Peter Greenberg always sleeps on airplanes, almost never at home, and rarely in hotels. As travel editor for NBC’s Today Show and chief correspondent for Discovery Network’s Travel Channel, he is on the road nonstop, 450,000 miles a year. In January, he was only home for three days. Is this a life? For the 54-year-old ex-Newsweek correspondent, it is his life, his job and his hobby.

In a recent 11-day stretch, he flew from New York to Frankfurt to Singapore to Bangkok on Singapore Air. From Bangkok to his home in L.A. on Thai Airways. From LAX to Tahiti on Air Tahiti Nui. From Papette to Easter Island to Santiago, Chile to Lima back to JFK on LAN Chile. From NY to Washington, D.C. and back on the Delta Shuttle and home to LAX on American Airlines. It is a crushing grind, even if you’re flying business or first class as Greenberg does, but the obsessive, compulsive frequent flier works door-to-door.

Either he’s interviewing, reading, poking around asking questions, clipping through suitcases filled with the 36 magazines and 16 newspapers he gets daily for researching, or he’s writing. He writes nonstop—and right on or just past deadline. His third Travel Detective book, Hotel Secrets (Villard: $15) hit the bookstores and Greenberg will annoy the lodging industry worldwide by baring “insider secrets and tips” aimed mainly at vacationers but with some good nuggets for business travelers.

The business traveler’s holy grail, according to Greenberg, is simple. “My first commandment is never take a ‘no’ from someone who’s not empowered to give you a ‘yes’ in the first place. When I get the indifference of a public utility from an airline, a hotel or a car-rental company employee, I go up the ladder to his supervisor, and then his supervisor up to the mother or father of all supervisors—without being obnoxious.”

His second commandment: always carry paper tickets because if there’s a flight irregularity other than weather, Department of Transportation rule 240 (recently renumbered as 120.20) states an airline must put you on the next available flight. Taking a paper ticket from one airline check-in counter to another counter expedites your boarding. Why? Because the second carrier, if it has an interline agreement with the first, knows it will get paid for flying you. (Plus, paper tickets are important if the second airline’s computer systems or check-in kiosks are down.) Greenberg points out that the major airlines all have interline agreements but discounters like Southwest, Jet Blue, AirTran and ATA do not. Hence, he carries around 40 paper tickets with him at all times—“for flexibility and options.”  This is especially critical on international flights. At airports in some second- and third-tier countries, an e-ticket is like seeing fire for the first time.

Greenberg hates to waste time at airports so he usually scoots in 35 to 40 minutes before takeoff, unless it’s prime departure time and security lines are gridlocked. “I’m not at the airport to eat, shop or go to the spa,” he says. Still, he’s a member of the major airline VIP clubs because he joined them all in the mid-1970s when lifetime memberships cost a flat $300.

His favorite airline? Greenberg dances around that question. “Any airline that tells you the truth, especially when it’s bad news, is my favorite,” he opines. Actually, he flies different airlines on different routes. On LAX to JFK, he books American Airlines, mainly because he can upgrade to first class with his bizillion AAdvantage miles. A gregarious schmoozer and hospitable sort, he’ll occasionally take flight crews to The Today Show for a behind-the-scenes tour. Hence, it’s no big surprise he usually gets star treatment from American’s cabin attendants.

On Los Angeles to London, Greenberg prefers British Airways to Virgin or the U.S. airlines on that route. “I used to be a big fan of Sir Richard Branson and will probably fly them again if they install their doublewide beds on the A-340.” He favors BA’s four-class 747s over American because the Dallas-based carrier operates a 777 and business class is always packed. “They want 40,000 hard-earned miles to upgrade to that?” he muses. Instead, he goes to the back rows of economy cabin and tries to snare four seats across to stretch out and sleep. Another Greenberg tip: buy upgrades when possible rather than pony up tens of thousands of miles to move up a class or two. It’s more cost effective unless you have more miles than you’ll ever use or give away.

Across the Pacific, Greenberg has switched from Thai Airways to Cathay Pacific. “Thai was a really great airline at one point but the equipment is old; there are no in-seat power ports for laptops and that’s a ‘gotta have’ today.” Cathay Pacific’s service and amenities, he claims, are first-rate.

Otherwise, he finds Alaska Airlines hasn’t “lost its hometown Seattle friendliness”; raves about Air Tahiti Nui that’s launching a new Los Angeles to Paris nonstop; has good words for Jet Blue; thinks Royal Jordanian is “rapidly improving”; and deems LAN Chile one of the best airlines in the sky. Greenberg “avoids airlines that have terrible labor relations because they always have terrible passenger relations.” He says USAir is a classic example and asks how can anyone expect cabin crews, who fear for their jobs and their benefits, to be radiant and cheerful? 

Greenberg, who pops back and forth between New York and Washington, D.C., claims the high-speed Amtrak Acela makes much more sense than any of the three shuttle airlines—Delta, USAir and American—because he can set up an “office” and write door-to-door without interruption.

Actually, he recently switched from an AOL Mobile Communicator when AOL jettisoned the gizmo (“I loved it”) to a Sprint Treo 600 that sends and receives wireless e-mail. Overseas, he packs an old Nextel i2000 GSM phone and pays a steep $1.90 a minute. His laptop of choice is the Apple i-Book but he also lugs a vintage Compact Presario 1247 as a backup. Other Greenberg gear to go: an i-Pod for digital music, a Sony Walkman for CDs, and a portable radio for BBC broadcasts. He also carries a cash stash, a leather pouch with $50 to $100 in eight major currencies.

Greenberg judges a hotel, not by a friendly welcome by the doorman or eye contact and a smile from the front desk clerk, but by the bathroom. “Most of us spend more waking hours in the hotel bathroom than in any other room and if it doesn’t work, there’s a reasonably good chance nothing else will,” he opines. He likes the loos and lavs in the Four Seasons Hotels in New York, Bangkok and Chicago; the Peninsula in Hong Kong; Kimpton’s mid-priced Monaco in San Francisco.

He gives a wide berth to the hip and happening hotels. “I don’t want to run the gauntlet of their hip bar overflow or a front desk staff that looks like escapees from a music video. I don’t need style over substance in a hotel,” he insists. However, he finds the Hotel Teatro in Denver, the Whitehall and the Treamont in Chicago as “hip without proclaiming it.”

A huge turnoff: hotels that charge for Internet access. He lauds Best Western Hotels overseas for their distinctive personalities, free, fast Internet access and fair prices. He said Best Western’s Montana in pricey Lucerne was only $165 a night when he bunked there.

Dashing to catch a plane to New York, Greenberg had some getaway advice for frequent fliers but he reckons it’s probably not news to them. “Avoid like the plague the big convention hotels because their job is to generate as much additional revenue as possible from you beyond the room rate. Example: he claims the Hyatt Regency in Houston charges guests five bucks just to receive and handle a FedEx package, a blatant rip-off. On the other hand, the Westin Atlanta is a pilot hotel for a new scheme: a flat $16 a day buys you free local, domestic long-distance calls, 800 calls, and Internet access. It’s a money-saver for travelers who work in their rooms but the hotel still will make a profit unless you barricade yourself in your room and are dialing and e-mailing 10 hours straight.