The ultimate aspirational award may just be First Class on an Emirates A380 with its onboard shower.

Alaska Airlines has announced a partnership with Emirates, and has promised for most of this year that the award chart for awards booked with Alaska miles on Emirates planes would be coming in late 2012.

We are quite late in 2012, and the award chart has not been released, but the website has been updated to reflect a delay.

This is a bummer, but I'll keep monitoring the situation.

According to Delta's press release and media outlets such as the New York Times, Delta Airlines and Virgin Atlantic are forming a new strategic partnership. Delta is acquiring a 49% stake in Virgin that was previously held by Singapore Airlines, who cozied up with Virgin in 2000.

On a pure deal standpoint, Delta got a cheaper price than Singapore. Singapore initially invested over $900 million to acquire the 49%. Delta is paying $360 million for that same stake.

Update: Why get 50% off a hotel room when you can get two free nights at almost any Hilton worldwide, including top tier properties that go for $1,000 or more per night, AND Hilton Gold Status (free breakfast and internet) by getting the Citi Hilton Reserve.

Application Link: Citi Hilton Reserve

According to this thread on FlyerTalk, Hilton is offering up to 50% off the Best Available Rate at participating hotels and resorts in the Hilton portfolio.

A lot of people read about incredible international business and first class beds, and they want to enjoy those beds on their next trip.

I was looking at some intra-Europe flights for my seven-week loop next summer. I had the brilliant idea that maybe I should oneworld-hub hop.

Munich to Berlin (airberlin)

Berlin to Oslo (airberlin)

Oslo to Helsinki (Finnair)

That would be all new cities for me and all direct flights. I priced out the Avios awards. Berlin to Oslo was 4,500 Avios and $45. That's a bad deal, since the same revenue flights are only $63.

I created a slide show for my LAX Frequent Traveler University presentation that I promised I would share with those who attended.

My presentation was called "Three Vacations on Two Awards: Free Oneways."

The only difference between the presentation and the show below is that I deleted the videos in the original presentation, which had no audio, and replaced them with videos with audio.

I've uploaded the presentation online RIGHT HERE.

Today I'm giving away a free oneway award on Southwest Airlines that must be flown by April 20, 2013. Specifically, I am giving away half of a standard award--a capacity-controlled award on Southwest Airlines. Standard awards are a relic of the old Rapid Rewards program.

Eight months ago, I converted 19,200 Rapid Rewards points to a Southwest standard award. I explained how to do that in How to Exploit the Southwest-Airtran Merger.

I did this because Southwest currently effectively operates two loyalty programs, a revenue based program and a chart-based program.

Hot off the heels of FTU LAX, I'm writing a post to show people how to construct an awesome, yet rare aspirational trip. It's a trip with United, ANA, and Thai First!

For the past few months, I've been super busy with our Award Booking Service and haven't had time to post here. I was amazed at how many people actually came to me this weekend and told me to write more! Everyone also asked me to write about my upcoming trip that I booked.

For many, the question is simple.

Two month ago Tahsir joined the MileValue Award Booking Service team. His joining brought much appreciated expertise and capacity. But even with him, we are overworked. The next step may be to train and bring in more help, but we don't want to rush into that because maintaining the quality of our work is our paramount concern.

As Tahsir says, we enjoy award bookings because everyone we help is so excited afterward. They've just booked a dream vacation.

Priority Club PointBreaks List Announced

According to this thread on FlyerTalk, Priority Club has announced their new PointBreaks list of hotels that can be booked through January 31st. This is huge news because PointBreaks hotels can be booked for $35: How to Book Any PointBreaks Hotel for $35/night.

PointBreaks hotels can be booked for 5,000 points, which can represent a huge savings. Some Intercontinental properties normally cost 50,000 points per night, so 5,000 is a 90% discount.