Hoboken: send them a letter with the bill. Attach whatever evidence you have that you paid for the room. See what happens. All you're out is 15 minutes and $.34.

If that doesn't work, next time you are forewarned. Make sure the "travel agent" lets you pay directly in some fashion.

milesrus: for years, Hilton stiffed us on points for weekend convention stays. Convention rates were clearly among the business rates entitled to full points under the rules, but central accounting never believed us, and relied on the postings from the individual hotels to deny us anything more than the 500 point "weekend getaway" minimum. They didn't care squat.

Hilton has gotten much better about this. I am now glad we didn't walk away, although there were times....

As for Starwood... I expect FlyerTalk has enough computer space to record all my dissatisfactions with Sheraton, but I don't intend to test it. Suffice to observe that (I think we can all agree that) we are glad that not everyone wants to be in our favorite programs, or availability/ upgrades/ prices would not be tolerable.

So all you folks who like Sheraton, please stay over there.