At 0.49¢/pt I would personally would not use points. My personal threshold is 1.5¢/pt.

However as CJ implies, it depends on your personal situation.

If you travel for business as many here do, then you may have a plethora of points, even to the point where you consistently earn more points per year than you use for all your annual personal stays. Lucky you, if that's the case.

If on the other hand, most/all of your travel is personal then you need to weigh using points vs. paying much more diligently as using it for a low rate of return stay now, means you may end up spending more money in the log run. This is my case, hence my threshold of 1.5¢/pt. FWIW, my threshold for using a 7-night TP cert is bit more liberal at 1¢/pt. For example my 7-night TP stay at SPR in London this summer started out at a redemption rate of 1.38¢/pt when I made the reservation at the lowest rate available (in past 8 months), and due to FX changes the redemption rate is now valued at 1.05¢/pt. No I won't be changing this reservation, as the rates are much higher now than they were when I made the reservation.