I just got back from an excellent trip to Dubai and the Maldives in which I got to fly some of the world’s best first class products (Emirates & Etihad) and stay at some luxurious hotels (Park Hyatt Maldives) using points & miles. I plan to post a trip report in the coming week or so but I wanted to put together a post summarizing some important updates I missed while I was away.

Here is a very brief rundown of changes, updates & promotions you should know about that I missed blogging about.

• RIP Target Redcard (aka Redbird) – The bird has officially been killed as debit loads (including gift cards) are explicitly no longer allowed. Frequent Miler has a snapshot of The Memo.
• Here is an easy 150 Starwood Starpoints if you update your security questions to make your account more secure. That’s a win-win.
• Via Doctor of Credit, 500 free Lufthansa Miles & More miles for creating a free T-Mobile online storage account.
• The Barclays Hawaiian Airlines credit card has an offer for 50,000 miles for spending $1,000 in 3 months. If you live in a city that is serviced by Hawaiian and you don’t mind flying economy to Hawaii, this could make sense though Hawaiian miles have very limited uses otherwise.
• Speaking of Hawaii, you can save 20% on United award flights to Hawaii.
• If you have an American Express Platinum card, you can now get Hilton Gold Status as a new perk of the card.
• Marriott made some improvements to (still crappy) Marriott Rewards program including true cash + points awards, points sharing, reward nights counting for elite status and the ability to advance yourself points. Out of all these changes, I think the cash + points addition could be the most valuable though it depends if properties will release enough availability for these awards. Here are the cash + points charts – note the separate one for Ritz Carlton hotels.