How about some cocktails for points? I know what I'm choosing for my Gold Amenity at my upcoming SPG stays - the free cocktail over the 250 points. I don't know what the conversion would be, but hopefully something to make it worth it especially in high priced cities. Last summer at the Westin Paris, we were offered coupons at checkin for the "SPG cocktail" at 8 euros each. We were going to have a cocktail or two anyways in their lobby. Regular priced cocktails were like 16 euros so the coupon was nice and that's what we ended up ordering.

I have never been offered a "points menu" at any of my hotel stays. The only place it even came up was at the Westin Europa and Regina where we were told breakfast was 3000 points each. But that's only because I specifically asked about it having read about it on the FT thread.