I was wondering whether people re-confirm their hotel reservations with the hotel itself when you book using booking sites. Have you ever showed up with a reservation number and found the hotel didn’t have your booking?

In the past I have usually booked hotels mostly via email with the individual hotels. Since I usually book hotels months in advance I always re-confirmed by emailing the hotel again a couple weeks before the trip just to be sure they still had the reservation on file. They always did. This time I booked all my hotels on booking.com or venere.com. I can sign in to the sites and see all my reservations so it seems silly to bother emailing the individual hotels. Do you bother doing this?

Yes. I had prepaid on Hotels.com and called the Hotel Brighton in Paris to confirm - not only the reservation, but that it was paid.

I don't confirm anymore as much as I used to. I've never had any issues with Booking.com or Venere.com - I've come to trust them. When I make reservations directly with the owners of the place (say a B&B where no booking service is involved), I do tend to confirm ahead - but they tend to do it first, too, to make sure you're actually coming.

I don't generally reconfirm but do bring copies of confirmations and any relevent correspondence. Last trip to the UK I was owed a 1 night stay at a nice hotel and arrived to find the manager with whom I'd booked was away and he hadn't noted the night was at no charge. If I hadn't brought a copy of our emails it would have cost me a significant amount.

I don't normally confirm unless the hotel needs to know arrival time and then I send a confirming email a couple of weeks before arrival. I do print emails and bring them. I remember one instance where I would have been without a room if I hadn't had the email.

I don't reconfirm with booking sites.

Yes always. Showed up at one hotel and they did not have my reservation. As I could show that their hotel confirmed my reservation and price twice- I was able to get a room.

I make a lot of my bookings through booking.com and I always reconfirm--I don't know if it's necessary but I send an email with our approximate arrival time and restate any special requests (I always ask for a quiet, non-smoking room). I don't think it hurts to have a little direct correspondence with the hotel and so far I haven't had any problems.

I ALWAYS bring copies of my e-mailed confirmations. Never had a problem.

I usualy confirm any booking I have made via a 3rd party company.never had a problem butI does let the hotel know you are likely to turn up.I usually let them know my approximate arrival time especially if i am arriving late.

Yes and yes to your first para. We showed up to a hotel at heathrow after booking through booking.com and they had no record of the booking. It was a fiasco and took ages for them to find us a room in another hotel. So now I always confirm.

I don't generally reconfirm hotel reservations, no matter if booked direct or booked via a website. I do take printouts or email confs, usually keep them on my iphone. Yes I have turned up at hotels and they claim there is no reservation (Rio, Hua Hin and Paris to name a couple), reconfirming would not have made any difference. I never buy the "can't find reservation line" anyway, because I know if there is a confirmation number from their central reservation system, that there is a booking somewhere and if they can't find it, then they must find accommodation in their hotel or another nearby, which has always happened, thankfully. The Rio hotel, I am sure they were trying it on when they told me they can't find the booking.
Exception to this is if I am arriving really late, then I do contact the hotel to let them know. Even this didn't help me in one case, where I called the hotel at 8/9pm and said I would not be there until midnight and they promised to keep the room, when I got there they had given it away. There was a shift change and the message was not passed from one person to the other, apparently. I had them get the manager out of bed and find me a room.

There is less likelihood of anything going wrong when booking thru a website then via email directly with the hotel.

I doubt it's necessary though there's always a chance of a glitch no matter how you booked.

Especially if it's a long time since I made the booking or if I have a specific request of arrival time, I often send a " just checking email giving specific information of where I'll be coming from and when I expect to arrive and saying how much I am looking forward to my stay. I find that "personal contact" often results in a more friendly welcome and it certainly does no harm

We usually book direct with our accommodation (normally B&Bs) and reconfirm a couple of months before we depart. For an upcoming trip we booked some of our accommodation through a couple of booking sites including booking.com and in each case I also emailed the proprietors to confirm they had the booking. A bit of overkill I know but it has given me peace of mind.

I usually do confirm when I remember to to avoid any surprises.

I usually stay appr. 60 nights a year in hotels (mostly on business).
As several stays are more than one night, it boils down to appr. 40-45 establishments per year which I always book via online booking sites like booking.com or hrs.com
I never bother to reconfirm but always had my reservation details handy at check-in.
So far, I never had any problems. Also late arrivals have been no problem when secured via the booking website (hrs, for example, gives you the option to make a solid reservation with cc number - so the hotel does not care if you show up at 5pm or 1am next morning).

If I book the trip 4 months or so before I use them then I re-confirm. My reason is that people up date their computer, change staff etc and lose bookings.

I always take emails and any contracts with me, it has solved a whole bunch of problems with a range of companies. Mrs Bilbo has shown me time and time again where suppliers try to step outside of their contract and documents seem to solve the argument.

I booked hotels for our upcoming July Europe trip as early as August 2012.

In this case I simply went to the websites I used to book to reassure myself that the various reservations are still in the system and all of them are.

I always take my printed e-mail confirmations along with me in case there are any questions upon arrival.

Interesting collection of thoughts - as I suspected - probably not necessary, but a good idea nonetheless. Thanks