We booked a room through Asia Rooms at Mon Tri's Boathouse for $164 per night in November. We recieved E-mail that they had recieved our request. Three days later, they sent an E-mail sating the rate was now $244 per night. After a flurry of E-mails, they indicated that our reservation had not been made. Does anyone have a similar experience?

Not me, but it's something I've read about on this board and other boards several times.

Honestly Andy this is why I stick with R24, ok so in November they quote $252.23 for Boathouse ( $ 142 October ), but of course as I think you know you only have to pay 1 night deposit with R24 and you would not have to pay the balance until 2 weeks before arrival, so you are not paying any credit card interest, or if you pay the card off monthly that money would be sitting in your bank earning some 5 months interest for you, Res99 (USA)quote $257.07,seems roughly the rate others charge also.

They are based in Pattaya but no idea where.

$ 164 for November for there just sounds way way too low anyway.

Andy, lots of people have posted here about similar problems with asiarooms. They sometimes show VERY low prices, but soon disclose that no room is actually available at that price. It isn't clear to me whether they never had any rooms at that price or whether they had a very few rooms at that price.

Some people have gotten really low prices from asiarooms. So at least some of their good deals must exist.

I had a similar experience. Slow response and then a different price quoted. I ended up booking all the hotels through sawadee.com instead.

I recall others. I was posting to alert. We almost booked flights to coordinate with our Phuket stay. Thankfully we did not and retain our flexibility. MAy add an extra day in Luang Prabang. Silver lining.

James-we booked because that was the lowest rate we had ever seen for November.

I know others have had problems, but we took a chance and tried them for our Phuket leg. The first time they did email back that they didn't have Marina Phuket rooms for that price and lifted the hold on our CC immediately. They didn't offer another price. The 2nd time we got our Movenpick room for the price as stated. We also used them for HKG two years ago without problems. That said, I'm using Agoda for our Siem Reap leg and I'm going to use R24 for the Bangkok hotel just because the stories are making me paranoid enough not to trust our entire trip to one booking site!

so my e mail to asia rooms worked....i am so happy....another property saved from the horrid speedo experience!!

Andy, when in November are you going to be in LP? We'll be there too at the beginning of the month. Maybe our paths will cross...provided there are no speedos in sight.

Seems that happens a lot ! I stick with the R24/sawadee sites always.

Gpanda, Are you the one using Tong on November 12 in Bangkok? I tried to book her and she's already spoken for on that date. Thought it might be you nosing us out.

Intersting post on using hotel booking agencies in Thailand. Some think they are quite deceptive -- including R24 and Sawadee.

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index....owtopic=123005

There have been discussions of this on this site as well. I don't really think it's deceptive that some booking sites own a domain name close to that of the hotel. And my expereince is that the Thai booking sites typically (but not always) have a btter price than you can get from the hotel. The price usually incxludes both tax and service as well as breakfast.

Some people just need to complain...

i find comments not the least bit helpful....that goes for many of the reports on trip advisor as well....people have too many axes to grind

Tc-no we'll be with her on Nov. 29.

i've had similar scenarios with asia rooms, and after several tries, i think its not so much a renege, but a bait and switch. as for me, they enticed me with attractive room rates, but never came through.

i use sawadee now, much better. may try r24.

How could this be an effective sales method? Are there sufficient numbers of people that do not check when they are sent rates that significantly differ from the original offer?

I think that people know the rates, but they just assume that asiarooms has the best rates.

I don't know how many times I've heard or read that asiarooms has the best rates and then I've found better rates directly. Maybe it's just the kind of places I book, but really, asiarooms advertised rates are actually higher and include less than the rates we've got by direct booking for this summer. The only place I used a booking site for was for part of our stay in Singapore at the Four Seasons...for the weekday, asiabesthotel.com had a better rate. But for the weekend we are there, the hotel had the better rate by far (when I booked, it was also lower than it is now, so I saved by booking early with them). I always check booking sites for rates, but have only once found it both cheaper and available. I will concede, though, that for many mid-range and budget places, booking sites seem to offer a better price than direct booking.

In my experience it is only at the very high end hotels (at least in Thailand, Cambodia and Laos) that the rates (including taxes/service charges and breakfast if applicable) can be cheaper than a booking agent. The Peninsula, Oriental, Four Season, Anantara and certain beach resorts do offer better rates sometimes, especial in off season. If you stay at small boutique hotels then you may have to deal directly with the place as they do not list with agents.

I use a variety of hotel booking sites including R24 and its associates such as sawadee, Asia rooms and lately Thai Hotel Discounts http://www.thaihoteldiscounts.com/