Well, I guess my personal boycott of Hilton Hotels is over.

Ever since the Conrad Hotel in Istanbul tried to overcharge me by $1000 in February -- and Hilton Hotels failed to take any action on my complaints -- I've taken my business to Starwood Hotels.

Over the past couple of months I've been traveling a fair amount and keep having trouble sending outgoing emails from my hotel room from my work email account. Emails from my personal AOL account always go out with no problem.

Our company's IT guys tell me the problem is with the security settings of the hotels I'm staying at.

I've spent hours on the phone to India getting technical support at various Starwood hotels. Most annoying, the "test" emails to Bangalore always go through -- leaving the tech support guys suspicious when I assure them the rest of my emails aren't getting out.

But I know they're not because I keep having "you mean you didn't get my email" conversations the next day.

Yesterday, after I had the same problem at a Starwood Hotel in San Francisco it dawned on me that maybe the problem is systemwide with Starwood Hotels. So I checked out and moved to the San Francisco Hilton.

Sure enough, I fired up my laptop tonight and have been sending emails (and getting responses) all night long.

I guess it feels good to be home.