News and Notes from Around the Interweb:

• New Uber car service members can earn 800 Virgin America Elevate points for signing up. I still prefer using promo code YELPSF to get a $20 ride credit to start with. But, while the website doesn’t make this clear, one may get the 800 points without actually using Uber (at least the offer details just say you need to sign up). So folks who won’t use the service (I do and I love it) may prefer the Virgin America points.

• Frontier EarlyReturns has cut the cost of a roundtrip domestic award ticket to 20,000 points. Of course, they only raised it from 20,000 to 25,000 back in the summer of 2010. And it used to be 15,000. But I suppose they could use some new use in light of their new fees, reduced mileage earning, and no advance seating on tickets booked through online travel agencies.

• GhettoIFE notices that british midland’s frequent flyer relationship with Qatar ends on October 28th. That will leave bmi partners as Transaero and Jet Airways. Very little reason left to keep miles with bmi, many folks will be moving those over to British Airways Avios in the near future (once moved, points cannot be moved back).

• Dan’s Deals explains booking a coach award on United and waitlisting for business class.

• Star Alliance Member ANA has an advertising campaign “Is Japan Cool?”. And while the videos themselves seem pretty cool, one doesn’t become cool by asking whether you are. And even saying you’re cool doesn’t make it so. Their ad agency may want to visit Wikipedia for a treatment of the ‘cool’ aesthetic. (See also ‘trying too hard‘.)