Until December 20, 2014, you can buy Alaska Airlines miles for as little as 2.19 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 35% bonus comes from purchasing 35,000 to 40,000 miles at the normal price of about 2.96 cents each after tax.

To buy 47,250 miles (35,000 + 12,250 bonus) during this sale costs $1,034.69, which is 2.19 cents per mile.

Update 11/6/14: Delta.com is again displaying Alaska Airlines and Virgin Australia award space. The disappearance must have been a glitch. Bookmark this post in case the glitch recurs!

Delta.com is no longer displaying award space on Alaska Airlines or Virgin Australia. You can search for award space on both airlines on other websites and book it by phone with Delta.

Delta.com is pretty terrible.

Emirates is releasing two First Class seats on its A380 flights from San Francisco and Houston to Dubai on a ton of days in Winter 2015.

My flight in Emirates First Class was my favorite ever because of the over-the-top service and amenities, like two onboard shower spas.

Emirates First: Chauffeur Service
Pre-Departure Services and Emirates Club Auckland
Emirates First: Suite, Seat, and Bed
Emirates First: Service and Food
Emirates First: Shower Spa

At the MileValue dinner, when I shared these five tips, a reader (wish I could remember a name for credit here) shared the tip that Emirates First

You can take up to three showers in the First Class Shower Spa onboard Emirates A380s on a single award that costs only 100,00 Alaska Airlines miles.

Alaska Airlines flies a direct flight between Anchorage and Honolulu.

I love interesting routes from Hawaii--like the Island Hopper across the Pacific--since moving to Oahu, but I think this route has some cool possibilities for everyone, like one vacation that combines Alaska and Hawaii this summer.

Anchorage and Honolulu are 2,777 miles apart. This is a sweet spot on British Airways' distance-based award chart.

Two excellent offers are floating around right now for the Alaska Airlines credit card from Bank of America:

30k miles after first purchase
40k miles after spending $10k in the first six months (for elites only)

It might surprise you to learn that the bonus of 30,000 miles is far better than the bonus of 40,000 miles.

Why? Why do I love Alaska miles?

I was emailed the 30,000 mile offer three days ago since I am "a valued customer of both Alaska Airlines and Bank of America." I have an Alaska Airlines credit card.

According to this post on Milepoint, Alaska Airlines is offering 5,000 bonus miles for all travelers who sign up for Board Room memberships by December 31st. Alaska brands its club lounges as Board Rooms (in the same way that Delta calls its lounges Sky Clubs). A complete list of locations can be found here.

Standard one year memberships are $450 (this price includes the initiation fee) and are reduced for Alaska MVP and Gold members.

Board Room members actually have access to all domestic Delta Sky Clubs when traveling same day on an Alaska or Delta ticket.

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.

Delta is selling Alaska Airlines direct flights from San Diego to Maui roundtrip for $297. And American, United, and Delta are all getting in on the sub-$370 party from Los Angeles to Hawaii roundtrip.

There have recently been a ton of great deals to Hawaii. I'm not sure the cause of the sales--tourism to Hawaii is way up this year--but I've taken advantage and been trying to get everyone else to take advantage.