I can only answer part of your question because when we vacation with the children, we try to rent a condo with kitchen. I have however traveled through a lot of different hotel plans over the course of 2 jobs with international companies. Out of all of them, I like Starwood's Preferred Guest the most, and that is what I have now. They own Sheraton and Westin and a whole bunch of others, so there never is a problem finding a hotel, and the best part is that there are no blackout dates or anything like that, so I have never had a problem booking during a heavy travel season or convention-time. Here's the registration info site if you're interested - www.preferredguest.com.

wendy