Does anyone have experience using France.com to book a hotel. Strangely, France.com says the hotel has plenty (more than 10 rooms) of free rooms while according to Hotel Madison via a direct phone call, there are no rooms available for the time we requested. Does France.com buy blocks of rooms to sell independently of a specific hotels? Should one simply ignore internet bookings as unreliable and stick to direct contact with the establishment? Any advice/experience much appreciated. <BR>Mike

Forget booking a hotel in Paris from a website. I've tried and they don't respond. I use the websites to search for a hotel in my price range and the location I want...then I send the hotel a fax. They usually respond within 24 hours. Faxing works well.

As to whether there are really rooms available or not, I can't answer, of course. <BR> <BR>As I said in an earlier posting, I much prefer dealing direct with the hotel. <BR> <BR>And I must say, on the basis of a lot of years in businesses associated with travel, I have never, ever known a hotel manager to give someone else access to the last rooms. That continues to be a problem with the excellent computer systems of the large chains ... property managers are loathe to lose control over that last room, lest the local dog catcher wants a room for his aunt. <BR> <BR>I'd tend to believe the hotel. <BR> <BR>twenj

Mike; <BR>I'm not familiar with this site. But, I have found that most booking sites in Europe are just agencies that relay your request to the hotel. They are not consolidators that buy out blocks of rooms like some in the US. They tend to be at least several days behind in their information and will often show rooms available when they are not and vice versa. I would trust the hotel for the correct information. However, the hotel may not really be full. For example: I tried to book a hotel in Rome for 8 nights. Both Venere.com and the hotel said they were full. I then asked if it was possible to stay for less days. They said that that wouldn't be necessary. They said all I would have to do was change rooms at the hotel on the last day of my stay. <BR>In the US, I have had hotels tell me they were full and then was able to book them on booking sites. Have not had this happen on Europe sites. They just forward your request to the hotel and days later they tell you the hotel is full. <BR> <BR>Gerry

Mike, <BR> <BR>I contacted the hotel directly using their email address for my upcoming Paris trip. It was simple and I had a reply back the next day. I think this is the prefered method since a confirmation directly from the hotel will avoid problems when you arrive. <BR> <BR>Adrienne <BR>

Mike: <BR> <BR>I urge you to contact the hotel directly. In making reservations for my upcoming trip, I for the first time tried to book a hotel over the internet. Actually, I didn't intend to do that - the hotel's website where I thought I could communicate directly with the hotel "switched me over" to a booking service. OK, I kept going with the reservation procedure and next day got an e-mail confirming me and my party of 7 (we were a party of 4) at a hotel at the other end of the country!! E-mails back to the booking agent resulted eventually in an apology and a promise that my booking for 7 had been changed to the name of the actual party booking the rooms (and offers to book MY family at the hotel of our choice, which I refused), but out of curiosity and concern for my credit card charges I called the hotel where we had erroneously been booked to find out that the booking service had in fact NOT canceled my booking. My thinking is these internet booking sites aren't to be trusted. I had had my suspicions, but this confirmed it. Even if a service IS trustworthy, there's nothing to be lost in communicating directly with the hotel and getting a written faxed confirmation. Why add another layer of worry to international travel?

I used France.com to reserve three hotels (two in Paris) and it worked out fine. I'd use that reservation service again.

I have used Reserve the Best several times with no problems. You send your request thru them but you get your response and confirmation directly from the hotel. I don't remember if the madison is on their list. It looks like a really nice hotel when I've passed it, so convenient yet still set back from the street.

I have used the following web site to find a hotel, but I phoned and fax my reservation to them. I called first to see if a room was available and at what price and then faxed my request to them with my credit card information. It worked fine. <BR>http://www.parishotels.com/index.en.html <BR>FYI: If you dial 10 10 811 first, you can get about a 15¢ per min. call to France.

If you dial 1016868 first, you can get about 7 cents per minute to France.

Thanks for all the feedback. The consensus is to deal directly with the hotel. I've done plenty of reservations successfully on the web, but never in Europe. I guess France.com is simply lagging behind the actual hotel bookings. <BR>PS thanks for the phone# tips.

Greetings, <BR> <BR>I have always done what is mentioned above, i.e. found the hotel on the net or in travel guides and then contacted the hotel directly, usually by fax. I also previously have had trouble doing e-reservations. I found them to be slow, inefficient, and frankly not very helpful. <BR> <BR>That said, I do want to share a sight that I recently began using for our trip to France this summer. I found it first of all to be a very good reference site. For most of our accomodations I used it to find the hotel, and then I went ahead on made reservations directly with the establishment as I usually do. I did use their e-reservation for one of our stops. I was impressed. They responded immediately, they then contacted the hotel to check availability, and I had a conformation within 24 hours for the room that I had requested. <BR> <BR>Since old habits die hare I am still tempted contact them directly just to be sure. <BR> <BR>At any rate here is the url:http://212.157.144.130/template.php?...ac92d71443f975 <BR> <BR>Sorry that it's so long!! <BR> <BR>Try it you'll like it. <BR> <BR>Ciao, <BR> <BR>Randy Smith

Check http://www.1stparishotels.com for more than 120 hotels... descriptions, reviews and online booking...

Your post sent me to check on the reservation I made through France.com and I contacted the hotel by fax. They had our reservation so I assume the service is fine. Just thought I'd pass this on...