What is your experience in booking a hotel through its own website rather than someplace like hotels.com or travelocity? I am concerned about price, and worried that I won't get the correct reservation when I get there. They cannot confirm no smoking or quiet rooms. Thank you.

I do not understand why anyone would use a third party like those you mentioned. Write directly to the hotel and mention the price you found on the other sites; ask if the hotel will match it. Keep a copy of the confirmation with the price and all details. It is not unusual that a hotel will not confirm in writing a quiet room, since that is subjective! As for no smoking...you pasy your money and you take your chances. I would not count on that except, perhaps, in a multi-starred hotel. Although they will remove the ashtrays!

I recently attended a wedding at a hotel in York. I booked a room direct with the hotel for the special wedding rate they offered - 99GBP. One of my brothers then pointed out that their website was offering rooms for the same period for 85GBP. After some negotiation the hotel agreed to one night at 85GBP and the second night (the night of the wedding) at 99GBP.
A liitle over a week before we were due to leave another brother (father of the groom) emailed me that an agency had rooms at the hotel for 59GBP.
I booked two nights through the agency and cancelled my original booking, as did my brother.
Moral of the tale - always check the agencies to see what they are offering!

Book wherever it's cheapest and follow-up with an email confirmation directly from the hotel; sometimes you can't get this until as late as 72 hours before your stay, but some agents don't forward their list of names until then.

Hi
If I book in advance, I go directly with the hotel or the hotel chain. I received my confirmation with an e-mail response and have had no problems.

there are plenty of reasons why someone would book with a third party, chief of which seems to be getting the same room at a significant discount. Hotels, particularly chains, use agents such as Hotels.com, priceline, Hotwire, etc., all the time to move inventory.

I've also seen more than one occasion when the hotel's own allotment of rooms was sold out for a particular date but a discounting service still had some rooms to sell.

I agree that you can easily contact the hotel either directly or though its own booking service and confirm your reservation which you got from a third party such as Hotels.com.

I presume you are worried about not getting the reservation when booking through places like hotels.com, not the reverse. Why would you want to book through hotels.com or travelocity in the first place?

IOf you really can get a discount by doing so, that's one reason (they do have some discounts negotiated, some are more like normal rates) to use them, of course. You get what you pay for, which is the inability to get any special type of room confirmed or special request, and some make you prepay. Frankly, most hotels won't guarantee you any quiet room, even if you ask for one. I suppose everyone wants a quiet room, but I always stress that because I am very sensitive to noise. I don't know if it does any good and many desk clerks or people who assign rooms are completely oblivious to what that means -- ie, they assign me a room right near the elevator or ice machine after I've just told them I want a quiet room.

Anyway, if you want to book through those websites because you think you are getting a good deal (and both certainly have been in business a long time), contact the hotel a few days later to make sure they have your reservation.

We usually book our hotels through hotels.de and think they are superior to many hotel web sites. For example, we found better rates on hotels.de for the BW in Detmold than on the BW site (30€ cheaper per night, plus the BW site kept timing out before booking could be completed, which is why we turned to hotels.de).

We also like their service of emailing the confirmation to your mobile and also including their service desk. For example, when we drove to Ulm in June, we tried to call the hotel, but the number listed on the hotel's web site was incorrect (the number had just changed, but they hadn't updated their site). We called the hotels.de site, their staffer (who spoke fluent English), tracked down the hotel's correct number, called the hotel for us to get our question answered (we were stuck in traffic on the A8 and needed to know how late the hotel's restaurant was open), then called us back to say he'd spoken with the hotel and they were making sure that the kitchen would still be open when we arrived. In addition, you can send a request to the hotel when you make your reservation. I just reserved a room at an NH hotel and opted to book through hotels.de rather than NH because I couldn't send the message I wanted to NH with my booking. In this case, I was quoted the same low rate from both sites.

We've never had any problem with hotels.de. However, when booking an Accor property, usually a Sofitel, we book with them directly as we're frequent guests with Sofitel and they have all our info on file.

As someone who is employed in a resort...always book directly with the property if you can...unless you find a significant rate difference and the type/location of your room isn't important. We have third party bookings...any changes, cancellations must be through the booking agency. Any particular requests, room types, etc. cannot be guaranteed. You'd be surprised at the number of people who book through an agency and then contact us with a request for a certain room type or to change their dates, only to be told they have to contact the agency.

I'm worried about the cancellation policy. The hotel e-mailed me that it was 5 days. So I guess if I cancel less than that, they will charge me?? Usually, you can cancel within 24 hours of your arrival date.

yeah, that's what it means -- it should spell out the terms, like if you lose one day's fee if you cancel less than five days or whatever. A lot of hotels do allow you to cancel within 48 hrs or so, but it really depends where you are looking. If it's a resort area or someplace during an important event, it isn't unusual for hotels to have a cancellation policy much farther in advance.

ALWAYS check the cancellation policy of a particular hotel. Not all have a 24-hour cancellation policy.
While hotels.com generally has a no change, or cancellation, fee policy, they adhere to the cancellation policies of the hotel they book for you. Often the lowest rates at the Holiday Inn, for example, are nonrefundable -- meaning just that -- no matter when you cancel.