News and notes from around the interweb:

• Third quarter 5x-earning categories for Chase Freedom are Lyft, Walgreens, and gas stations. Remember you need a Chase Sapphire Preferred Card to move these points to, or another premium Chase Ultimate Rewards card, in order to be able to transfer those points to airline miles or hotel points. (HT: Zach Honig)

• While American Airlines terminated its codeshare with Qatar in a nose-spite-face move, Qatar is the largest shareholder of IAG which owns British Airways, Iberia, Aer Lingus and Vueling. BA is short aircraft in large measure because of problems with Rolls Royce engines on Boeing 787s and is operating Qatar Airways planes with Qatar Airways crew on some routes to make up the shortfall.

  American is asking the Department of Transportation to allow it to codeshare on these British Airways flights operated by Qatar to Kuwait, Delhi and Muscat.

  

• The deteriorating situation in Venezuelan aviation. (HT: @xJonNYC)

• United brought back helicopter add-ons at Newark, starting at $2100 or about 10 times the price they used to offer. This isn’t getting as much hype as Delta’s Blade partnership announcement last year but everyone still acts as thought these are new.

  Predecessor airline Continental used to offer helicopter transfers as a throw-in on paid business class tickets and as a 10,000 mile each way add-on to awards. The New York Airways helicopter crash atop the Pan Am building when I was a kid kept me off of helicopters for most of my life.

  

• How to get virtually unlimited unique email addresses

• Best uses of Wyndham Rewards points though if the Wyndham Rio Mar in Puerto Rico is the 6th “nicest and most valuable Wyndham Hotels in the world” that captures much of Wyndham — it was an aging property when I stayed there as a Westin 11 years ago. I personally see the most value in redeeming for vacation ownership properties.

• Japan Airlines Mileage Bank now lets you redeem Emirates awards online