Marcie - The Westin's location is terrific (right across from Tuilleries Gardens - about 4 blocks down toward the river from the Intercontinental. Your deal is quite reasonable although if you value a Starwood point at $0.03, you're effectively at about $1200 for 3 nights). For this hotel, reviews on Flyertalk seem to indicate that some of the rooms are quite small and will not have a view.

A friend raves about the Intercontinental but he's a Royal Ambassador with Intercontinental so was upgraded to a suite.

Paris is one of those cities where redeeming points works out very well. We stayed 3 nights at the Park Hyatt Paris in a 700 sq ft suite using 81,000 points total while the rate for that suite would have been close to $2000 a night.

Crowne Plaza would probably be ok if you didn't want to walk around and only take a cab to whereever you're going especially in the wintertime. With the cancellation/change policy that Ngaire has posted, the penalty will increase on September 2 or a day or 2 around there. So keep that in mind for final decisions.

I just checked Denise's Friends rate for the Crowne Plaza for the dates of the stay and the rates range from 107.25 euros ($160ish) for standard room to 219.75 euros ($330ish) for a 2 room suite - compared to $400 "through" AMA.

I know, I'm going to start getting the reputation around here of being difficult with hotel choices but I've managed to snag properties that are amongst the very best in their respective cities for a very reasonable cost and the Crowne Plaza doesn't make the cut :)