Well I find it hard to believe that you can't do better then 1.25 cents per SPG. You would have to basically never fly or stay in hotels. I am as cheap as it gets using priceline whenever I can and buying the cheapest possible plane tickets but I still sometimes need the points.

For instance I just used 55K miles for a ticket to greece which the lowest fare is $1300. Could have used 45K starwood for this so that's almost 3 cents. Even if you don't ever travel for personal business I am sure that you could get a $400 gift card for 20K SPG in the coupon connection. I'm also pretty sure you could ebay a $400 southwest gift card into $350.