The Weekly News Roundup is a collection of headlines from around the internet that caught the attention of the Tagging Miles team. Content on these blogs do not necessarily reflect the positions of Tagging Miles, and should not be considered endorsements. Have a great story we should read? Contact us now and let us know!

Travel

• Via Wandering Aramean, Cuba and US agree to scheduled air service again. This doesn’t change the fact that you have to have a specific reason to visit Cuba (other than tourism), but, it is an improvement.
• Hard to pass this one up – Non-transferable, a movie about the Canadian guy who had an epic trip planned, then broke up with his girlfriend, only to need to find someone of the same name, so as the ticket would not go to waste.
• A friend reached out to me a month or so ago with a difficult challenge. Her flights had been changed, and they just weren’t going to be fun. They were flying economy to start with, and they now had an 8 hour layover on Thanksgiving of all days. Here’s how everything ended up.
• Etihad makes the Apartments and Residence even better, in their effort to control the entire travel experience, by offering private jet connections, via private jet provider: Victor.
• Brian Cohen shares his thoughts of why Mistake Fares may not be dying. He’s more optimistic than I am. But I hope he is right.
• Blast from the past – Matt mentioned he might cruise on Celebrity, which got me to thinking of a cruise I had like 20 years ago. Come to find out, the ship has since sunk. Here’s an account of her last days afloat.
• American is really trying to compete with the better International Carriers, with respect to the service they are offering on their 777-300ER operated service to Sydney. The first class menu looks quite good!

Miles and Points:

• Gary Leff reports that Starwood has added a new airline transfer partner, none-other-than Aegean! Ok, maybe not ground breaking, but it is yet another partner with an regionally based award chart and, yes, you guessed it folks, sweet spots!
• Kimpton has plans to merge programs with IHG (their new owner), or maybe its the other way around, but beyond that, it isn’t really clear on what is going to happen.
• Lucky reports that JAL’s award search has an outage for North America accounts…until March. Coincidence? 
• Chasing the Points observes the different verbiage American Express uses for different cards.

#Avgeek:

• ANA transported the Star Wars case between USA and UK premiers of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Pretty cool, if you ask me…. I just wish they showed BB-8 and R2-D2 deplaning via the air stairs!
• The British Airways 777 that had the un-contained engine failure at Las Vegas’ McCarran Airport will fly again! Pretty surprising move.