News notes from around the interweb:

• Alaska Airlines shopping portal 500 bonus miles after $200 spend by July 1 (HT: Frequent Miler)

• Club1 Hotels now has direct hotel deals.

  With now over 476,000 direct contracts these savings will average easily 40% and up to 70%. These properties are located all over the world in the 3, 4 and 5-Star categories and include branded and independent properties.

  Our direct contracts now include secondary markets as well as the top [Central Business District] and Resort markets. When we relied solely on wholesalers, bed banks and [Destination Management Companies] for inventory it was a hit or miss, with our direct contracts it is a win every time! Our direct contracts also include both refundable and non-refundable rates.

• Buy high, sell low American Airlines issuing $750 million in new stock effectively selling off some of the $12 billion in stock they bought back but at much lower prices.

  

• COVID-19 travel insurance

• Delta’s CEO expects business travel to return after Labor Day. However there are 9 reasons business travel won’t be back this year.

• American’s program to convince customers entitled to a refund for cancelled flights to take a voucher instead, by offering them 20% more value for future travel, ended on Friday. According to an internal memo reviewed by View From The Wing,

  The voucher incentive announced in March (Travel Voucher Offer on aa.com briefing) for an additional 20% has been discontinued. Customers eligible for a refund can choose to receive a voucher for their ticket value or a refund to form of payment.

• Japan Airlines is expected to bonus all its employees $1400 meanwhile the airline’s Chairman and President will each be taking no bonus.