicans favored this on behalf of business, and Democrats opposed on behalf of trial lawyers).

Yet there’s a new lawsuit by a Southwest Airlines flight attendant who says she contracted Covid-19 during recurrent training, gave it to her husband, and he died.

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Real Estate Agents Now Advertise At Airport Gates, Will Give You Hundreds Of Thousands Of Miles

by Gary Leff

Apr 28 2021

The real estate market is hot in many areas of the U.S., and mortgage rates remain low by historical standards. Real estate agents will pay for their next lead, and lead generators will rebate part of that payment to you in the form of airline miles. It’s potentially win-win-win.

And in a sign of the times not only can you earn miles buying or selling a house (or both!) but there are now ads for American AAdvantage partner Miles From Home Realty running at American Airlines gates across 75 airports.

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If You Don’t Mind American’s New Domestic Product, Your Standards Are Too Low

by Gary Leff

Apr 27 2021

American’s new domestic coach product is worse than Delta’s. It’s worse than JetBlue’s. It’s worse than Southwest’s. The customer experience just wasn’t a priority. The airline didn’t bother building a cabin mockup before declaring this their standard product and rolling it out. Airline CEO Doug Parker didn’t even try it himself before the decision was made – or even until it was flying for six months.

It has hard seats and less space per passenger, and the airline even took out TVs from the seats.

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Marriott Surveys Top Customers, How Can They Fix The Mess They’ve Made Of Ambassador Elite?

by Gary Leff

Apr 27 2021

Marriott’s top tier 100 night elite status is called Ambassador. The unique selling proposition is supposed to be a dedicated contact who takes care of all the member’s Marriott needs, ensuring a seamless experience.

Only they laid off these agents, and Ambassador members no longer get an Ambassador. Marriott is surveying how these top customers are managing under the new regime.

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With Europe Opening Up, Business Class Is Available For Under $900 Roundtrip This Summer

by Gary Leff

first class seats
Apr 27 2021

Europe plans to open to vaccinated Americans this summer. Greece and Iceland have already done so, but we can expect France, Italy, Spain and others to follow suit.

And with little business travel yet, airlines are selling the front cabin at a real discount in many cases. But there’s an incredible deal right now on United Airlines partner and Star Alliance member TAP Air Portugal which has business class roundtrip fares from several U.S. cities to several points in Europe starting at just $873 roundtrip.

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Domestic Travel Bans Have To Be Really Long To Work, And Can *Increase* Virus Spread

by Gary Leff

Apr 27 2021

We tend to look at the success story countries and extrapolate from them, why can’t the U.S. be like Australia? And of course there are reasons like Australia not having to worry about the virus coming in from abroad in as uncontrolled a fashion since the country is an island. But do travel restrictions inside a country, like we’ve seen in Australia where citizens couldn’t travel between states for much of the pandemic, usually work so well?

A new paper out of the University of Chicago finds that domestic travel bans may be counterproductive for controlling spread of Covid-19.

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Think Business Travel Will Return? American Airlines Isn’t Sending Employees Back To Its Own Office Yet

by Gary Leff

american airlines logo
Apr 26 2021

American Airlines invested hundreds of millions of dollars in a new headquarters, with their old facility bursting at the seams. They’ve since let go of 30% of management staff so don’t need as much space. And those that are left have mostly still working from home.

While they’re re-starting construction on unfinished parts of the new corporate campus, they’re bringing back people gradually, and recognize that some remote work makes sense into the future.

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