My American Express is like this too. You can choose between about 100 different gift cards, but they vary in how much they cost. Home Depot cards are 1%, almost everything else is less. So for 100,000 points I get $100 gift card, but for something like Best Buy which would be far more useful I would need 130,000 points, an American Express gift card would be 200,000 points.
So I end up with a shit ton of Home Depot credit and pretty much shop their for free. Lately though I only use my American Express for grocery stores and food as I get 3x points when I do, the rest I put on my Fold card which gives out up to 100% rewards in BTC.
Wow Fold card sounds interesting! I'll have to look into that! Thanks for sharing Marky Mark. I don't have American Express but my parents do. It sounds like a really good deal.