News and Notes from Around the Interweb:

• Alaska Airlines is installing Recaro slimline seats in and adding seat power to its 737 fleet, and plans to introduce inflight entertainment that can be streamed inflight to wireless devices.

• Wendy Perrin publishes the story of a reader who funded their recent trip to Europe on points from credit card signups. What humbles me is that they pass along the story of having contacted me to do their award booking and I told them they could probably get what they were looking for pretty easily on their own, without paying me. And they did.

  Rick adds that before booking any travel he had contacted Gary Leff,Condé Nast Traveler‘s frequent-flier mileage-award specialist, who often helps readers with mileage conundrums and the intricacies of travel rewards programs. “In view of my plans,” Rick writes, “Gary felt that I would do better off booking on my own. I really appreciated his honesty in that regard.”

  Rick, we all appreciate and rely on Gary’s honesty. And if you saved nearly $6,000 by using credit card rewards and some smart booking strategies, I’d say you did just fine booking on your own.

  Aww, shucks.

• Alitalia has introduced cash and points allowing you to redeem your miles for a portion of a paid ticket, albeit at a rather poor rate — 5000 miles gets you a 25 euro discount, and you can redeem miles up to 25% of a ticket’s cost.

• Randy Petersen profiled in the Colorado Springs Business Journal

• Here’s a hack to get Gogo inflight internet for free on Delta flights through June 30.