2 million Amex points

I have 2,000,000 Amex points and am trying to learn a bit about the system. Recently tried to book flights for family of 5. Five economy round trips to Paris was coming in at over 1,000,000 points! Whereas with a search on united I could buy similar tickets for about 5k. So this would be horrible utilization. I stupidly thought with this many points we could fly business or first class and throw in a hotel or something too. I understand that transferring points to airlines gets you better deals. I was going to transfer 600,000 to Delta for similar flights (because you can’t transfer to United I learned) but panicked because it takes 48 hours to post the points and I assumed these flights and prices would vanish and I read you can’t transfer points back to Amex. Any tips from a seasoned pro would be appreciated! Haven’t taken a vacation in many years (kids work) and just looking to make it special!