I am shocked that Amex and Starwood have collectively done so little to make this card more attractive.
Just compare the benefits with competitor cards from Chase:
* Chase Sapphire Preffered gives me the same 2x points on travel and has no foreign exchange fees. It offers an annual bonus dividend of 7% of points earned.
* Chase Hyatt gives 3x on Hyatt spend vs Amex 2x on SPG spend, no foreign fees, and two free nights on sign up (worth up to 44k points, vs Amex best offers around 25k) and another free night up to category 4 (so a 12k point value) each anniversary.
While the annual fees on these cards are slightly higher, the benefits are significantly better. My wife's SPG card came up for renewal and they offered 2k points. I found it insulting and converted to a no fee cash back card instead. This card needs some real improvement to be competitive again...