I'm someone that is very critical of bad service, but will also applaud good service. Hotels.com gets a standing ovation.

I have never used their service before, so when I needed to make a reservation change, I was expecting the normal forever "hold" then arguing with some phone operator. It was the opposite.

I got right through to their reservation person, told them what I wanted and in less than 60 seconds it was changed and a refund processed. I was actually waiting on the phone not realizing the entire transaction had been completed.

So, Hotels.com, you get a big gold star for outstanding customer service.

Dave

That's good to hear!

Okay, but take their online maps with a grain of salt. We booked a hotel in Köln, and the map that printed showed the location well south of the Hbf, around Neumarkt.

The property was actually northeast of the station, on the other side of the river!

National Geographic sure didn't give them an A in their May/June issue. Seems they give confirmation for reservations without actually making the reservation. Someone booked a resort through them 6 months in advance and got a confirmation. When they arrived at the resort it was full and the resort had a copy of the fax from hotels.com from the day before. They had waited until one day before check-in to try to reserve the room. NG checked their user agreement and it states that they are not responsible for overbooked hotels, strikes or any other event deemed beyond it's control.
NG was able to get the consumer credit vouchers, but says the real problem is a system that allows hotels.com to confirm a nonexistent reservation and then when the customer is inconvenienced, to weasel out of their obligation.

Is there a discount by booking thru them?

My question being, what is the advantage of using this kind of website over booking directly with a hotel's front desk yourself?

Sometimes they offer discounts and hotels may often use these sorts of services to sell rooms at less-than-published prices.

For some an advantge of using such a service is the possibility of seeing a wide variety of available accommodations in the same town or area rather than searching individual websites if they even exist.

In some cases you can actually get rooms in hotels that are otherwise "sold out" because the inventory given over to the booking service hasn't been exhausted.

I agree that they are sometimes sort of like a "Priceline light" - - except that you know what you are getting... selling off rooms that the hotels have in excess capacity. I have never used them in europe, and not much in the US, but it seems worthwhile to take a look at what deals they have, especially when you are finding nothing but high prices, and want a fairly specific location (for example, Beverly Hills, not "just anywhere" in LA), especially when you're looking relatively late.

Best wishes,

Rex

I have used such services, including www.quikbook.com. It's a good way to see what's available in a city during the time you'll be there. You can then go to the hotel's website or call the hotel directly to see if they can match or beat the price of the service. If they can't, then you can book through the service.

With any third-party service, the hotel can always claim, rightly or wrongly, that it didn't get a communication of the reservation. So the thing to do is after you make a third-party reservation, confirm it with the hotel a few days later. I have never had a problem.

Of course, many people have also posted that they have reserved at a hotel directly and the hotel has disclaimed all knowledge of them.

Actually in my case, I contacted the hotel first and they told me that since this was done through Hotels.com, then I needed to change through them.

As to the price difference, yes it was about 30% lower than the lowest stated on the hotel's website.

I agree that anytime you use a third-party, check to make sure the pre-paid reserveration actually exists and bring copies of the receipt. Same is true with cars and planes.

dave

> As to the price difference, yes it was about 30% lower than the lowest stated on the hotel's website.

You request direct to a hotel and sometimes they will confirm you with the price lower than the stated price (rack rate). That happens to me. Most of the time I book direct with hotels but there are times I use booking site not only for info but actually to book. Even then I contact the hotel and check my booking. Never used Hotels.com. It is affiliated with other companies like Swiss Airlines so when I book a flight, I have taken a look at their hotel rates but have not found their offers particularly good so never used them.

Here's an update to my initial post.

Last Friday I found a deal on a better hotel in Rome, so I called up Hotels.com and asked them to switch the reservation. They said "no problem", that there would be a $139 additional fee, which I agreed to. Supposedly the funds from the original booking would go to the new booking.

What ended up happening was that they did not credit the cancelled charges to the new booking and billed me the full amount. I was a bit peeved to say the least.

Well, I'll give it to them again, called them up and it took about 10 minutes to get it all worked out. In addition, they gave me a $100 credit for the inconvenience. So, while I was a bit upset over what they did, they fixed it in a professional and quick manner.

Once again, I give them an A+

Dave

I actually had a very good experience with hotels.com in Paris this past September, as I had to make a spur of the moment booking, given that I decided to stay longer, hotels were full, and I compared hotels.com with venere.com and hotels.com had the better rate, for my hotel in the 10th arr., better than the hotel website-and I also had to book at two separate hotels-at the other one, hotels.com's rate was like 40.00 cheaper than the hotel site-this cheaper rate was given to me over the phone-but this was not true on all properties-which is why you have to compare rates among third-party reservation services-and do as Will Travel says, always confirm with the hotel before you leave that they have the reservation-I have been able to avoid problems this way, because I found once that the hotel did NOT have my reservation, and the situation was cleared up and rectified before I left.

I have used Hotels.com once for a recent trip, and it was fine. You can have problems with anyone - but so far, my favorite is Venere. The two times we have used them, they had a very lenient cancellation policy.