Today (May 11, 2016) is the last day to take advantage of the 30% discount on Virgin Atlantic economy awards that brings the price of an award between select U.S cities and London down to only 12,250 Virgin Atlantic miles and $134.60 in taxes and fuel surcharges.

If you stack that Virgin Atlantic economy sale with the current deal American Express is offering-- a 30% transfer bonus of Membership Rewards to Virgin Atlantic through May 31, 2016--then you can book an award to London for only 10,000 Membership Rewards +$134.60!! Book now, but not as a roundtrip.
Why

The current sign-up bonus available to the public for the Alaska Airlines Visa Signature® Card is 25,000 Alaska Airlines miles upon approval. There are higher offers out there however, and the official public offer is increasing in May, but with a new minimum spending requirement.

There is no minimum spending requirement to earn the current sign-up bonus of 25,000 miles.

There is also a $75 annual fee.

You can book yourself a tour around Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia stopping in four places for only 100,000 miles total with nearly half the trip in a flat bed. By stopping in four places, I am referring to actual destinations, not connections that have to be under 24 hours.

Much like the Mega Trip to the Caribbean and South America I wrote about a few days ago, this deal relies on piecing together some sweet spot awards (and this time also a low cost carrier flight within Europe) into one big trip.

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.

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

Alaska Airlines miles can now be used to book Hainan Airlines! Award space is searchable on alaskaair.com, insanely cheap, and widely available to Asia, though there are mild fuel surcharges.

The partnership was announced last year, and the Alaska-Hainan page originally said award bookings would be available in November 2015.

Later today, an Alaska Airlines flight from Anchorage to Honolulu will intercept a total solar eclipse, much to the delight of the 163 passengers on board.

That's not by accident. Alaska Airlines altered the flight schedule and will alter the flight path to catch almost two minutes of the eclipse in flight after being alerted of the possibility by a veteran eclipse chaser. In fact over a dozen eclipse chasers got window seats on the flight for the rare opportunity.