News and notes from around the interweb:

• Staples.com now selling $300 visa gift cards

• The best Hyatt Visa offer of 2 free nights (after $1000 spend within 3 months), 5000 points for adding an authorized user, and a $50 statement credit after first purchase now requires a stay at a Hyatt property since May 1.

• It turns out there’s a no annual fee small business card which is still available in-branch that earns Citi ThankYou points (albeit those points are not on their own transferrable to miles).

• House Democrats Push TSA to Reform Transgender Screening Procedures

  “As you know, TSOs must select a male or female button in order to configure a scanner to a gender-specific setting prior to screening,” the lawmakers wrote to Neffenger.

  “Under this system, an error-free reading of a passenger’s scan image relies on a TSO making a discretionary determination about a passenger’s sex based on their appearance rather than the gender with which they identify,” they continued. “This protocol may be well-suited to screen some cisgender passengers, but they do so at the expense of singling out transgender or gender nonconforming individuals whose physical appearances may not necessarily match their biological sex.”

  
  
• Airline alliances are unwieldly and member airlines find it difficult to reach consensus, “The United Nations of Airlines”

• Reminder to quarterly free 300 La Quinta Returns points (HT: Willy) As I recall from the autobiography of Southwest Airlines’ first President Lamar Muse, when Sam Bishop was opening the limited-service chain, the cheapest furnishings he found had a Southwestern motif and he decided he needed a name to match. Hence, La Quinta.

• 10 pounds of cocaine found in “coffee, white cheese wheels, Pisco Sour mix and nougat cakes” in a passenger’s checked bag. Customs decided to search the bags when they found 88 Oxycodone pills in the passenger’s carry on. “The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge…”