Club Carlson major devaluation, death of #Redbird, free money, refer a friend offer, sex in hotel beds, and more

It’s Sunday night, so it must be time for the weekly recap of the top posts from Points With a Crew.  As always, if you’re not following me on Twitter or Facebook or joining the thousands of people that read the once-daily emails, you are MISSING OUT!

• The big news of the week was Club Carlson announcing that over 300 hotels were changing category, effective June 1st.  Combined with the removal of the popular Bonus Award Night feature a few weeks ago, this is a real kick in the pants for the travel hackers.  I created a map of the hotels that are changing category as a better way to visualize which hotels are going up and down.  Angry about the devaluations?  Here are 3 ways to fight back!  But be careful, there are 12 hotels that you might not want to book this month!

Red is bad… green is good

• The other big news (also bad) was Target removing the ability to load the Redbird with a credit card.  I shared my experiences about how I was able to load my Redbird card, and then a roundup of what we learned on that crazy first day.  Finally, to make everyone feel a bit better, I shared some of the craziest comments I saw.

• Normally getting hundreds of dollars in free money wouldn’t drop to only the 3rd biggest story but… it was a crazy week!  Some good news was Office Depot and Office Max giving away free money in the form of an instant rebate on the purchase of Visa gift cards.  Normally I don’t include these kinds of deals in my weekly roundup posts since the deal is usually over by the end of the week, but this one is going on through May 16th.
• The Chase Ink refer a friend is BACK for a limited time only!  60K bonus after spending $5000 in the first 3 months.

• Hot Deal!  It’s a new Amex offer for Sams Club $20 off of $20 purchase
• With last week being the beginning of a new month, it was time to give the top posts from the entire month of April: missing credit cards, expiring deals, free money, $99 airfare, and more!
• Best news from around the travel world: hotels with kitchens, sex in hotel beds, little known American off-peak awards, and #NepalEarthquake

• No, Frequent flier miles ARE for everyone!