News and notes from around the interweb:

• Surprisingly few entries for my giveaway of 4 hotel nights in Paris (with breakfast) at the contemporary boutique Hotel Eugene en Ville in a superior room with private terrace.

  Comment in the giveaway post to enter. This is courtesy of Luxury Travel Diary’s auctions which often go quite cheap..

• Pennsylvania is considering letting its international airports offer slot machines. Gambling is ok, but only for ticketed passengers.

• France gets Star Wars 2 Days Before the Worldwide Release. So Air France will give you a free transfer from the airport to the theater and free ticket. (HT: Rene’s Points)

• Alaska Airlines and Emirates are introducing reciprocal benefits: priority check-in and boarding for elites in Dubai, Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles; Emirates Golds and higher will have access to Alaska lounges when booking an Emirates flight that connects to Alaska Airlines; Alaska Gold members and higher will have access to Emirates Business lounges in Dubai when flying Emirates.

• Through the end of the year transfers of American Express points to Virgin America can earn Gold elite status. Miles Per Day took that status and got it matched by Alaska Airlines.

• While US carriers – through their own flights and those of their revenue-sharing joint venture partners – are far and away the major beneficiary of Open Skies agreements, it seems that the US carriers’ bashing of Open Skies with Qatar and the UAE could wind up costing Delta its joint venture with Aeromexico whose approval is contingent on Open Skies between the US and Mexico.

• Airports offering flu shots. I got mine at O’Hare two years ago and will probably do it again there in a couple of weeks.

• Rushcard has been a disaster the past few weeks but the prepaid card product from hip hop mogul Russell Simmons was always a bad deal with high fees. Fortunately people without access to bank accounts — a growing problem thanks to the Durbin Amendment which makes low fee checking accounts unprofitable for banks to offer — there are innovative low fee offerings like Bluebird.