Thanks, OP!
As I begin evaluating miles vs. points, I caught the fine print:
Members who choose ®Aeroplan in their Membership Profile will earn a minimum of 250 Aeroplan Miles per stay or 2 Aeroplan Miles per $1 (USD) spent on room revenue, whichever is greater.
Note that if you are staying for just a night, you are guaranteed 250 miles. Might be a lot better than points. If you are going to stay for more than a night, you could always change your profile back to points.
Yes, but note that this applies only to Aeroplan. $100 will earn only 200 AA miles normally.
However, also note on the same Airline info page that they have a summer promo where you earn 3 miles/$ (instead of the normal 2) from 21 June through 7 Sept. Thus you'd have to have a rate of $83 or less before you'd earn less than 250 AA miles this summer.
Having said that, you can earn
over 1000 AA miles per stay (not per night) if you have a multiple of 3 Choice stays this summer (by earning points and then converting them, since they're issuing 16000 bonus points on every third point-earning stay). But that's only till mid-Aug... So IMHO it's only after mid-Aug that this starts being competitive if you're in an area where Choice has hotels too (or if you won't get to 3 stays, or you have long stays).