We are in the final planning stages of our month long European vacation. Yeah! I have booked all the hotels using email. I have all the confirmations saved and printed (twice..for both backpacks). Do you send another email to re-confirm prior to your trip and if so, when do you send it 1 month or 1 week before leaving?

I don't send another email. On another thread, people said this seemed to confuse many hotels. I frequently do telephone the hotel and ask if they have a reservation for <my name> on <date>.

Since most of my reservations are made months before I go, yes, I usually do reconfirm. I also use that email to remind them if I'm looking for anything in particular -- like a larger room, one with a balcony, or whatever they were unable to confirm with the original reservation. I usually reconfirm a couple of weeks before arrival.

I do reconfirm, and none of the emails I received back reconfirming seemed to express any confusion about this. It appears to be commonly done.

there's several long threads about this. Yes, I do and very glad too. Not only hotel but plane reservations also. In doing so, I have uncovered errors on my part as well as the hotel and airlines.

If I haven't confirmed for a couple of months, then I confirm again. I booked a hotel in Sydney ten months before Christmas. I figured I better confirm again.

I have been trying to re-confirm a reservation I made several months ago at Hotel Cervo at Malpensa airport for a night in May.

I've sent 3 emails...each one week apart.... and have not received any reply.

I am wondering if there is something wrong with the hotel's email system.

I have the original email confirmation...but I always reconfirm if the reservation was made several months in advance.

I'm wondering what to do now since they haven't replied.

how about a telephone call, instead of more emails?

suntraveler, are you able to set your email to indicate that the receiver has opened the email?

Suze....I was thinking the same thing but I wanted to avoid that if possible.

Neopolitan...I didn't know know it was possible to do that unless it is someone using AOL.

No, I don't have AOL and I use it often. I use Outlook Express. I just go to the "tools" at the top of the new message window and click "request receipt". I think just about any mail system you use will have something similar.

Ordinarily I would agree with using a setting, depending on which e-mail program you actually use, to confirm that someone on the other end has receieved/read the e-mail.

But, in this case that won;t really solve the problem of needing/wanting a re-confirmation which would require a REPLY. Opening and reading are one thing; re-confirming something else again.

If you are that concerned then I would advise you to get on the phone about this one.

Thanks again, Intrepid1. I think I will be dialing Milano.

I never reconfirm if I have a written confirmation. Actually, it had NEVER happened that my room was double-booked and I often books several months in advance (in England, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Turkey, USA). Legally, in Europe the confirmation is a valid contract. If your reserved room is not available the hotel has to provide adequate ersatz accomodation at no extra charge. That means, if they send you to another hotel it must belong to the same class or higher. Hence, in rare cases of overbooking, you will get an upgrade.

I usually book my hotels pretty far in advance and always confirm a few weeks before departure. Since I usually book via e-mail, I just forward the booking confirmation with a little note saying that I am reconfirming the reservation and ask that they respond to verify that there is indeed a reservation.

Tracy

I ALWAYS call the hotel, and give them either the confirmation number, or my name, and have them read the details to make sure everything is right.

Once my reservation was lost, another time only 1 of 2 rooms went through.

The printed confirmation is to make sure the rates are correct.

Do not trust the e-mails. Either fax or phone.

Faina, I only did the phone thing once, calling from Nice to Dijon to reconfirm our reservation. I had a bit of a language problem and understanding them on the phone, but all seemed fine and they definitely found the reservation after spelling my name several times, etc. So I was shocked when we arrived there a week later and they told me that I had called and cancelled our reservation. They finally found us another hotel as they had no rooms. It was a place I'd wanted to stay for a whole year!

Since then, in foreign countries I rely on emails, not telephones.

" I had a bit of a language problem and understanding them on the phone..."

You can say that again!

..confirmation doesn't mean anything with some small hotels. I had a bad experience with a small hotel in Paris. I booked it 5 months in advance and then reconfirmed by email 3 weeks before. All was documented and I always carry copies. When I arrived I stayed in the hotel for 2 days but on my return they were "sorry" but they didn't have room. They had booked at one on their other hotels for me. I was really annoyed by blatant disregard for a confirmed reservation BUT live and learn!..and of course I will never stay there again.

This poll goes on at least twice a year on here, I think. I'm one who doesn't reconfirm. Never had a problem, never reconfirm just to ask them again, never didn't have a room when I got there.

The only time I reconfirm is within a few days of making a reservation if it is done online through reservation page software or third party agent (like londontown.com). That's just to make sure they got the reservation okay and the right info. I never reconfirm again if I get that email, nor if I made the original reservation by email. I've never reserved a hotel room six months in advance, however, but I have three months in advance.

I would send an email to reconfirm if I ever did it, as long as I knew that communication route worked with a hotel from experience. I'd probably do it a few weeks before arrival.

As for the email thing -- sure, you can do that through other email systems, but the recipient has to willingly allow it to work and to respond. I don't know if all email packages have it, but I get some business emails that tell me to send a reply message that I've opened it and I use Eudora. I could just as easily reply not to send the confirmation, though, email isn't that magic that they really know if someone has opened it. With AOL, they actually know if their own users have opened mail or not and tell you that, it's not up to the user to decide if they want to let you know.

Maybe there are some other kinds but those are the only confirming email opening things I've ever seen.