hotelclub.com?
 

Has anyone used this booking service? They have great rates for hotels in Italy. I want to make sure that this is reliable and no one had problems with the hotel having their reservation.

HotelClub is part of a huge company called Travelport that also owns Orbitz and dozens of other travel sites.

HotelClub takes your booking, and then several days before your arrival, the hotel is notified. The hotel makes rooms available to HotelClub at bulk rates, and HotelClub acts as a reseller.

The only hiccup that can arise is if the hotel claims (falsely or otherwise) not to have received this notification from HotelClub. The same thing can happen with any third-party agency, or with a direct reservation for that matter.

So if you are concerned, I would just telephone the hotel a couple days before travel, confirming that the hotel has received the notification from HotelClub.

I was hoping to communicate with the hotel concierge long before we stay there. Do you think the concierge will help me if they don't have the booking yet? If I get a confirmation from hotelclub, should that be enough to have the hotel communicate with me?

I can't imagine why there would be a problem with the concierge, once you explain you have made a prepaid HotelClub booking, but I have never tried talking to a concierge in advance.

You should not have a problem speaking with the concierge, as they should be accustomed to working with clients who have booked through a bulk operator and understand that your name may not yet appear on their reservations system (although I would want to make certain that there is some way of attaching tickets and other vouchers to your reservation).

I agree with all of what WillTravel says. It is common for some bulk operators to not give the names of the actual guests until two days before the start of the stay (especially with giant properties in Orlando and Las Vegas).

One concern that I have with their booking mechanism is that, at least for Russia, most often it is not real-time availability and booking. That means that the rates, and the availability, are often meaningless and can take 1-3 days for an answer

Thank you for the information!