| Overheard on CNN.com: Don't be a hellish houseguest and U.S. drivers face 12-cent hike at the pump |
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Editor's note: Overheard on CNN.com is a regular feature that examines interesting comments and thought-provoking conversations posted by the community.(CNN) -- A recent article about using friends' homes as hotels inspired readers to come up with more ways to get a return invite -- and some things to avoid if you want to be welcome again!We're guessing that guests who give the rest of us a bad reputation don't see themselves in the comments of the disgruntled hosts. Know that eventually some hosts will get fed up and shut their hotel doors down to everyone. And their friends will blame the bad guests.Here are eight ways to improve your houseguest experience from CNN.com reader comments, some of which have been edited for length or clarity:If you are lucky enough to have an offer of a bed in France or Las Vegas or ski country, go the extra mile and make your host's life a little easier while you're there.Johnnyleen: "I stay regularly with a friend in France. [Read the full article] (CNN) -- Lane Kommer should be skiing this week. Instead he postponed a trip to Colorado because the snow situation just isn't looking good."We've been keeping a close eye on the weather the last few weeks and keeping our fingers crossed, hoping for some good snow and it just got to the point where we decided it's better to reschedule and pay to change our plans than to go out there and be disappointed," said Kommer, who was planning to fly from Dallas to meet up with friends at Beaver Creek Resort. Now they're planning to go in February.It is a decision faced by skiers and snowboarders across the United States as ski resorts scramble to make the snow that Mother Nature isn't providing. December 2011 yielded the 11th least extensive snow cover in the United States in the past 46 years, according to climatologist David Robinson, a professor in the geography department at Rutgers University. [Read the full article] Editor's note: Brett Snyder is the founder of air travel assistance site Cranky Concierge, and he writes the consumer air travel blog The Cranky Flier.(CNN) -- This is starting to sound like a broken record, but once again, 2011 was an incredibly safe year for commercial air travel.In fact, there were only 373 fatalities on 18 scheduled passenger flights worldwide. Considering that there are roughly 10 million flights per year in the U.S. alone, this is a remarkable feat.Looking at the Aviation Safety Network's database, we see that there were 106 "occurrences" of all kinds during the year worldwide. This number includes military and cargo aircraft accidents as well as airplanes on test flights. One of the accidents last year was actually with an illegal crop-dusting operation in Russia. So this is pretty detailed.Including all those various occurrences, 50 in total had fatalities; many of the rest were things like edging over the end of the runway. [Read the full article] 
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