https://www.totalrewards.com/e-totalrewards/content/pages/tr-giftcard-merchants.html
The above link is what IA came up with when I did a search for total reward gift cards. You can enter a state and see what is available. According to this list a lot of forum shop shops are included including Apple store. It makes no mention of 2:1, so sounds like 1:1. Until someone checks for sure, who knows if this is accurate. The old cards were discover, the new ones apparently MasterCard.
With the bonus system as is if you play 2500 or 5000 points it is pretty easy to accumulate points more quickly. I just hit 250000 points, good for a second $500 card. I'm now using up TR credits for free play and will use the card for food comps.
By the way u can no longer cash out more than $500 a day in free play. There may be some leeway though, Caesars let me do $700 by mistake, then said my husband could do $700. Odd.
I asked my host to send the gift card when I hit 200000 points, and the card arrived in less than a week.