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.

Alaska Airlines miles can be used to book Hainan Airlines flights starting March 30, 2016!

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

American Airlines off peak awards are one of the best deals with miles. At the moment, for between two and seven months a year, American Airlines miles can book discounted economy awards from the United States to (one way price):

Mexico: 12,500 miles
Caribbean: 12,500 miles
Central America and Northern South America: 15,000 miles
Hawaii: 17,500 miles
Southern South America: 20,000 miles
Europe: 20,000 miles
Korea and Japan: 25,000 miles

Read more about American Airlines off peak awards here.

Until March 31, 2016, you can buy 56,000 or more Alaska Airlines miles for 2.11 cents each.

The sale is structured as a bonus on the normal number of miles you’d receive. The bonus is tiered, so the biggest 40% bonus comes from purchasing 40,000 miles at the normal price of about 2.96 cents each after tax.

To buy 56,000 miles (40,000 + 16,000 bonus) during this sale costs $1,182.50, which is 2.11 cents per mile. This is not the best sale we’ve seen.

Emirates First Class on the A380 is amazing because you have your own blinged out suite as well as access to an onboard shower spa and onboard bar.

You can book Emirates First Class with Alaska Airlines miles with no fuel surcharges. Alaska charges 90,000 miles one way to Dubai and 100,000 miles to Europe, Africa, or Asia.

Alaska Airlines miles can now book Icelandair flights. This is something I have hoped for since September when the partnership was announced. Here is the award chart for Icelandair flights with Alaska Airlines miles.

The good news:

You can book Icelandair flights with Alaska miles between North America and Iceland, North America and Europe, or the opposite direction.
You can book one way awards.
You can get one free stopover per one way award. You can get two per roundtrip.
You can book Medium and High economy award space, and they really aren't that expensive.

Alaska Airlines' newest miles sale offers miles as cheap as 1.97 cents each, which means Emirates First Class from the United States to Dubai for around $1,800 (or anywhere else in the world for around $2,000) or Cathay Pacific First and Business Class from the United States to Hong Kong and Johannesburg for around $1,400.

Until December 23, 2015, Alaska is offering an instant mystery bonus on miles purchases of 35% to 50% more miles.