News and notes from around the interweb:

• Delta not thinking things through very well.. Apparently Delta is delaying checked baggage collection in Seattle in order to put co-brand credit card ads on passengers’ luggage. Because customers are always more open to being sold after you’ve made them wait longer at the baggage carousel.

• Delta and Alaska Beginning Their Breakup.. and Customers Are the Ones Getting Hurt: The two airlines are beginning to take away benefits from their reciprocal recognition of elites effective May 1. For Alaska elites, no more baggage fee waivers and reduced airport priority when flying Delta. For Delta elites, no more baggage fee waivers or priority security when flying Alaska.

• Advance seat assignments on the US Airways Shuttle: My past experience has always been that US Airways Shuttle flights didn’t get advance seat assignments — seat assignments were available at check-in only. That was still the case, with my American AAdvantage elite frequent flyer number in the reservation, in January. Now booking Shuttle flights I can assign seats when making the booking (more than a day in advance).

• Let them eat cake: Air France is introducing a new first class suite. Of course they only allow their own elite frequent flyers to redeem for it, and only at rulebuster award levels.

  

• Well that was a fast change to a change! This morning I reported that American no longer permitted holds of tickets within 7 days of travel. As of this morning they didn’t appear to allow free cancellation within 24 hours, either. It appears that’s been revised. American Airlines bookings made less than 7 days in advance can now be cancelled within 24 hours of ticket issuance.

You can join the 30,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day) or subscribe to the RSS feed. It’s free. You can also follow me on Twitter for the latest deals. Don’t miss out!