Turkish Business Class award space is widely available from this summer through the beginning of next year to Europe.

You can book yourself a tour around the Caribbean and South America stopping in three places for only 64,500 miles total with half the trip in a flat bed. By stopping in three places, I am referring to actual destinations, not connections that have to be under 24 hours.

This incredible deal relies on piecing together four sweet spots awards into one big trip.

Last month I wrote about sweet spots on the new devalued American Airlines award chart.

United.com is the fastest way to search most Star Alliance award space. I frequently use the search engine even if I'm using another type of Star Alliance miles.

I often use the site's calendar to search two months of award space at a time on a single route.

There used to be two programs that offered Emirates First Class and Business Class redemptions at reasonable rates:

Japan Airlines Mileage Bank
Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan

Now there is only one.
Current State of Alaska/Emirates Awards
Sadly, Alaska Airlines massively devalued their Emirates chart with no notice.

Today Alaska Airlines announced it will buy Virgin America, after weeks of speculation. Alaska beat out JetBlue in the bidding.

Alaska is predicting that it will take nine months to close the deal and another year beyond that for the carriers to combine onto a single operating certificate.

To give you an idea of the relative sizes of these airlines, look at the 2015 passenger numbers for North American airlines, according to Wikipedia.

Virgin America is a minnow.

Yesterday, Alaska Airlines doubled the price of flying Emirates First Class awards with no notice whatsoever. Here was my take:
Devaluations stink.
Major devaluations stink more. (Please do it the Aeroplan way of small yearly devaluations with a few months notice instead.)
No-notice major devaluation stink the most.
They are plainly unethical. For weeks Alaska has been selling its miles with a bonus to entice you to buy.

The Hilton HHonors Signature Card's (the one that earns points) sign up bonus has expired.

Alaska Airlines has massively devalued its award charts to fly Emirates with zero notice.

American Airlines is offering up to 115,000 bonus miles on the purchase of miles through April 8, 2016. You can now buy 265,000 American Airlines miles including bonus for $4,787 or 1.81 cents each.

The bonus miles are tiered, based on how many miles you purchase. The best deal is to buy 150,000.

American Airlines miles cost 2.95 cents each plus a 7.5% excise tax, and every purchase has a $30 processing fee.