Below you'll find links to some of our hotel reports including trip reports, hotel reviews, and information on earning and redeeming hotel points.

Starwood Preferred Guest program for Sheraton, Le Meridian, W hotels and others.

Hyatt Gold Passport allows point earning and redemption at Park Hyatt, Andaz, Grand Hyatt, Hyatt Place, and more.

Hilton Honors provides award earning and redemption opportunities at Hilton, Double Tree, Embassy Suites, and more.

Marriott Rewards hotels include Marriott, JW Marriott, Residence Inn and more.

Thanksgiving break is short. My desire to be home for Thanksgiving is small. Get me to a beach ASAP. Cancun is a quick flight from my home and it is not incredibly crowded at Thanksgiving. I've even been able to score a lucrative bump voucher or two on the route. (No luck this year on the bump voucher. They were looking for volunteers but it would have been another 36 hours before they could get me home--I'm flexible but not that flexible.)

Cancun is not the best place to go if one ...

I flew into Pisa, Italy on Wednesday and spent much of the afternoon there, before boarding a train to Rome. Arrival in Rome was not scheduled until around 9pm, so with a very busy days of sightseeing to follow, I thought it would make sense to get a room on Priceline rather than splurge on a premium property like the Westin or St. Regis.

Big mistake.

Priceline's "Name-Your-Own-Price" wasn't returning anything, but Hotwire offered a 3.5 star hotel in Central ...

Just as people mileage run to get redeemable miles and higher elite status, there are many people who mattress run to get the same with hotel programs.  Maybe you wanted to take advantage of Hyatt's Faster Free Nights to redeem at some exotic Hyatt property by taking a few stays at a $50 a night Hyatt Place near your home.  Maybe you need a few more points that a $50 a night rate can get you so you can have your week-long vacation in Bali at the Intercontinental Bali.  Maybe ...

Remember when getting online in airports and hotel rooms meant having a laptop with a built-in modem, paying for a nationwide dialup service, and finding a phone jack to plug into? There were a couple of pay phones with data jacks in many airports, and for a while the gem of the travel industry was the US Airways Shuttle lounge at LaGuardia, with plenty of power outlets and phone jacks galore. Once you made it to the hotel, you might have to crawl around a bit to find a data jack -- or unplug ...

On the last upgrd.com podcast, we talked a bit about New York airports. The consensus seemed to be that flying in or out of Newark isn't necessarily any more inconvenient than flying out of JFK or LGA.

Turns out that someone at JetBlue disagrees.

I stayed at the Crowne Plaza by Newark the last couple nights, even though I flew in and out of JFK (the client is in that part of New Jersey, but flying into EWR on AA would have cost way more than flying into JFK, so if I wanted to ...