Winging It

Consumer Reports, the monthly magazine of Consumers Union, regularly asks its members to rate consumer products and services, and in the July issue now on newsstands it looks at hotels and airlines. For travel veterans, much of the CR articles will seem very basic, such as what to expect from a luxury hotel vs. a budget brand. But CR surveys' get thousands of responses from readers (more than 31,000 on airlines), so serve as a fair guage of what leisure and business travelers think.

There's far too much data in the reports to recount much of it in our space, but here's a hint: The highest ratings in the "fanciest" category went to Ritz-Carlton (Four Seasons apparently didn't get a minium of 150 responses). Among luxry brands, top marks went to Renaissance. Homewood Suites and Springhill Suites by Marriott tied for best upscale hotels, and Drury Inns/Suites was the top vote-getter in moderately priced, Microtel was rated best in budget lodgings, but ratings for all the budget brands were quite a bit lower than those in the other categories. One area to watch for are the room rates, because the surveys were done from January 2005 to April 2006. Some of the prices seem low to us, at least for urban hotels.

In the airline survey, the best ratings went to JetBlue, Midwest and Southwest. (The survey was done in February but included a followup in April after JetBlue's February service meltdown, which the magazine said didn't change the results). At the bottom of the list of best airlines were No. 17, America West, and No. 18, US Airways.