Thank you for the clarifications.

I agree with awake's recomendation that inasmuch as you are earning Membership Rewards points from your business expenses you should maximize earnings by adding The Knot or The Nest credit card (or both). These cards are targetted at engaged or newly married couples but anyone can apply. There is no annual fee, and if you spend $15,000 in a calender year there is a 10,000 point bonus. This means you would receive 25,000 points for spending $15,000, 1.6 points per dollar. Note that the bonus is calculated on calendar year, not your anniversary year. These cards participate in Membership Rewards Express, but the points will be treated as regular Membership Rewards only if linked to your other cards. We use our account for recurring household expenses, such as broadband and CATV, cellular phone, dry cleaning, pest control, etc and the physical cards seldom leave the safe.

Otherwise, the first step in comparing Membership Rewards to other programs is to review the airline and hotel chain transfer partners to see how well they match your travel patterns. This means it's helpful to have at least a general idea of how and where you may want to travel for vacation, or if you prefer to maximize flexibility at the expense of some redemption value.

Starwood Preferred Guest offers more airline transfer partners, and 25% more miles per dollar to most airlines. Diners Club Rewards transfers to a better balanced set of airlines than Membership Rewards and to more hotel programs than any other card. There is some partner overlap between all three of these programs, for example you could transfer to Air Canada, Delta, Virgin Atlantic and Hilton or Intercontinental from all of them, but each has unique partners. Spend some time studying the details. For example many are surprised to discover that Membership Rewards transfers to Starwood Hotels at a 3:1 rate, $3,000 spend = MR 3,000 = SPG 1,000. If you are interested in redeeming at Starwood properties it is far better to use the SPG Credit Card also issued by American Express.

Citi's Thank You network offers good value for airlines that are available through Expedia, but there is no synergy between this program and any other because the points are not transferrable to miles. Thank You also hides its best values in the small print, you need to pay attention.