It hasn't changed my patterns at all. Still the best way to shoot for lifetime PLT on AA as far as I'm concerned.

And to the above poster who mentioned the unfairness to hotel users rather than CC users, it should be noted that if you're aggressive about bonuses you can easily average 3x to even 10x the normal points earning for hotel stays. Seems like nearly every stay in the last few months has been a triple point special, often on top of a 2000 points for two stays bonus, plus the elite bonus, the SPG Amex bonus, etc. I've earned something like 15k points on my last 3 or 4 Starwood stays via bonuses/promos, all at westins or sheratons. Paid maybe $500-600 for those 15k points (roughly, don't quote me exactly on that) via stays.

OT from here on but I recommend adding this link to your favorite browser bookmarks:

feed://www.starwoodhotels.com/dp/en_US/common/offers/rss_feed.jsp?language=en_US&brand=SPG

It will automatically update all the location/chain specific bonuses and when you go to make a res just type in the city/chain/region in your search box and you'll very often find a match.