The case of using the info at a hotel to get your room key is pretty reasonable. On the home break-in story however there's a lot of evidence that this hardly ever happens if it happens at all. There are plenty analog ways in which criminals scout for homes where the occupants are on vacation. These ways are often much more efficient than their digital counterparts.

I'm not saying this article should be disregarded, however if you're on holiday and you used TripIt's feed on public WiFi, the chance that you're house was broken into because of this is negligible.