These days, it seems that one US airline is pretty much like another. Airlines have become commodities, interchangeable products, which means consumers often buy tickets based mostly on price and schedule. Our Savvy Traveler, Rudy Maxa, says another piece of the travel equation is trying deperately not to become like the airlines.

The hotel industry watched what happened to the airlines and is working overtime to convince you that a Marriott room is not just like a Radisson room . . . which is not just like a Sheraton room . . . which is not just like a Hilton . . . which is . . . well, you get the picture.

After borrowing a page from the airlines and creating customer loyalty programs that offer points for each stay, hotels are trying to encourage brand loyalty by doing two things: Personalizing service and making rooms sexier.

Some hotel chains, such as Wyndham Hotels, encourage guests to go on line and fill out forms detailing personal preferences. Wyndham asks what complimentary perk you'd like waiting in your room when you arrive. Beer or bottled water? Mixed nuts or fresh, whole fruit? Would you like a room close to the lobby? The Wall Street Journal or USA Today? A pillow menu is routine these days, but a few hotels now invite you to specify the fabric you'd prefer your sheets to be made of. Radisson is promoting the "Sleep Number Bed" that allows you to individualize the firmness of your half of the mattress.

Even within chains, there are individual hotels that go an extra mile. At a Courtyard Marriott in Boston called 88 Exeter Street, guests are invited one night a week to a free Samuel Adams beer tasting. Along with cheese and crackers, there are professional tasting notes on each of the beers. Two nights a week, a fountain of molten chocolate with fresh fruit, pound cake, graham crackers, and marshmellows greets guests. Then, three times a week, there's a late afternoon tea featuring nibbles and a silver setting from Russia.

When it comes to some of the world's best-known hotels, there's almost nothing management won't do for guests paying $700 or more a night. Of course, casino hotels are legendary for doing anything for high rollers. In Atlantic City, the Tropicana once flew in the wife of a big player and asked her to consult on the design of a suite. She chose all white. Even the piano in the living room was white--the piano where someone was always playing Frank Sinatra tunes when the couple checked in. The piano on which sat a couple of bottle of Dom Perignon on ice next to the spread of caviar and smoked salmon.

At the Plaza Athenee in Paris, one guest arrives each year from Palm Beach with an enormous Louis Vuitton trunk. It's very heavy, because inside are small, precisely cut patches of live grass. Each day, a couple of the swatches are taken out for use by the guest's dog during the little darling's toilette.

High-end business hotels such as the Four Seasons in Washington, DC, invite regular guests to leave their clothes behind. The hotel will have them washed and pressed and waiting in their room the next time they check in. But I'm betting only the Meurice in Paris photographs how a guest likes his or her clothes ARRANGED so the layout can be duplicated before their arrival.

Will all this work? I think it will. At the very least, it'll be great fun while it lasts.

From Saint Paul, I'm Rudy Maxa for Marketplace.

March 22, 2006