American Express Membership Rewards - A Newbe's use of Amex points

I spend about 5k a month on my corp charge card and I have been buying Home Depot GCs and then selling them at a discount to friends and family. What is the best way to use my Amex points? Is there a way to maximize what I get? I am open to any advice regarding travel and merchandise as well. Thanks ahead of time

I think you wont get a lot of responses here becasue its such a difficult question to answer. It depends on you. Do you like to travel? There are tons of options on where to go, and what to spend your points on.

The only thing I could tell you is that I would never redeem for gift cards and them sell them at a discount to get cash (unless I was desperate for cash)

Most here will tell you that if you select the right hotels/flights that you can easily get 3-5 cents per dollar in redemption value. Hyatt in Hawaii, Ritz etc

Just my opinion

Ken in Phx

Thanks Ken. I was just wanting to stick my head out and have people tell me I was either being stupid or that is what everyone does with their points.

I spend about 5k a month on my corp charge card and I have been buying Home Depot GCs and then selling them at a discount to friends and family. What is the best way to use my Amex points? Is there a way to maximize what I get? I am open to any advice regarding travel and merchandise as well. Thanks ahead of time

Well, it depends on HOW you want to use your points. There are many different ways to use points for MR at Amex. YOu can put them in frequent flyer or frequent hotel partner programs; you can get car rental certificates, you can order certificates to a variety of stores, and restaurants, you can order merchandise as well.

I know with a corporate card, you can't get the cash reward (20K=$100 cash back); and you can't use the ShopAmex website either. .

If you have personal Amex cards that are eligible for the program, you can link them to the MR and earn points from the spending on those as well. This includes all additional card holders on the personal account as well.