In looking for a place to stay on Samui I've found sites like asiarooms and samui888 offer prices for $15 less per night than lawana's site...are these outfits safe or a scam?

Lloyd

There are lots of good discount websites for booking hotels in Thailand. Many here like www.sawasdee.com The only bad news about www.asiarooms.com is that they have a history of very slow refunds if you cancel. I don't know samui888, but many differently named sites feed into a smaller number of discounters.

As you compare prices, note that hotels in Thailand charge 10% service and 7% tax on teh rates, adding 17% to your costs, so the sites that include all taxes and service charges plus breakfast (like sawasdee) are often an excellent deal.

Another website that gets good reviews is www.precisionreservations.com There are many others as well that are worth checking. I used www.asiahotels.com for many years, but they have recently had a change in ownership. Their rates are now higher, and I hear that their service isn't as good.

I always stick with the same and have done for years and years, for most of Thailand I use www.huahin.20m.com , for Samui and island www.beachsiam.com go thru Sawadee and R24 who are based on Koh Samui, you don't need a credit card to enquire about a booking, you can ask for several, they then tell you what is available, you then have a bout 3 days before you either decide on one or forget it, doesn't cost a cent and until you decide to confirm they don't even want to know your c/card. You then normaly pay 1 night deposit and the balance a few weeks before arrival, but dpends on the hotel resort policies. The sawadee group is huge here.

I used asiarooms to book hotels in Bangkok last month with no problems. Just be aware of the site's cancellation policy as some have had problems with refunds.

asiarooms.com is running a bait and switch operation. They advertise a cheap rate, take your credit card number, then falsely tell you the hotel is fully booked. Then they recommend a different, but usually more expensive hotel. Stay away from asiarooms.com.

i have used the hua hin site suggested above for a number of years and am always very pleased with them...their prices are usually significantly less than the hotel sites themselves and include the tax and service charges of 17% plus often include breakfast...

i have used them for samui also...we stayed at peace resort there...

Hi.

What about AtSiam.com? They have the best rates for the hotel we are looking at. Are they reliable?

Thanks in advance

nzers

I just used asiarooms.com for a couple of hotels in Java and Thailand and there was no problem, certainly no "bait and switch."

atsiam has a very limited number of hotels