lf you aren't already a member of Alaska MileagePlan, Alaska Airline's frequent flyer program, register before April 30, 2017, and take a paid Alaska Airlines or Virgin America flight by September 30, 2017 and you'll earn a bonus of 5,000 Alaska miles.
How to Get 5k Bonus Miles
If you don't have an existing MileagePlan account...

Register here before April 30, 2017.

I tend to toot Alaska MileagePlan's horn quite a bit because I myself am a big fan of Alaska miles. You get free stopovers on one way awards, Alaska has a great mix of partners from multiple alliances, and their award charts are filled with sweetspots. Their miles also aren't the hardest to come by, since Bank of America issues a personal and business co-branded Alaska card and SPG points transfer to Alaska.

One of the perks of the Alaska Airlines credit card (both the personal and business version come with one) is an annual Companion Certificate.

Let's run through the best airline transfer options while the Starwood Preferred Guest personal and business credit cards from American Express come with 35,000 bonus Starpoints for spending $5,000 and $8,000 respectively in the first six months of cardmembership.

A few weeks ago Scott posted about The Cheapest Ways to Get to Hawaii.

I recently came across another sweetspot to Hawaii I wasn't aware of. It costs just 17,500 Alaska miles to fly Alaska Airlines between the mainland United States and Hawaii. And for a little more (20k one way) you can fly Virgin America from a couple west coast cities to a couple different Hawaiian islands.

And since we're talking Alaska miles, you can book one free stopover per one way.

Cathay Pacific will begin a new route between Vancouver and Hong Kong on March 28, 2017 flying an Airbus A350. The A350 will depart Vancouver and Hong Kong on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays mornings.

These are not Cathay Pacific's only flights between Vancouver and Hong Kong, but the first on the airline's new A350 (and the airline's first A350 flight to North America to boot). The A350 features 38 fully flat bed Business Class, 28 premium economy, and 214 economy seats.

Here is the layout of Business Class. As you can see, every seat has aisle access.

Update 1/18/17: A reader reports that he tried to book San Francisco to Boston Virgin America First Class award space with Alaska miles--he tried various summer dates--and every time received an error message. When he called Alaska, a representative confirmed that there was no award space on the days he checked. Who knows if that will happen to you, but beware that the Virgin Atlantic First Class award space displaying on alaskair.com could be phantom. 

Alaska Airlines and Virgin America merged earlier this month, and it's now possible to redeem Alaska miles on Virgin America flights.

UPDATE 1/10/17: If you have a Virgin America Elevate account and an Alaska Mileage Plan account that were both opened prior to December 5, 2016, you should have gotten/be getting the 10k Alaska mile bonus soon. Alaska shared the following statement with The Points Guy:
"We understand that many Mileage Plan members have questions about a surprise 10,000 mile gift that started appearing in some accounts last night, and we wanted to help put some of the mystery to rest.

Until today (December 31, 2016), you can buy Alaska Airlines miles with up to a 40% bonus. Log in to your account at this link to see your offer.

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 to 60,000 miles at the normal price of about 2.96 cents each after tax.

It costs $1,774 to buy 84,000 miles (60k + 24k bonus) during this sale.

Starwood Preferred Guest and Virgin America Elevate are ending their partnership on January 6, 2017, making that the last day that you can transfer SPG points to Virgin America Points.
Why does this matter?
In April of this year, Starwood Preferred Guest added Virgin America Elevate as a 1:1 transfer partner.

Delta and Alaska Airlines are ending their partnership May 1, 2017.

There will be no more codeshares, no more mileage earning on each other's flights, no more reciprocal elite benefits, and no more redeeming miles on each other's flights.

There is some grace period if you already booked your flight.
Delta SkyMiles Members will be able to earn and redeem miles on flights operated by Alaska Airlines through April 30, 2017.