Patrick

I have stayed at Le Regent Hotel in Paris several times over the years, but today I got the first regular piece of mail from them. In part it says, &quot;After a few sad and stressful months, we hope to see you again in our beautiful city&quot;. They then offer a 20% discount for stays from July 20th through the end of August. Yes, I know that is a slow time anyway, but I've never known them to discount rates even during that period. This shows that tourism or at least bookings are way down in Paris. I was just curious if other hotels are doing the same.<BR>Meanwhile this would be really tempting, except that I've already booked an apartment during that time. And Le Regent is airconditioned so it is a good place to stay in the 6th during those hot months.

Christina

Quite a few hotels offer a discount in July/August, anyway. The one I usually stay at does. Many are 10-20 pct. <BR><BR>le Regent discounts rooms 20% at slow periods. I don't know about July/Aug. but they have 20 pct discounts in Jan-Feb on www.pariserve.tm.fr It wouldn't surprise me at all if more hotels do this year, though.

Patrick

Thanks, Christina. I know I had always seen discounts for other hotels (often the un-airconditioned ones in August, and at the business hotels, but I have stayed at Le Regent in both July and August, and trust me -- I've never known them to discount rooms during that period when they have always been full. So this is something new.<BR><BR>Has anyone noticed more hotels offering &quot;deals&quot; this year?

Flyboy

I'm seeing deals all over the place, but Paris may be particularly ripe right now. At times like this, it pays to be nimble by having reservations that are easily cancelled and/or altered. I was able to trim 100 Euros/night off a five-star in Amsterdam this past week with some extra spiffs thrown in.

Marilyn

I've been researching 3-star Paris hotels for a late May booking of 6 nights and I sure have not found any great discounts. Specials seem to apply Jan-Mar and then again in July-Aug. I do have reservations now, but how do you get a reduced price if it's not offered? <BR><BR>I confess I'm not great at this, but it seems very awkward to me to say &quot;Hey, nobody's coming to Paris these days, what with the whole French thing and then there's that ricin gas you guys just found at the Gare de Lyons, so why don't you give me a better hotel rate as an incentive/reward?&quot; <BR><BR>Any tips would be appreciated, especially since I'll probably get my husband to do the bargaining. Thanks!

Christina

I review Paris hotel web sites fairly often and I've seen quite a few hotels that offer discounts in July-August that are air conditioned, over many years, not just this year. The one I stay at is A/C and has has summer discounts for as long as I've been going there (about ten years). It really isn't extremely rare for AC hotels to have summer discounts in my experience. I like to go in July myself so make good use of those discounts.<BR><BR>Unfortunately, Marilyn, May is not a discount period, there are holidays and it is not summer yet when business is down. I've never seen a discount in May, although who knows how occupancy is right now. <BR><BR>I have 3 web sites I review that often list seasonal discounts:<BR>www.parishotels.com<BR>www.123france .com<BR>www.pariserve.com<BR><BR>The last one above is the one that has the Regent discounts on it for winter (and they show for July/August, also). If you go into their discount section, you'll see a lot of hotels with discounts for summer. <BR> <BR><BR>