What is the most reliable SD Flash Memory card I can buy for my digital camera?

I already have one SD card that has failed on me (yet never had this problem with CompactFlash cards). I am afraid I will loose my family photos on my upcoming vacations. With all the hype companies post for their own products, and all the problems I've read for various brands, it is hard to find what is the most reliable SD card out there.

Sandisk and Lexar are the best known memory cards for digital cameras. I am sure that the cards all pretty much perform the same, but these brands have a lifetime warranty for some of their products, so that makes me think they are built to higher standards. As far as day-to-day use, I have some generic and some of each brand I named and they all work. The contacts on the brand name cameras seem to have the equivalent of the "thunk" that you look for when you shut a car door to check it's quality, if you know what I mean. You don't wonder, "Is it in there right?" because it just feels right. I don't buy generics any more, though. I just end up getting them "with things" somehow.

Of course, you'll need a decent memory card and I recommend a genuine Sandisk Ultra II (60X) or Extreme III (133X) of at least 1GB. Lexar is another excellent card supplier and they have the "Professional" 133X as well as the Platinum 80X to choose from. Both Lexar and Sandisk come with image recovery software that you copy onto your computer before you format the card and both have limited lifetime warranties.

I have never had problems with Kodak memory cards. Very good quality

they are all reliable
the trick is to never use a card reader
that is what ruins them

Dr. Sam has a good answer there. I would like to add that even reputable branded memory cards have failed on me. Although the card is now usable again, all the photos that used to be on my Sandisk 1 GB card suddenly disappeared overnight, literally. (I ended up using recovery software to recover the photos). I don't intend to imply that SD cards are very unreliable, but all electronics are prone to failure to some degree. It is just on occasion.