Some hotels are better than others at having lots of rooms available at standard redemption so in that case, your argument works because we can indeed having good cpp value because cash rates are high and points redemptions are possible.

However the problem is that many hotels will quickly run out of standard awards in peak season so when prices are high the cpp value simply does not exist :td:

Great observation, you are looking at details, too! :) I did actually already account for estimated tax.... I rounded down to $2300 before multiplying but didn't write a step for that to avoid adding sentences to explain that. I did Not go look up the place to find the exact tax.

I don't think they've run less than ~10points quarterly promo in a year or two. But yes, I used the current promotion and they do vary (flat points per "night" based ones won't give extra for cash stays vs pts stays and help cpp a little).

True not everyone has aspire, but I had to pick some status assumption. Theres tons of other cards that give ~5% in real dollars value for travel or hotels, so it seems the 14 points is still a good rough estimate (despite having aspire, I will often use Saphire Reserve instead). One could also say they're no Hilton Honors at all as well, which wouldn't make too much sense if we're talking about people using significant amounts of points. Thats why I also used the diamond from aspire or from point accumulation. Someone can substitute their own status and credit card rewards at that step.
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Ive found that properties with resort fee surcharges can also work out to decent cpp values -- but with aspire that can be counter productive because we may already have to go out of the way to find resorts to use the $250/card at already.