Originally Posted by
yvrgary
What he means by this is that 50,000 MR points can either get you the equivalent of $500 in cash, or it can get you a round-trip, coast-to-coast trip in business class if you transfer it to points.
If you simply don't have the cash on hand, and the Amex points are your only means of funding the MR, fine, but by all other metrics you're basically lighting a wad of cash on fire.
basically this, yes. :P
I mean, using it for MQD is one thing... but I'd still MUCH rather use actual cash for it. And if I didn't have the cash for it available at all, only MR, i'd just rather not travel at all instead of wasting my MR points.