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 »

Man Crashes Truck Through A Fence, Scales A Plane Headed To Portland, Slips And Falls Off

by Gary Leff

Dec 13 2020

Alaska Airlines flight 1367 from Las Vegas to Portland departed over 4 hours late on Saturday after a a man drove a truck through the fence at Las Vegas McCarran International Airport and onto the tarmac – and proceeded to climb onto the wing of the Boeing 737-900.

You can see that he doesn’t stop there. He badly wants to scale the winglet. But he struggles, so he tosses his shoes overboard – at police. The man loses his balance and falls off the plane. He’s surrounded by officers and taken into custody.

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Marriott Devalues Points For Home & Villa Stays, Reflecting Broader Bonvoy Points Value Reductions

by Gary Leff

outside marriott hotel
Dec 12 2020

Marriott has devalued Bonvoy points for booking Homes and Villas redemptions. Marriott has a curated competitor to Airbnb, Bonvoy is one of the key selling points against this behemoth competitor with a huge head start in the space. But Marriott has chosen to erode its advantage.

Put another way, given broader devaluations in the program over the past couple of years, Marriott is just playing catchup adjusting down the value of points for homesharing stays.

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Family Reports Their Two Year Old Has Been Banned From United Airlines After Refusing To Keep Mask On

by Gary Leff

Dec 12 2020

A husband and wife who say they are Silver elite members of United’s MileagePlus program report their family has been banned from United Airlines “forever” because their two year old was unwilling to keep a mask on. The child’s mother, a trainer and health coach, shares on Instagram that they ‘always fly United’ and have flown with their child four times during the pandemic without issue. So why now?

Video of the incident has been viewed over 2.3 million times in less than 24 hours.

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Andaz Singapore Testing New Basic Economy Room Rate

by Gary Leff

Dec 12 2020

The Andaz Singapore is taking a page from airline Basic Economy fares, offering a new ‘room only’ rate. When you think of room only, you may assume that it simply excludes breakfast or other inclusions. In this case they mean it literally: you can stay in the room, but have no access to the hotel’s gym or pool.

This also lets them sell rooms for less on third party websites without running afoul of best rate guarantees, since the restriction doesn’t apply to Hyatt direct booking rates.

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How United Airlines May End Up Saving The Environment

by Gary Leff

sulfur dioxide emissions
Dec 11 2020

United Airlines has announced that they’ll reduce greenhouse gas emissions 100% by 2050, making a bolder claim than world airlines through trade association IATA which commit to a 50% reduction in carbon footprint by 2050. Both goals are far enough off as to be largely symbolic, but what’s got great potential here is the path United plans to pursue to get there.

The airline will invest in directly removing carbon from the atmosphere – not feel-good measures like planting trees where the accounting is murky. The technology is too expensive today, but payment processor Stripe just announced their own investments here. Adding United and perhaps soon others could help bring about critical mass that makes this technology viable to solve our environmental problems.

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Avoid Long Lines And Risk Of Getting Turned Away From Hawaii By ‘Pre-Clearing’ Before You Fly

by Gary Leff

Dec 11 2020

There can be long lines to wait in when you land in Hawaii, not always well socially-distanced, to show you’ve met the state’s testing requirements to avoid a 14 day quarantine. And the state makes mistakes, too, one family showed up with negative results from an approved testing provider but was told to quarantine anyway by mistake. By the time the state sorted it out, they’d already turned back around and flown home to California.

Fortunately there’s now a solution to all of this.

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