As to the idea that we should sympathize with the mega hotel racketeers because they deal with "crazy" franchisors:
Who told the Hilton to create all the different brands and to build hotels in every swamp and practically in the middle of every interstate in America. Who told them to degrade their product? Who told them to lie to and deceive their most loyal customers? By operating their Honors shell game they can charge those who expense ridiculous rates and then when it comes redemption time, well the rules of the game have changed,
The larger issue here for corporate America is that a lot of this is a thinly disguised form of larceny and theft-too many business models in the country are now premised at their core with confusing, misleading, lying to and abusing the trust of their allegedly loyal customers.
When waiting for travel to bounce back, it's time to contemplate whether it ever will.
I will not list the phone company, the ISP, the cable company and others who lied to me one too many times. Now I don't have a landline, I use work/the library or Kinko's for internet and I have an old fashioned TV antenna. Now I do not participate in ANY hotel honors program.
The economy may recover, but the serial deceitful companies WILL NEVER GET A DIME FROM ME AGAIN. Oh yeah, and American Airlines will not see me again after stealing thousands of miles away-that I would probaby never have used anyway- for "non use."