Don't know about that. They sometimes had excellent promotions and I earned around 50x pts per $. Even at the normal 14x Aspire rate, it's way better than the pathetic 6x earned on Marriott cards (even factoring Marriott pts worth ~50% more).

From a business view, their strategy was brilliant. Offer great SLH redemption rates for a while, get everyone including bloggers hooked and praising, taking market share away from Hyatt. Then devaluate and hope enough people sticks around, still offering select great values (FNC). It's what all businesses do to gain market share. The drop is inevitable. When the opportunity appears, get on it sooner than later.