Indeed, if you could book a standard room at the premium
room award conversion rate, it would cost just 41,719 HHonors points per night!
Based on my research, I concluded that irregular pricing occurred when a hotel has a high enough fixed value assigned to HHonors points redeemed for premium
rooms and, for whatever reason, the best available rate for premium
rooms is low enough to drop the price in cash, after
conversion to HHonors points, below the HHonors point cost for a standard
room award.