AsiaHotels.com .....
 

Last year I booked hotels through AsiaHotels.com. They offered good rates for hotels in various Asian cities. This year, when I did my first booking with them again I received confirmation notices from HotelClub.com, which seems to be an Australian firm.

Has AsiaHotels.com been bought out, or absorbed by the new operator? I am concerned because the hotel rates are now very much higher for the same properties than last year (like US$20 to US$30 higher!).

Anyone have any info on HotelClub.com?

Thanks much.

What country were you booking in? Someone posted here a number of months ago that HotelClub was a contractor that Asiahotels used in one country (I can't remember which one now). I've been using Asiahotels for years and would be sorry to find that they had been bought out by another company.

Kathie: Kyoto, Japan was my first (and perhaps last) reservation with AsiaHotels.com just a few days ago. I truly miss the friendly confirmations from the AsiaHotel gals; they were terrific. What I received this year was simply an ice-cold acknowledgement.

The rates for Singapore & Kuala Lumpur are as mentioned US$20-30 higher now on this site compared to last year at the same properties!

I think that something there is going on that doesn't yet meet the eye.

Alas! I hope we hear more on this matter. I've used them in the past for Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Laos, VN...

Hotel rates in general have gone up in Singapore and KL in the past year. This could account for some, if not all, of the increase you encountered.

It would be interesting (if anyone had the information) to compare the rates quoted on those hotels' own websites today, to the rates they were asking a year ago. I wonder if the hotel's direct rates have gone up at the same pace as those on Asiahotels.

i think that hotel rates in asia in general are up and $20-30 does not surprise me..

look at some other sites and compare...

I'm curious about your Kyoto hotel...in the past, I've found that booking sites, including asiahotels.com, have had rates much higher than directly booking with the hotel, though that direct booking is often in Japanese.

I read that average Singapore hotel rates had gone up between 12% and 16% in 2005 compared with 2004.

hi easywalker, i can enlighten you on this issue. please email me at [email protected].

Thanks!

enkil615, can you enlighten the rest of us since many of us are curious about asiahotels.com?

an entirely new company is running asiahotels.com now. almost all its staff has been made redundant. the new company has a different policy with regards to customer service thus, the icy responses. In the new company's effort to achieve efficiency, asiahotels.com had lost its personal touch :(

I have been to Asia 3 times and never booked hotels through Asiahotels.com as they always had more expensive rates than the other sites.

I had used asiahotels.com many times in the past but for my upcoming trip to Asia, I didn't use them at all. They became much more expensive than other sites when in the past, I always found their prices to be cheaper. I also don't like the changes made to the web site. It's too bad that the company who took over saw the need for change when the site was good the way it was. Unless they change back to how they were, I doubt I'll be using them in the future.

I've used Asiahotels for many years and always got great prices and great service from them. After this post in January, I checked some of the prices at the new website (I don't like it either, Laurie!) and found them to be much higher than in the past.

While I can use sawasdee in Thailand, does anyone have a general-purpose hotel booking site for other Asian countries that they like?

I also used sawadee.com for Thailand and Malaysia Kathie and liked them very much. Good service, reliable and good rates, along with nice hotel photos and information.

www.hotelsguru.com required your credit card information before they even tell you the price or availability. I just tried a booking for August to try it out and the price came back "on Request" and required my credit card information to go further. T & Cs stated your card is charged when your reservation is confirmed by the hotel, and may be cancelled up to 5 days out from check in for a $10.00 charge...so if I tried to book a place then got confirmation but the price was higher than expected and I cancelled I'd still have to pay $10.00. Not good.

If you use any booking sites, stick with the ones that don't require a credit card until price and availability are clear.

To clarify al the speculation, AsiaHotels was acquired by Cendant, the major travel group and is now being sold under the HotelClub group - this is one of Cendant's better known online travel brands.

Being part of a larger group means that AsiaHotels no longer provides the personlaised service we knew and loved anymore. AsiaHotels was also able to offer better rates as they worked so closely with the hotels and ran special promos regularly.

So sadly, another unique and individualistic supplier got eaten by a global player....

Thanks for the info, xv. I'm truly sad to see the old asiahotels.com gone. They were wonderful to deal with. I doubt I'll ever use the "new" asiahotels.

I'll probably never use them again either, a real shame because I loved the old site. Hopefully asiahotel's business will drop off dramatically and these companies will learn a lesson. I submitted some questions, on two separate occasions, to the new site several months ago. I never received a reply. The old asiahotels would have gotten back to me within 24 hours.

I am the original poster of this thread, and I can see that many of us relied on AsiaHotels in previous years for bookings at a low price with a hometown touch. Sadly, I can now only say: R.I.P.

I did unwittingly make 2 hotel reservations though them, with the new firm being undercover. My reservations are both for next month, in Kyoto and Darwin.

I shall keep you all posted in this space as to whether the reservations go off without a hitch.

Thanks, easywalker, I'll look forward to your report.

Is this the same as "asiarooms"? I have had good luck with them. Also, Precision Reservations and Sawadee. Good Luck!

korea, no, asiahotels is entirely different from asiarooms.

I just used hoteltravel.com and everything was flawless. They have a nice website and you can go in and check your reservation any time..Plus you don't have to make a deposit..Our credit card was charged about a week or 2 before we arrived..Anyhow, i will use them again next time we travel to Asia..

I just read in today's New York Times that Cendant, the company that took over asiahotels.com is selling off it's travel division. Hopefully this includes asiahotels. Anything would be an improvement over what happened to it since Cendant took over.

That's good new, Laurie. Let's keep our fingers crossed.

now that sounds more like marketing talk, fluttery. but as enkil615 said, asiahotels lost its personal touch. any marketing hoopla will not bring back the good people who have served laurieco, kathie and easywalker for years.

mmmm fluttery marketing talk? new poster, no history - always suspicious! perhaps I am just too cynical...

Yes, Asia-hotels is well and truly gone. No one is maintaining the site now and it really begs the question: why the @#$% did Cendant buy over asia-hotels if their purpose was to destroy everything unique about it?

The reviews and hotel content are gone because the new system cannot cope with the amount of info while the customer svc/ rsvn are now handled through Australia. Even the rates are now sourced through another Cendant company (simply because that company is the biggest among all the travel distribution channels that Cendant owns)

Anyways, it's a sad state of affairs. What could have been an intiative by Cendant to revolutionise the travel industry has become an unneccsary slaughter of many great travel websites.

Btw Cendant owns hotelclub.com, ebookers.com, lodging.com, cheaptickets.com among many others.

oh! This is quite an enlightenment. I used asia-hotels.com just twice because i used to work for a local travel agency in Malaysia in the past and did not use as much online booking. On my first booking with them, i received an email AND a call from a lovely lady confirming my booking and telling me that my request for a seaview room wont be granted as the hotel is running full but since it was confirmed to me through email, they upgraded me to a suite instead, this was around 2003. Last year, i used them again for my Hong Kong business trip just for 1 night and i received an automated email confirming my booking. Though i find the warm customer service during my first booking really good and personal, i think the efficiency of the automation can compensate for it (though not as much, but i think it's fine).

Now that i use more of the online bookings for my travels, i find myself not being very particular with loyalty to one website. Whichever can give me good rates and confirmation, i book!

The big difference though is 'when you pay', there are lots out there that won't even take a 'request' without having to put your credit card details in, I never use those, nor those which make you pay the whole lot at once.
I stick with my local favorites, no credit card to make a request, request as many as we want, your email booking gets copied straight through to the hotel itself, they come back with what is available and then a few days to choose/decide, then just pay 1 night deposit and the balance a few weeks ahead of arrival ( though it can vary depending on the hotel ). But they just cover Thailand and malaysia and a few in Singapore.
For Australia I have used Hotelclub and they were fine.
I also go for 'choice', I have seen sites that offer maybe 10 or 20 options when in fact there are far more.
Shop around.

I used them for the Ritz Carlton in Kuala Lumpur. They had the best rates and sawadee who handled all 4 other destinations did not have April onward until after March 1st and we wanted to have everything locked up by Feb, 1 for an April 14th departure.
Asiahotels.com was smooth in all respects. sawadee.com seemed to have Thailand rates all posted by 1/1/06 except for the Ritz in KL.

I am the original poster of this thread, and I had promised to keep you all updated on my two final reservations.

I had made the reservations shortly after the New Year, for stays in Kyoto and Darwin in the month of May.

I mentioned to you in an earlier posting that my acknowledgements came directly from the Australian company.

In addition, at the time of my original reservations I was required to pay in full in advance.

When I arrived in both Kyoto and Darwin, I can now tell you that my reservations were present and accounted for; there were no problems with check-in; all went well. With regard to my advance payment, both hotels acknowledged my advance payment in full, and indicated upfront to me that my reservation was all paid up already.

Final verdict for me: if the AsiaHotels.com rates seem reasonable (which they didn't earlier) then I suppose I might use them again. The service of the new owners did prove to be reliable and trustworthy, though cold and impersonal.

Thanks for the follow-up info. asiahotels rates are not as good as they used to be. But with your experience, I will keep them in the list of rates I check.

I used Asiahotels.com for Kuala Lumpur and their rates were very competitive with the others. I must admit I used sawadee.com for all of Thailand (4 destinations, but switched to Asiahotels.com because sawadee did not put up rates fast enough for 4 months out from our departure yet Asiahotel had good rates at the same time. When sawadee come out with their rates it was actually$6-$8/nt. more than Asiahotels anyway. The advantage of sawadee is you only give them 1 nights deposit up-front but IT IS NON-REFUNDABLE. Asiahotels.com you pay the entire amount up-front and I read getting a refund may be a problem but changes of dates one way or the other was not a problem so I have read in this Forum over past 7-8 months.

For places outside of Thailand and Malaysia I've used www.asiaoz.com which I think ends up thru the same Cedant system but it has a handy search thing too which gives some other options but is just for Asia and A/NZ, they also had Rates To Go which is only good for short notice trips within 20 days but the great thing is you only pay about 10% ( or maybe 12% ) and you pay the balance direct to the hotel, they have last minute gargains to fill empty rooms as many are very cheap, and like only having to pay that % deposit and paying the balance on arrival is good too, but again, only good if you are looking for something to arrive within 20/21 days http://b2b.ratestogo.com/enter.asp?id=5604