News and notes from around the interweb:

• On New Years Eve (so you may have missed it!) I wrote about a new way to earn miles for paying rent. The service has just eliminated fees!
  
• This won’t last: earning rebates buying eBay gift cards with eBay gift cards
  
• Bill Boeing, Jr. has passed away. He never worked at Boeing. His father, of course, left the company after the government broke it up (it was not only an aircraft manufacturer but also the parent of United Airlines and United Technologies).
  
• India’s second-largest budget airline, SpiceJet, is working on a bailout.
  
• Oman Air has initiated a cost-cutting program aimed at stemming losses.
  
• JetBlue has announced Portland-Anchorage service. Not a route I would have predicted, but they’ve done Long Beach – Anchorage and Seattle – Anchorage (another one I wouldn’t have predicted before it launched a couple of years ago).

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