I feel somewhat out of place amongst all the Centurion discussions with my lowly Gold charge card, but I wonder what Amex was thinking cancelling Accelerator Plus for Gold holders and reducing it to 25% for Platinum holders (or leaving at 50% but disallowing airline program transfer). Anybody else been hit with this, or is this Canada only?

Has anybody redeemed for travel using exclusively MR points, w/o converting to other airlines (is that even possible?) - how bad of a deal is it? Currently with Amex Canada, if you want 50% point bonus, you have to forgo redeeming for airline points...