News and notes from around the interweb:

• Don’t pay your bill on time, lose the American Express Membership Rewards earned during that billing period

• 12,000 Flying Blue miles for your first PointsHound hotel booking, that’s a really good offer especially for a cheap one night stay.

• ITA Software has an app for mobile. Who knew?

• Etihad has aligned elite benefits across its equity partners

  
  Etihad Lounge, New York JFK

• USAA is running a pilot program for a 2.5% rebate card but it’s not currently open for public signup.

• How the DEA uses travel company spies to confiscate travelers’ cash

  A report by the Office of the Inspector General (OIJ) of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) sheds more light on how the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) pays workers for airlines, Amtrak, bus companies, and package delivery services to spy on their customers, troll through reservation and shipping records, and finger travelers and senders and recipients of packages to the DEA in exchange for a share of the cash which can be seized and “forfeited” to the government even if no drugs are found and no criminal charges are brought.

• Airbnb adds an option to earn Qantas miles