Hi,

This may seem like a silly question..but, I am heading to Italy and France in July/August. I plan to book my rooms ahead of time and was wondering if people have suggestions on how I should do this?? By Internet, Fax, or phone? It seems like there are great deals by Internet but should I be skeptical? Or should I just call after I book online to make sure it went through?

Thanks!!

Hi david,

It is a good idea to contact the hotel after doing your booking online to get a confirmation direct from them.

Agree with Ira. For our trip to Germany last year, we did all of our hotel booking and car rentals over the internet. We then verified via email or fax.

I do searches at internet websites that offer low prices. Then I contact the hotel directly; I've so far not had one which wouldn't honor the same rate or arrangements. I like that, because then I am the hotel's customer directly.
Print out a copy of any confirming email, or bring the fax, just in case a mistake randomly occurs.

Elaine, what is the best way to go about asking the hotel to match any lower rates you have seen elsewhere? And do you phone or email the hotel?

I have never re-confirmed any hotel reservation that ws made through their own booking service on-line and never had a problem. If you e-mail the hotel directly the info exchange will serve as a printable "confirmation"
If you search for prices through discount sites for comparison, and then book through the discount site you might want to confirm via e-mail that the hotel has received the booking. Just my experience..others may vary depending on the confidence levels involved.

I've never reconfirmed any hotel reservation made by any method, except once when I booked through Utell. Any reservation you make online should have an email of confirmation of the reservation automatically sent to you. If they don't, it probably didn't occur, so you must check immediately. I think all good websites send you email confirmations of a reservation or purchase.

I think all the great deals you see are probably by some kind of brokers that may be far removed from the hotel, though -- in that case, I'd so something to doublecheck if you don't get an email confirmation from the hotel directly with the rate (some do that even though booked through another site).

I don't think it matters if you do it by FAX or email or phone, it's just a means of communication to me. I did it by FAX because I didn't have the hotel's email.

Thanks to everyone for their advice on this. I saw a price on venere.com and then emailed the hotel directly. They emailed me back with a better rate, I sent them via email my cc info, and they just sent me a confirmation e-mail. Do you think this is sufficent? Or should I call/write back and ask for an official fax on letter head?

Print out the e-mail with the hotel's confirmation and bring it with you, just in case. That should be sufficient should there be any question re the dates or rate charged for your stay. (I've used this before to confirm that breakfast was included in our rate, but fortunately never run into any other confusion.)

In my experience problems with reservations becoming lost are rare but not unknown so a double check closer to your planned arrival date is not a bad idea, especially if the reservation was made long in advance. Take a copy of your documentation with you. I recently presented such an e-mail in Spain. It was obviously sent in error because our second night was for a time that the establishment was closed. They honoured the reservation anyway and said leave the key and lock the door when we leave on Saturday.

David,

My wife and I just booked a hotel in Barcelona online. We spent a lot of time searching online for different hotels and even though the one we picked showed a price on Hotels.com and Travelocity.com of $280USD, the price came up as 109 Euros when we checked the rate on the hotels' own web site(We were able to get the website from www.bcn.es). Needless to say, we were a bit confused because the hotel is a 4 star hotel and looks just beautiful in the pictures. I had my wife call the hotel(She is fluent in Spanish) and ask them what the actual rate was and relay to them what we have found online. They rate my wife was quoted by the desk clerk was around 230 Euros but said that if see a better price offered online to book via that method and the price would be honored. We booked a room for one night at a rate of 109 Euro. Once I received a confirmation letter in my email, my wife called the hotel back to confirm the reservation. The clerk said that it is appearing in their system and for the amount that we booked for online. I also printed out the confirmation page with our reservation confirmation # so we have that when we arrive at the hotel(Just in case). YOu can never be too safe and it's good to cover all the bases.