mamamia2

Not the first time I make a reservation for a hotel room thru one of those online sites (don't want to badmouth any specific one) giving you information that later you find out "it ain't necessarily so".... Or the hotel finds no record of your reservation...

My latest was a site that allowed me to reserve a room for FOUR people at a hotel in Germany, for the price of a DOUBLE ROOM... While other sites would not accept such a reservation for that hotel, this one did. To be on the safe side, and before making the online reservation I picked up the phone, talked to the site's agent. She said if she makes the reservation and it goes thru, we're safe. She did, it went thru.

Next day I CALL THE HOTEL IN GERMANY.... They DON'T have a room for four. The reservation they see on the screen is for a double room.... We must reserve another room.

Of course, Travel...never mind the name... had to reserve another room for us and they had to pay for it. Nice. But not very reliable.

Be careful.

suze

That's why I always book directly with the hotel not thru online middleman websites.

mamamia2

Yes.... And many of them will give you the same online discounts as those "middleman" online services....

hispanic

Thank you for the notice. You should _always_ follow-up with the hotel. Things happen, people get things wrong, and systems fail. Congrats on getting the deal.

Mike....

qwovadis

Save a Tonne www.betterbidding.com Priceline Hotwire

up to 70% off sometimes.

Always pay with CC can reverse charge if not as promised.

Best I ever did was a 600 euro per nite suite at the Marriott

in Zurich for $80 bidding priceline.

So GREAT deals to be had for me way better than direct

booking.

With 4 though sites like www.otel.com work better

issue room vouchers for u to 4 for best available

works better than Priceline for me outside of big cities.

Direct booking better sometimes in really small hotels though

sometimes for me... so caveat emptor but if not as promised

you can always get your money back.

No so if you pay them locally without CC

easy to get shafted most commonly by the local hotel

in my experience.

november_moon

I've had good luck with sites like Expedia over the years. I haven't noticed that reservation snafus happen any more frequently with them than when reserving with the hotel directly. Sometimes problems happen though.

I do check out the hotel web site before making my reservations though and of course to make sure the info on the booking site matches the hotel web site. And I check with the hotel directly before travelling to make sure things are good - usually in conjunction with making a request such as non-smoking room with double bed rather than 2 twins.

thursdaysd

No need to get paranoid. I'm five months into a six month trip and have booked all my hotels "online", some direct and some via sites like agoda, venere, travelocity, travelguru etc. I usually reconfirm a couple of days ahead.

If you try to put four people into a room intended for two you deserve to have problems.

mamamia2

That was a silly reply, thursdaysd....

If I ask a professional hotel reservation website to place 4 guests in one room and they accept the reservation and charge my credit card --- excuse me, I deserve no punishment, thursdaysd. 4 guests in a hotel room is not an illogical expectation, and you, as an avid traveler, should know that... Have you heard of a room with 2 double or even queen beds?...

Paranoid or not, fact is, being suspicious since no other site offered a quad room for that hotel, I DID take the extra precaution and called the hotel directly, and ended up getting the extra room for free from the site who made the error.....

lcuy

They made a mistake, then made it up to you by buying you an extra room. And you are upset because...?

thursdaysd

"4 guests in a hotel room is not an illogical expectation, and you, as an avid traveler, should know that... Have you heard of a room with 2 double or even queen beds..."

A room with two double/queen beds sleeping four is common in the US. It is NOT common elsewhere. In fact, it's probably easier to find a single room than a quad unless you book a four bed dorm in a hostel. Plenty of rooms with two beds, but they sleep one to a bed, not two.

My reply was partly influenced by a previous thread, where someone wanted to put four people in a four sold for two, and if that was not your intention I apologize. However, it was also influeced by:

- Any deal that looks to be too good to be true almost always is, especially when you're traveling.
- Quad rooms are not common in Germany, and you should always check that kind of request with the hotel - as you eventually did - and not with an intermediary.
- If no other site would take the reservation, and you thought there might be a problem, why didn't you call the hotel rather than the website before making the reservation? Sounds like you knew it wasn't legit.
- There's no such thing as a bug-free program, and this sounds as much like a programming bug as an agent error - s/he believed what was on the screen, and the programming was US-centric.

So, my comment may have been snide, but not silly. You did the right thing by calling the hotel, but you did it late. And I agree with lcuy - you're getting two rooms for the price of one, exactly what are you complaining about? And why should the rest of us avoid these sites?

mamamia2

Complaining? I am not complaining..... I'm SHARING INFORMATION here.... Isn't what this forum is for?

In essence we have nothing to argue about here (and I'm not sure why we are.......)....

...My post was intended to WARN OTHERS not to blindly trust those "middlemen" websites -- at least not when it comes to accommodations (we had issues before, with another site, reserving a hotel in Houston, to find out later the hotel never got the reservation), but to double check with the hotel after the reservation is made. When I called the site's agent to double check (since I WAS SUSPICIOUS the hotel does not have any quad-rooms), her answer was "let me run your credit card info, and if the system accepts it, you're safe with your reservation".... Still, I made the extra effort to check again, the hotel in Germany had one double-room reserved for us.

So I'm not complaining, I did get the extra room free, I thought I'd share my experience so OTHERS don't fall into the same trap. Am I wrong doing that?

Suzyque

Thanks for all the info. I have been looking for lodging in Paris the end of May. I was surprised to see in all the disclaimers, some of the hotels had about extra charges. I was hoping for nice quality at an affordable price (like everyone)with a cancellation clause. We have used Priceline and it was a good experience, but I keep reading that it can be very troublesome. Any opinions? What about those extra charges that can be added on? Thanks!

mamamia2

Yes, that's another little thingy that one can't ever know till he's checking out... My reservation details say I am charged "tax recovery charge & service fees" and for a $77 room I'm charged $1.90. I'm sure the hotel will charge me their own taxes upon check out.