Delta Air Lines may have charged some frequent flyers higher airfares than other customers for almost three weeks because of a glitch, which has triggered questions about the complexity of flight searches.

Reports surfaced last week from two business travelers who noticed prices on routes they were searching were different depending on whether or not they were logged into their Delta frequent flyer accounts. Prices were higher when logged in on Delta's website versus anonymous price searches without logging in.

On Friday, Delta offered a detailed explanation of the discrepancy. Although the problem has been solved, it brings into light the complexity of airline pricing.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we're in an oversold situation for our flight today and are looking for volunteers to take an alternate flight."

We've all heard that announcement while sitting at the gate. It simply means more passengers have shown up for the flight than the airline can accommodate.

Overselling flights is a common and necessary revenue management practice for airlines to ensure as many seats are filled as possible. Necessary because a certain percentage of people with confirmed reservations don't show for their flights. Sometimes they get the formula wrong and too many people show up.

But what do you do if there aren't enough volunteers and you get bumped off the flight? It's important to know your rights, especially as the peak summer travel season kicks off this Memorial Day weekend.

Comfort Inn guests will soon be noticing some changes.

Next month, a Comfort Inn and Suites hotel will open in Spokane Valley, Wash. as the brand's first newly redesigned property. The hotel's furniture, fixtures and equipment were all replaced to fit into the new "Comfort Truly Yours" design.

Choice Hotels International , Comfort's parent company, got feedback from more than 1,500 guests to come up with the new design. More than 100 properties are in the midst of a redesign. Others will follow, with the brand-wide overhaul scheduled to be completed by 2015. The company has said it is willing to close up to 10 percent of its Comfort hotels if they don't meet guest satisfaction standards.

A sleek new $1.4 billion international terminal featuring airy windows and eye-popping artwork opened Wednesday at the world's busiest airport. The aim is to attract more globe-trotting passengers to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

The Maynard H. Jackson Jr. International Terminal adds a new concourse of 12 gates to the existing international facilities and a separate entrance dedicated for international flights.

"It's really going to open up new opportunities for Atlanta to grow," Louis Miller, the airport's general manager, tells the Associated Press . "It's going to become a gateway not just to Atlanta, but to the world."

Road warriors who fly inbound to Atlanta as their final destination will enjoy a new time saving feature.

No, the dreaded "staycation" hasn't made a comeback.

But according to three surveys released this week, Americans remain fiscally cautious about their summer travel plans.

In a new PhoCusWright poll of more than 2,000 U.S. travelers, nearly four in 10 Americans (38 percent) didn't buy a vacation trip within the past year. Particularly hard hit were early boomers (ages 45-54), whose average trip expenditure dropped by more than 10 percent.

Hitting the road this summer? Better get booking.

As the busy summer car-rental season begins, prices are expected to climb. “In early June through the end of August, these rates will spike,” said Neil Abrams, president of Abrams Consulting Group, which tracks the car rental industry. Last July, for example, the average rate for a weekly airport rental of a compact car booked seven days ahead was $369.62, or 56 percent more than the $236.73 charged in March, according to the Abrams Travel Data Index. Here are some tips to keep costs down.

On some Virgin Atlantic planes, you'll be able to phone home from 35,000 feet in the air.

The airline has announced that it will become the first British airline to provide passengers the capability to make and receive phone calls during flights. Passengers also will be able to send and receive text messages, emails and have web access via GPRS.

The new service will be available in all cabins of the airline's new Airbus A330-300 aircraft and refitted Boeing 747s.

Even Nobel Peace Prize winners aren't guaranteed immunity from the TSA pat-down.

According to The Washington Post, the former secretary of state who helped bring an end to America's involvement in the Vietnam War had to go through a full pat-down while going through security to catch a flight to Toronto at New York's LaGuardia Airport on Friday.

You probably already know that traveling can be hazardous to your health, particularly when it comes to picking up those nasty little respiratory and gastrointestinal viruses that are spread via shared surfaces on planes, hotels and restaurants. (If you don't know this, you're either hopelessly out of touch, or blissfully unaware.)

But it gets worse: Now there's evidence that it's not just colds and flu that business travelers have to fear.

No sooner had the captain turned off the “fasten seat belt” sign than the flight attendant on Air Pacific Flight 411, headed from Fiji to New Zealand, performed the same dispiriting act I’ve seen dozens of times around the world: He drew together and Velcroed the flimsy gray curtains, separating the coach cabin from business class.

This time, though, I smiled. In a few days, I’d be on the other side of that polyester divide, finding out what really goes on among the business consultants, rock stars and — I’m guessing — bejeweled countesses that sit up there.