So there is one nice independent hotel in Switzerland. Great? Lots of my experiences with such hotels are......................bad AV systems, bad a/c or heating systems, worn out bedding, carpeting, etc. Inflexible check in/out times, No one on duty after midnight, or the person sleeping, so you have to ring the bell for 10 minutes to get in. You know, for a long time I avoided chain hotels as I had the same pretensions as this person. Spending over 100 days in London in hotels in 2 years about 20 years ago ina bunch of great but expensive "boutique" hotels, I came to the realization that for the same price, I was giving up a million points a year, which would cover all my family holidays. How stupid had I been to pass all that up.

I liken this thread to a story that happened to me: I was out to dinner with a friend of mine and his very pretentious girlfriend, who was all about brands and the like and was maybe 3-4 years out of a European communist state (It was 93 or so). I told a story about how I had been in Paris the month before, and had to have a lunch with a French colleague at Pizza Hut, and wasn't that strange. She lit into me, saying essentially what a peasant I was, and "How could I eat at Pizza Hut when there are thousands of Bistros in Paris!!!".

My response was the following:

1. I was meeting a French client for lunch, the Pizza Hut was downstairs from her office and SHE insisted on it. It would be rude not to eat there.
2. Oh, and by the way, it was my SEVENTY NINTH trip to Paris, including living there.
3. Believe it or not, I had never before eaten at a Pizza Hut (crazy huh?)

Later I learned from my friend that his girlfriend had never been to Paris,