I bet you 100 dirhams you’ve heard of Emirates, the flag carrier of the United Arab Emirates. I bet you 1,000 dirhams you haven’t heard much about Emirates Skywards, the Dubai-based carrier’s frequent-flyer program.

Ironically, Emirates continues to deliver the highest levels of service and therefore earns the highest levels of praise.

Right now it’s easy to earn a boatload of American Airlines miles quickly.

There was a bit of a scare within the miles community last week that the ability to book First Class awards flying Cathay Pacific, one of the highest value awards you can book with Alaska miles, had evaporated.

@CTravelr tweeted the following to catch bloggers' attention:

Not sure if y’all have heard any official word on this because it pretty much kills CX redemptions @garyleff @OneMileataTime @thepointsguy @FrequentMiler
— Brian (@CTravlr) February 13, 2018

If Alaska blocked mileage redemptions within three days of departure, that would pretty much thwart the

Alaska Airlines partnered up with Japan Airlines (JAL) back in May of this year. Just last week Alaska published their prices for redeeming Alaska miles on JAL flights between the continental United States and Asia, Southeast Asia, and intra-Asia.

Here are the prices in Alaska miles to fly Japan Airlines from the continental United States:

In this case Alaska defines "Asia" as Japan, South Korea, and India, and "Southeast Asia" as Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Thailand, Philippines, Cambodia, China, and Tawain.

JAL obviously flies other places but only those redemption rates for US <>

The Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive World Elite™

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.

Award space in Japan Airlines' brand new flat bed Business Class on its Dreamliner from Dallas to Tokyo is wide open from November 30, 2015 to August 2016 for two or more passengers.

You can book it for an amazing 50,000 American Airlines miles each way.  For a limited time, the Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive World Elite™ MasterCard® offers 75,000 bonus American Airlines miles after spending $7,500 in the first three months. That means you’ll have 82,500 American Airlines miles after meeting the spending requirement.