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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Coach Passengers May Now Use The First Class Lavatory On United Airlines

by Gary Leff

lavatory
Oct 29 2020

Airline lavatories are usually pretty simple. To be sure some passengers fail to use them, sometimes they’re inoperative and sometimes other passengers stink them up, but for the most part they work the same way. The only thing that confuses passengers is which one are they allowed to use?

This long-controversial question has been settled on United Airlines: to reduce bunching of passengers waiting in line for the loo, they may now use any lavatory on the plane. This is a coronavirus distancing measure.

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United Will Offer Free, Mandatory Covid Testing On Some Of Its Newark-London Flights

by Gary Leff

Oct 29 2020

United has a way for everyone to have confidence that travel is safe from the virus – test everyone on the plane before departure – and believes this can open up travel as well as bring back passengers. So they’re offering it free as a trial on several Newark – London flights that customers can choose to book. Now we’re getting somewhere.

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An Anonymous Airline Pilot Comes After Me In A New ‘Live And Let’s Fly’ Post

by Gary Leff

Oct 28 2020

I hope the anonymous airline captain who authored the latest post at Live and Let’s Fly demanding more respect never happens to be flying an aircraft I’m ticketed on because he’s threatening to make things worse for passengers if pilots are criticized, even when the criticism is justified – as the anonymous captain admits that it is.

He takes issue with my post about the Delta captain who kicked a woman off a flight over her F-12 hat, which she took off as he instructed.

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J.P. Morgan Chase: Airlines Will Get Second Bailout, Come Back For Third Because Why Not?

by Gary Leff

scrooge mcduck diving into coins
Oct 28 2020

Jamie Baker, in a research note for J.P. Morgan Chase, points out that if airlines get another ‘payroll support’ bailout they’d have to spend some of that money on extra payroll. In other words it isn’t all money straight into the kitty.

But will it happen? Baker says a new round of subsidies will happen (“We believe PSP 2.0 is a question of when, not if”). And then expect airlines to come back again for a third round.

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First-Ever 100,000 Point Offer For JetBlue Credit Card

by Gary Leff

Oct 28 2020

Barclays is offering 100,000 points as an initial bonus for the $99 annual fee JetBlue Plus Card. The offer is also available for the $99 annual fee JetBlue Business Card.

You’ll generally get 1 to 1.6 cents per point in value redeeming for JetBlue flights. Mint (business class) flights will skew towards the lower end. I value a JetBlue point at around 1.25 cents apiece, so a 100,000 point offer means $1250 worth of travel, or $1151 net of each card’s annual fee.

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Wide Open Business Class Availability To Europe, Up To 4 Passengers At Just 34,000 Miles Per Person

by Gary Leff

stock airline bed
Oct 27 2020

Spanish flag carrier Iberia is owned by British Airways parent company IAG. It’s a member of oneworld, and part of the same transatlantic joint venture as American Airlines. They have a nice business class product, and right now they have amazing business class award availability from several U.S. cities for four passengers for next fall.

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