News and notes from around the interweb:

• You don’t need to go through the process of making a mock booking anymore to generate the best Alaska Airlines credit card bonuses. There’s now a direct link to the 25,000 mile offer that also includes a $100 statement credit after $1000 spend. The bonus is more lucrative than you may realize. (HT: Miles to Memories)

• Airbnb for sex. That exists.

• It’s not just American and British Airways offering bonuses of up to 115,000 miles for (full fare and premium cabin) transatlantic travel. Joint venture partner Finnair is as well.

• Silvercar now allows customers under age 25 to rent with no extra fee. You do need to be 22, though. Here are some discount codes.

• Starwood sells the Gritti Palace in Venice – it’s a Wall Street Journal article, so Google it if you hit a paywall.

• Study up on benefits your credit card offers, it might save you money. Most people forget about the benefits like purchase protection, trip delay/cancellation, and rental car collision that their credit cards offer.

  Gary Leff, founder of the travel and credit card blog View From the Wing (viewfromthewing.com) notes that most premium cards come with a variety of protections, but consumers don’t always realize this. “People see bundles of benefits,” Leff said, “but they lose focus on the details and don’t take advantage of benefits such as having your card reimburse you if you’re delayed while traveling and incur expenses like a hotel stay or meals.”

• The CEO of Emirates, Tim Clark, says he might just throw a whole bunch of US-Europe service at Delta, United, and American (which he called ‘the troika’) more or less out of spite.

  “Expand further from European hubs into the US? Yes, we might do that,” Mr Clark said. “The kind of abuse we’ve been getting might cause us to do it. And after Milan, we can see how profitable it is. If the Danes or the Swedes were to come to us and say ‘we haven’t got enough flights to the US, would you consider it?’ Yes we might do that.”

• Thomas Cook Airlines is abandoning Reno – London flights before the service even commences (they had planned to fly starting in December). They say it’s because ‘customs is too slow’ at the airport. For a flight that has never operated. Right….