It sounds petty but having paid for a room, being exhausted from a Pacific flight and being moved to a hotel twice the walk from the conference (important if you're going to be back and forth all day) was mildly annoying.

I'm not 100% sure - but the one time I was walked I had picked the cheapest available room. You know those bullshitty-looking price differences where you can book on floors 9-11 for X and floors 12-14 for X+5? I suspected I had signalled my place on the hierarchy by picking the cheapest room available. Subsequently, especially while on an expense account (sorry, Intel! :-) ) I always picked the ever-so-slightly more expensive room and have never been walked again, even in the middle of conference season. This may be bogus reasoning, of course.

I have trip this coming month through Expedia and the last leg of our bargain basement flight got cancelled. The rep told me there were no flights for days surrounding our original flight date.

I had to sit on hold for a long time but I have to say they were great. United swept our transportation out from under our feet but the rep was able to wrangle a flight with fewer stops that arrives earlier without us having to pay the difference. We had those locked-in cheap tickets that charge you a couple hundred just to upgrade your ticket before the price difference is even considered.

Needless to say we were greatly relieved...