IN TRANSIT: FRANKFURT -- Sorry I've been MIA for the past week, but there wasn't much to write home about from the basement of the Sheraton Hotel next door to Frankfurt's airport, where anyone who's anyone in airport planning circles (a glamorous bunch, to be sure) spent the better part of three days chewing over retail concepts and securitizing their parking revenues. My only means of escapism was the hotel's WiFi signal, which meant paying another $25 a day for the Sheraton's WiFi in addition to the $25 I was already spending for daily access at my actual hotel, which followed the $30 per day The College Hotel charged me back in Amsterdam.

I expected to return home from Europe with a smoking hole in my AmEx card thanks to the exchange rates ($1.35 to the Euro? Gawd), but the $50 a day on Internet access alone didn't have a line in my budget. Orbitz, Kayak, if you're reading this: please list which hotels charge for WiFi and which ones don't when you present me with a list of options. In-room WiFi is already my make-or-break criteria for even considering a hotel (which is how I ended up at the Artisan Hotel in Memphis, so perhaps my criteria is a bit flawed), and knowing whether I should build another $20 a night into my hotel room might lead me to choose one over another. Regardless, the whole idea of hotels charging for Internet access strikes me as ridiculous in 2007. Why try to drive me into the hands of Starbucks or someone else offering bottomless WiFi on the road for only $30 a month when you could keep me in my room? You'd be better off using WiFi as a loss leader, trust me.

Read more of Greg Lindsay's travel blog, IN TRANSIT.