News and Notes that Won’t Much Affect My Frequent Flyer Life:

• Spirit Airlines has introduced online booking for award tickets.

  I don’t have any Free Spirit miles, I love that the airline exists but don’t want to fly them. Their miles have the most draconian expiration policy I’ve ever seen:

  Miles will expire when an account becomes inactive for a period of 3 months or more. An “inactive” account is one that has no miles credited to it from any source during the preceding 3 months.

• La Quinta is offering 1000 Delta miles per stay through December 30.

  I recall from reading the autobiography of Southwest Airlines founding President Lamar Muse that the founder of La Quinta was an early investor and board member of the airline. The chain got it’s name because the cheapest furniture they could acquire had a Southwestern motif and they took a name to match.

• Alitalia’s frequent flyer program is expected to ‘reset’ again in 2013, with all accounts going back to zero but with activities members can undertake to re-earn their existing account balances as a bonus.

  As I understand it, the expiration of loyalty programs isn’t just Alitalia being cheeky, but an artifact of Italian law. Although I don’t know that Alitalia has worked to change that law.