Emirates First Class is not bookable with Alaska Airlines miles for flights past March 28, 2015. There has been a workaround, but I think all Alaska agents have gotten the memo not to use it.

I reached out to Alaska Airlines for a statement on what's going on. This is from a spokeswoman for Alaska:
It’s not a glitch. Emirate awards show in our system if there are a minimum of three seats available per flight. The minimum threshold is due to the connection in place between Emirates and our shopping system vendor.

For the past few years, I've noticed that American Airlines basically blacks out award space for several weeks from mid-December to mid-January on all or most of its routes.
What I Mean by Blackout
This isn't a hard blackout during which you can't use miles at all. It's a MileSAAver blackout. No MileSAAver award space will appear on a route for about a month, so you need to spend 2-4x the MileSAAver price if you want to book an AAnytime award.

For a quick refresher, MileSAAver is American's cheapest level of award space and its most heavily capacity controlled.

The Discover it Miles Card

Wandering Aramean writes a Boarding Area blog and also has created a suite of tools that can be used for free by anyone. One I just saw (thanks Million Mile Secrets) is his Avios Map.

The Avios Map works like this:

Type in any airport in the world.
The map shows all the airports you can fly to directly for 4.5k, 7.5k, 10k, and 12.5k Avios in economy.

You can use the map to see where you can go from your home airport for what price.

Wandering Aramean writes a Boarding Area blog and also has created a suite of tools that can be used for free by anyone. One I just saw (thanks Million Mile Secrets) is his Avios Map.

The Avios Map works like this:

Type in any airport in the world.
The map shows all the airports you can fly to directly for 4.5k, 7.5k, 10k, and 12.5k Avios in economy.

You can use the map to see where you can go from your home airport for what price.

Every time you use your credit card, the bank is earning swipe fees from the merchant. It's these swipe fees plus other ways that banks profit off credit cards--interest fees, late fees, advertising to cardholders--that pay for the perks we get from credit cards.

How much of these fees are rebated to us? According to a recent article in The Economist:
[C]ard issuers are providing bigger rebates on purchases, more frequent-flyer miles as a sign-up bonus and longer interest-free periods for those who transfer balances from other cards.

Every time you use your credit card, the bank is earning swipe fees from the merchant. It's these swipe fees plus other ways that banks profit off credit cards--interest fees, late fees, advertising to cardholders--that pay for the perks we get from credit cards.

How much of these fees are rebated to us? According to a recent article in The Economist:
[C]ard issuers are providing bigger rebates on purchases, more frequent-flyer miles as a sign-up bonus and longer interest-free periods for those who transfer balances from other cards.

Costco currently only accepts American Express cards.
Soon, Costco will accept Visa cards.
Starting April 1, 2016 (in 13 months), Costco will no longer accept American Express.

This is primarily of interest to me because many people who fill out my Free Credit Card Consultation Form let me know that they need an AMEX because they do a lot of their shopping at Costco.

In July and August 2015, United will put one of its p.s. 757-200s, configured with flat beds up front, on the Los Angeles to Boston route. These planes fly every flight between New York and both Los Angeles and San Francisco. Occasionally they are put on other routes on a one-off basis like Los Angeles to either Boston or Newark.

The premium cabin on the 757-200 features flat beds in a 2-2 configuration meaning that window seats do not have direct aisle access. While the normal p.s. routes have special service and catering, non-p.s. routes that use p.s.

China Airlines is a Taiwan-based member of SkyTeam, whose flights are bookable with Delta miles.

China Airlines recently started flying a world-class flat bed Business Class product between the United States and Asia on its brand new 777-300ERs.

Now all China Airlines award space is searchable and bookable on delta.com. Award space is excellent from the United States to Taiwan and beyond to the rest of Asia.
Routes
China Airlines flies from New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Honolulu to Taipei.