MR points are pretty limited if you want to get greater than 1c per point in value unless you transfer to airline partners. I've found the best use of my MR points to be with Air France redemptions. Example: Today I was looking for a flight from Atlanta to Anchorage in January 2018. The cost of the flight on Delta is $859 or 45,000 skymiles + 11.20 in taxes. The same flight booked via Air France True Blue (since they partner with Delta) is 25,000 points plus $5.60 in taxes. By transferring MR to Delta Skymiles you'd be getting 1.9 cents per point in value which is ok but with Air France for the SAME EXACT flight you'd be getting 3.4 cents per point in value which is much better. Also, the taxes are cheaper with Air France AND American Express charges an offset fee when transfering MR points to domestic airlines but not with international ones (you'd have to pay the offset fee when transferring MR to Delta but not when transferring to Air France) It really depends on where you're going because sometimes other airlines (such as Korean Air) have better point values. Overall, I'd say air travel is your best way to redeem MR points for maximum value and which transfer partner you should use heavily depends on where you're going. MR points are generally a horrible value for hotel redemptions (3:1 to SPG when the SPG Amex is a minimum of 1 point per dollar) and if you redeem for hotels on the Amex travel website you get less than 1 cent per point in value. My point stragety is to use MR points for all airline travel, SPG points for hotels and Chase UR points for either hotels or air travel (Hyatt and Southwest mostly)
