News and notes from around the interweb:

• Priceline has stopped selling Name Your Own Price airline tickets. Their original product has come to an end. Priceline is a textbook example of taking an inflated valuation and leveraging it to buy into longer-term sustainable businesses. It’s an online booking behemoth but not for William Shatner’s negotiating skills. Here’s my interview with Priceline’s founder and his new travel startup.

• The Southwest pilot deal:

  Under the tentative new contract between SWAPA and Southwest, the carrier’s average captain’s pay will soar from an already eye-popping $230,000 a year to almost $300,000 a year by 2020. The most senior pilots and those who aggressively seek additional flying opportunities in order to maximize their earnings can bring in much more than that.

• Photos of the new Turkish Airlines lounge at Washington Dulles which United Gold elites and higher can use even when flying domestically.

• The Hyatt Regency Paris has contacted blog readers who booked the $21 + 3000 points rate for a club room to let them know that bookings at this amazing price will be honored. They honored the March $142 deal on Ambassador suites as well. I’m starting to really like these people!

  

• On average people book airline awards 55 days in advance of travel. That comports with my experience of the median request through my award booking service. It’s also about the worst time for award availability, which tends to be better 11 and 6 months in advance of travel and super close-in.

• Boeing won’t raise new plane prices as sales have slowed. (HT: Alan H.) Has any airline ever paid ‘list’ price for a new plane?