Summarizing here for everyone's benefit:
Decided to go with Alaska over JetBlue. The tradeoff is expiry (24mo Alaska vs never) vs. value (1.7 Alaska to 1.3 approx).
Although I put in the mileage numbers correctly well before the first flight, it took two calls and an email to Alaska and over a month to get the miles credited. Save your boarding passes!
The miles shown on emirates.com wheretocredit.com, and the miles Alaska actually credited were all quite different! I'm not sure what to make of it yet.
To find out the Emirates class:
Emirates.com - how to find out what class of booking?
Thank you again everyone.