Julie

This was my second experience booking hotels in Europe by Internet. I had booked US hotels by Iinternet and had done one really simple booking in Paris, but had always worked through a travel agent (who I feel somewhat guilty deserting) for long, multi-hotel trips to Europe. Results were mixed and I relay them in hope that they will help others entering this brave new electronic world. <BR><BR>We are planning a trip to France next September. We are traveling with another couple and need to book two rooms at each location. We needed reservations at 8 different places. We selected small, generally elegant/charming hotels, often in small towns, and wanted sea views, etc. with the exception of our final night where all we care about is being close to the airport where we’ll fly out at 6:55 a.m. the next day. <BR><BR>I booked two hotels directly through their own websites, booked another strictly by phone call and worked with two reservation companies for the other 5 (one company for 4 hotels and another for 1.) Here’s what I experienced. <BR><BR>One I booked directly with the hotel through their web-site but followed up with a call to provide my charge card number since they did not furnish a secure connection for that purpose. The site had very good information about room types so I knew exactly what to ask for. We exchanged several very polite/friendly e-mails to book and confirm after I called with credit card number. This worked well.<BR><BR>One I booked directly with the website for the hotel’s chain, furnishing card number on secure site. This was duck soup. Had a confirmation within minutes. <BR><BR>One showed fully booked on the various web-sites I looked at re: it. This was a very important return visit for us and I was unwilling to take no for an answer. I called them directly and was able to obtain a two bedroom/two bath suite for us two couples that should work out fine (and most likely be cheaper than two separate rooms.) This is the kind of information that you usually can’t ferret out by viewing a web-site. <BR><BR>Two from the same reservation service came back available. I confirmed one directly with the hotel to ensure that the rooms being booked were of the type I wanted and confirmed the other through the reservation service using their secure connection to transmit credit card data. <BR><BR>More to follow<BR><BR> <BR>

Julie

The other 4 came back unavailable (3 from one reservation service and 1 from a second service.) In all 4 cases, I contacted the hotels directly by phone and was able to secure rooms, by discussing my needs and interests and selecting rooms that either didn’t fit the offerings of the reservation services (usually at higher rates than quoted by the service) or possibly rooms that might not have been available to the reservation service to dispense—not sure about this, but it’s my theory and I’m sticking to it. <BR><BR>Overall a pretty poor track record for internet booking. It seems from this brief experience that the Internet may be most useful when booking directly with the hotel (if you can get a direct e-mail address) or when booking with a major chain. I’ll know more about the costs of phoning when my phone bill arrives next month but unless that’s a shocker, calling directly proved to be the best route for me. Of course, this was all to hotels in France where the answer to my halting “Parlez-vous Anglais?” was “ yes” in all but one instance where it was the French equivalent of “please hold on, I’ll get someone who does.” Had my needs been for hotels in Croatia or Czech Republic the experience might have been very different. <BR><BR>How about you? Similar or different experiences? <BR> <BR>

StCirq

My one and only experience was negative. I wanted to book rooms at the Bellefontaine in Bayeux - two double rooms. The only service I could find to do that on the internet was a service called Hotel Switch (mighty aptly named). I plugged in the information, gave the credit card number, and requested a faxed confirmation as well as an e-mail confirmation. I got both within 24 hours, both booking me a room for five at a hotel in Senlis I'd never heard of. Then began the real test, as there was no way to call Hotel Switch that I could divine. It took more than a week to sort it out by e-mail and get the credit card charges cancelled. They kept trying to book me for other hotels in Bayeux that I wasn't interested in. Finally, it got sorted out, and in the meantime I'd called the Bellefontaine and gotten exactly what I wanted. I'm not tempted to use the internet again for hotel reservations.

Dick Yeager

My experience this year is just the opposite. I succesfully booked 4 hotels in Germany, and 1 each in Austria, Switzerland and France. No phone calls, all email. No problem.<BR><BR>I would add that in all but one case, the hotels had websites. The one hotel that did not have a website, I booked through the town information office.<BR><BR>One more thing of interest; one of my bookings happened to be a Best Western property (Innsbruk). I received a better rate through Best Western than I did directly through the hotel.<BR><BR>Dick

Kathy

Julie, Have booked with france.com many times for our trips to Paris- never had a problem,although we call hotel directly to confirm they have our reservation..

Kristi

fyi on France.com . . . We leave for France in about a week. Tired to book a hotel for 5 nights in Paris on France.com. They claimed the hotel we were interested in had limited availability, but promised to get back to me in a couple of days. Got worried, so tried to make reservation on the hotel's own web page. Absolutely no problem, and got confirmation back quickly. All this is understandable, but thought it was interesting that the France.com site eventually came back with a higher rate than the hotel offered us -- I thought it claimed to have the lowest prices.<BR><BR>

Julie

Nice to know that my experiences were pretty "normal" Wish it were not so. Hope reservation services can improve and learn ways to offer more flexible booking options. Other experiences to share?