I have always been uneasy about using these type of WEB sites. There was a pretty awful story about a Thailand booking snafu in a travel magazine lately. Is this outfit reliable and if a cancellation is needed how are they on refunding the deposit. Thanks.

They are a reliable site. I've used them before and am using them for my upcoming trip. They are very clear about the cancellation policy, and all of the reports I've heard say they follow their policy. (I've never had to cancel.)

Read their terms and conditions. The one with the worst reputation is asiarooms.com -
Sawadee and its associated sites have a good reputation.

When you make your reservation, you don't provide credit card details. You pay the deposit after they confirm your room. At this time, you can also opt for buying travel insurance through them so you can get a refund. If you don't have the insurance, what you pay is non-refundable. The final balance is due some time before your stay...varies a bit by property I think. This is also non-refundable without the insurance.

Last November I made a reservation with them for a hotel in Chiang Mai, got the insurance with deposit. We later changed our mind about the hotel and decided to go with another place (more expensive, too), and there was no availability for our new hotel through the sawadee.com group. I could book it directly though, for very close to the same rate, which I did. I cancellled the sawadee booking, and promptly received a written confirmation of the cancellation, but no credit on my card. Several e-mails, and finally a call to AMEX got me the money back...all except the insurance payment (of course)...and a nasty note from the respresentative telling me "your refund has been processed. Do NOT call American Express again."

Bottom line, I got the money back...but it wasn't entirely painless. Before then, I had always booked directly, and my experience reinforced the direct booking idea for me...I just don't particularly want to worry about chasing down refunds.

I am also uncomfortable prepaying for a room...what if you get there and it's not as expected and you want to move...you've already paid, and have a headache to look forward to if you cancel/change.

Sawadee.com does have a better reputation than some of the other booking sites though. I'll give them that.

I have used Sawadee 3 times for reservations and never had a problem!

Just used Sawadee for 3 hotels (16 nights) in Thailand. It all worked well except when I contacted a person named Nui had a "reallly" difficult time getting responses, but finally got them after 2-3 follow-ups.

Would use again.Not always lowest price but for $10/night difference felt I would use 1 service in Thailand.

Sawadee is indeed the most reliable of the Thailand services. They also provide a service called Res24 or Reservations 24 - which is used by many smaller websites. But, it is the same system with excellent service and reliability.

For customers, Sawadee is great for the customers. We just used Sawadee for two Thailand hotel reservations. I, too, was concerned about using a service, but was told by friends that Sawadee was a large and very reliable business. We booked, and we had no problems. We got the Four Seasons in Chiang Mai for much less than the hotel was charging. (Even when I told them I was able to get a room there at a better price through Sawadee—they would not match the Sawadee price.) Sawadee was quickly responsive to our requests and questions before we booked final reservations with them. We also used them for Yaang Come Village in Chiang Mai---a wonderful, new hotel close to the best areas of Chiang Mai. .

Evidently, Sawadee is not as good to their hotels as they are to their customers. The following explains.
Yaang Come Village, a terrific value in comfort, aesthetics, and amazing service, is losing money because Sawadee uses yaangcome.com as the web site, having gotten the name before the owners applied for the web site. Anyone going to Google to get their home web site THINKS they are goingdirectly through the hotel. There is nothing about Sawadee on the web siteThe hotel will give the same price if you mention that you have checked the Sawadee web site, and you need only make a reservation—not pay in full with no cancellation possible. This seems deceitful on the part of Sawadee. The hotel home page can only be reached by using the second listing at Google: www.yaangcome.com It is brand new and absolutely delightful. The people there are the most helpful and accommodating we encountered (and that's saying a lot in Thailand). They feel really frustrated that they are not getting direct reservations because of the Sawadee listing misleads people into reserving through them.
Sawadee was great to deal with as a customer.

Both of those links go the same place - so I am not so sure that Sawadee is doing anything untoward.

When I do a google seach I get:

http://yaangcome.com/ in first place and:

http://www.sawadee.com/hotel/chiangmai/yaangcome/

Very clearly a Sawadee webpage.

She means www.yaangcomevillage.com is a sawadee page. Must have been a typo. It is misleading. Yaang Come Village's page is www.yaangcome.com If you do a google search for "yaang come village" the first result is sawadee's page www.yaangcomevillage.com
The hotel's own page is the second result.

I see Travelux's point exactly. And the hotel has a dilemma, as sawadee.com is a very popular booking service and they have likely contracted the rates with them for a period of time. But losing money...maybe not, as I booked directly with them for very close to the same price as sawadee's rate, plus got an upgrade to a junior suite. And sawadee.com is selling their rooms, which must be better than them remaining empty.

Some confusion here:

http://www.yaangcomevillage.com/

belongs to:

http://www.thailand1x1.com/

The page does show the Reservations 24 system page for Yaangcome Village - but many many websites use the Reservations 24 system. If you feel that it is unfair to them - you might complain directly to Sawadee.

Here's how to figure it out - at the very top of the page is a link to "Chiangmai Thailand" - click on that and you will go to the hotels page. If you click on any other cities - you will head back to the 1X1 site. It is not a Sawadee website - but does use Sawadee's hotel booking engine.

Hope that helps.

Sorry - I know the links showed up funny - but not sure how to fix them!

One additional comment.

When I look at the Google page I see that this hotel has contracts with:

DirectRooms.com
HotelClub.com
Sawadee.com
Hotels.com

All major hotel bookers. Just my opinion - but I am not sure why they would sign contracts with many major booking agencies - and then complain about it. I agree the website initally mentioned is a bit improper - but they are getting bookings! And have an impressive web presence by virtue of pages and pages of small hotel websites - promoting their hotel. Even the somewhat inappropriate webpage spends money on domain names, hosting, and possibly even advertising to promote the hotel. Just two sides to the story - I think. Domain names, yes, can be problematic - but - that is the Web!

Agree about the complaining...why would they complain about bookings...

And I understood it as sawadee = r24 as in they are the same company, based in Koh Samui...maybe my misunderstanding. I do know that the r24 system is used by many small online sites and they get a tiny commission from their bookings. I just thought sawadee was r24, one and the same.

Sawadee owns and operates R24 - it is a system for small websites to use.

The website in question: http://www.thailand1x1.com/

uses the R24 systems for bookings.

Just as interest the Majestic Grande have issued this statement. All websites must adhere to the hotels MSP, minimum selling price which is as follows;
Grande Superior Twin/Double 2990 Baht/night inc ABF.
Grande Premier Twin/Double 3300 Baht/night inc ABF.
Grande Deluxe Twin/Double 3990 Baht/night inc ABF.
Any booking coming from a website not adhering to this will be refused check in or will have to pay full rack rates. Most hotel websites now show this rate. So if you find a site with better rates expect the hotel to turn you away when you present your hotel voucher/confirmation.

I expect that the comment from YCV about losing money was a slight miscomminication based on language differences. They might well encourage a repeat visitor to use their own website to book as it has a lower cost to YCV as well as the price being slightly higher (and therefore, they have more leeway to give a room upgrade). But they don't "lose money" in absolute terms (ie., it doesn't cost them more to offer the accommodation than they get in your payment from sawasdee).

By the way, you might check the webpage address for the Pen on sawasdee. This isn't some conspiracy against small hotels, it's the way the sawasdee website was set up.