Yeah, Amex loves it when customers use Membership Rewards for statement credit at 0.6 cents per point, for gift cards valued between 0.7 and 1.0 cents per point, and for using them at checkout with retailers like Amazon, Best Buy, etc. for 0.7 cents per point. They certainly wouldn't hold it against you!
If you have hundreds of thousands of points just sitting there, consider a nice free vacation instead? 
@K-in-Boston wrote:Yeah, Amex loves it when customers use Membership Rewards for statement credit at 0.6 cents per point, for gift cards valued between 0.7 and 1.0 cents per point, and for using them at checkout with retailers like Amazon, Best Buy, etc. for 0.7 cents per point. They certainly wouldn't hold it against you!
If you have hundreds of thousands of points just sitting there, consider a nice free vacation instead?
+1
There's no rush and if you want to use them for non-travel use at least some gift cards will get close to 1 cent value per point. I don't know if they do gift card deals like Chase does for UR but I'd keep an eye out for that
Re: gift card sales
They do, but they're usually on the cards that are normally valued at around 0.7 cents. When I log in today, a GC sale is my suggestion for using MRs:
20% off sounds great, until you actually look at what the usual rate is (0.700 cents) and how that translates as a sale (0.875 cents), keeping in mind that worst case scenario you can always just purchase Delta airfare at 1 cent per point through Amex Travel, or transfer the points 1:1 to SkyMiles for a minimum of 1.2 cents, although I've been getting at least 2 cents on my redemptions this year. International premium cabins can easily be much more.
It's rare to see Amex GCs ever exceed 1 cent per point (i.e. 10,000 points for $100). Off the top of my head, I can recall Home Depot eCertificates on Business Platinum being 1.2 cpp a few years ago during a promo.
@K-in-Boston wrote:Yeah, Amex loves it when customers use Membership Rewards for statement credit at 0.6 cents per point, for gift cards valued between 0.7 and 1.0 cents per point, and for using them at checkout with retailers like Amazon, Best Buy, etc. for 0.7 cents per point. They certainly wouldn't hold it against you!
If you have hundreds of thousands of points just sitting there, consider a nice free vacation instead?
Well, just over 300K, 100 of which came with the card. Regarding vaactions, its funny - I did receive a promotional flyer/e-mail/something-or-other, offering vactions booked through AMEX Travel. When I looked into them, the point values these guys were asking were astronomical! Now granted, these were killer vacations, but that whole experience sort of engrained in my thinking that I'd need years of charges at my pace to get to the points needed for a vacay. Now that I'm REALLY looking into this, roughly $3K for travel (if I redeem all) can fly me somewhere and back and even stay indoors for a few nights :-)
Thanks K-I-B
@simplynoir wrote:
@K-in-Boston wrote:Yeah, Amex loves it when customers use Membership Rewards for statement credit at 0.6 cents per point, for gift cards valued between 0.7 and 1.0 cents per point, and for using them at checkout with retailers like Amazon, Best Buy, etc. for 0.7 cents per point. They certainly wouldn't hold it against you!
If you have hundreds of thousands of points just sitting there, consider a nice free vacation instead?
+1
There's no rush and if you want to use them for non-travel use at least some gift cards will get close to 1 cent value per point. I don't know if they do gift card deals like Chase does for UR but I'd keep an eye out for that
Will do. Good to know there's no rush in redeeming them.
I opened this thread to say "turn back before it's too late," but I see you've looked into it some more and realized that's not a good value.
The Platinum is about as pure a travel card as exists, you weren't thinking about using the points for travel?
I transferred my 52,000 points into Delta SkyMiles ... then realized it wasn't enough for my upcoming trip, and won't be enough until I redeem the 35,000 SkyMiles for my Delta card welcome offer. Oh well, should have left them as MRs for now for flexibility, but I'm sure I'll find a use for the 87,000+ SkyMiles next year.
