Personally, I find it easy to find good redemption with the Cert.

My main problem is the very long processing time to receive the certs. I know they're trying to deter people that close the card after receiving the cert. But it's the 10th week since the anniversary (Aug 2nd) and still no cert. I was in a situation where I had to use 35k pts to make a reservation at an Element which quickly got sold out when a convention got announced. It would of been nice to receive the cert before the announcement date, instead of using points.