American Express Membership Rewards - Best use of Amex MR points JFK-LHR-ZRH-MIA

Looking for advice...
Have 244,000 MR points we'd like to use for my travel so I can tag-along my husband's business trip.

He's already booked on Virgin Upper Class for above route (his Z fare code does not qualify for 2-for-1); ticket paid by his company.

Went on Amex travel website and the quote (to replicate his trip) is: $2823
OR
use I can use all 244,000 MR points + $400.

Is this a good use of our points?
Or should we just pay the $2823 for my ticket and save the MR points for another time?

Thanks for the feedback; any alternatives welcome.

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8703e/4.1.0 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/104)

Have you looked into converting MR points into Continental OnePass miles, and then using those miles for an award ticket on Virgin (which is a Continental partner)?

Usually you'd like to get at least 1.5 cents per mile...I'd say this is a bad use of mileage.

That routing is a bit complicated, but you should be able to make it work with CO, assuming that there is inventory available. You have an open jaw (depart JFK, arrive MIA) and a stopover in LHR. The hard part will be getting the LHR-ZRH flight as CO doesn't have any partners to serve that non-stop. You would have to connect, likely in Paris, on a CO reward.

You could also go with a transfer to ANA and use their VS reward - it is WAY fewer points than CO's version - and leverage the fact that BMI is a *A partner and is likely who your husband's LHR-ZRH segment is booked on. I do not know the rules from ANA about stopovers, so that may confuse things.

If you join the VS program you can search to see if there are reward seats available. You'll need to join the ANA program to search for other *A program seats for the intra-Europe segments.

Also, it isn't really clear from your post if you are stopping in London at all or just using that as a connecting point. That would change things quite a bit with respect to stopovers and routings.

Good luck!

Thanks to all. Sounds like direct use of AmEx MR points is a bad exchange rate.
So based on your inputs, I looked into CO and also Virgin points transfer, talking extensively to AmEx, CO and Virgin today.

Turns out our AmEx MR points convert 1:1 on Virgin Atlantic, directly.
No need to go AmEx-CO-Virgin.

For the JFK-LHR, LHR-MIA routing, Virgin requires 95k points + $389 taxes.
So that's a much better deal than AmEx travel's requirement of 244k MR points + $400! Ugh.
Virgin also has reserved the flights for me (they have availability) while awaiting (within 24-48 hrs) transfer of AmEx MR points.

btw, Virgin's Flying Club Gold 800-helpline is the BEST customer service I have ever encountered in my life!!!!
I spoke to 3 different people and they were all uniformly pleasant, informed and succinct.
My reservation is good for 48 hrs, but should the MR points not show up then, Virgin said to call them and they'll just, you know, "hold it for another 48 hrs or a bit longer, not a problem."

What a difference compared to AmEx and CO experiences, ugh.

sbm12,
We do need to stay in London for a few days, so LHR is not just a connection.
For the LHR-ZRH leg, we'll probably use Swiss miles OR buy the fare, as right now it's ~$150 roundtrip for the timeframe we're looking at.

Thank you ALL for your feedback.
The collective wisdom here about award travel etc, is STUPENDOUS!