Planning ahead for a dive trip
 

Hi Folks,
I am fairly new to AMEX and just starting to get my hands around the membership points. I want to plan ahead for a vacation to the Carribean to go diving. I currently have 17,000 Points with 7,000 additional pending. I would say that my average is 4500 points per month.

My biggest questions is how many points will I need for a 7 day vacation and where do I start to figure this out? I am also a member with Marriott, JetBlue, Southwest, and a few others.

Do I find the vacation via the amex site? Everything I am reading says no.

Do I price it out via the airline website then calculate the points and transfer the points when I am ready?

What do you feel is the best approach?

Note that I have not picked a destination just yet.

That's a very open ended question. Where are you wishing to fly from/to? What do you wish to use MR points to pay for? Flights? Accommodation? What class do you wish to fly? What kind of hotel? You do realise that MR points transferred to loyalty programs only work when the airline has reward availability etc etc?