Hi wanted to help fellow travelers to France and Paris from getting ripped-off when they try to book a room over the web. Stay away from francehotelreservation.com. I sent an e-mail asking a question about room availability and price and they booked me a room and charged a 6% fee to my credit card. When I tried to cancel the e-mail was rejected. Eventually I reached them and they say by sending an e-mail I confirmed a reservation -- and it was not the hotel I asked about! DO NOT USE THIS SERVICE.

How did they get your credit card number? No one requires a credit card number in order to obtain information. <BR>You may or may not have known that you were placing a reservation, but you were!

It appears you didn't read the site very carefully. (If you don't read English or French well that could be the problem, although you sound like a native English speaker). It very clearly states, several times in very large letters, that there is a 6 pct booking fee. Also, the ONLY place on that site where a credit card number is requested or required is the section clearly marked "Reservations" which also states that you are making a reservation quite clearly, and by submitting the info there is also a box checked that you agree to the terms and rates. That is the only section requiring a credit card number. They have an email address listed strictly for info which does NOT require any credit card number to use. Perhaps you did send an email inquiring about a different hotel, but your reservation no doubt was made for a different one when you filled in the reservations form, gave them your CC number and hit the "Reserve" button. Your story doesn't make sense otherwise because why would you give them your credit card number just to send them an email for inquiry? This looks like an okay site for convenience in reserving as they are English-speaking and promise to be accessible with problems or questions; it is solely a booking service though (which is why you are paying them a fee) and the rates don't appear to be anything special--the site doesn't really seem to promise any discounts or anything, anyway, though. They actually do have a fairly interesting selection of small, good hotels from the ones I perused and rather good information on them. This is a good lesson for people who don't read things carefully or pay attention to details should probably stay away from internet sites where they enter credit card numbers and send them to people. I do not like vendors who are misleading in their language and advertising, but this site is very clear and straightforward in its presentation and seems to be bending over backwards to make it clear what you are doing. I think there are other hotel reservation sites, some with these same hotels, that don't require such booking fees, though--six percent seems rather high to me but might well be worth it for some people who worry about language problems and do not have access to FAX software (for example, I think I saw somewhere, maybe on Fodors' someone who said that paid $6 to have a FAX sent to Europe, which is an excessively high fee, also, I send FAXes with my computer that only cost about $1 in phone fees).

I have the same questions as the other posters about how they got your cc number if you didn't fill out the reservation form--which is pretty clearly marked. <BR> <BR>As an alternative, I can recommend hotelboulevard.com. They give you a chance to think about your reservation before you confirm, and don't charge a fee. I wasn't altogether happy with the hotel I booked through them, but the service itself worked fine.

As has been mentioned before, <BR>the hotel rates offered on the web, especially by the "clearing houses" may not be the lowest. I have found that contacting the hotel directly <BR>by phone, fax or email often results in a lower rate.

Meg <BR>Having given my response, I must say that I would not do business with this website. Who needs to pay a commission for making a reservation? This in my opinion, is for naive web serfers.

I have found that my best approach is to give my travel agent a short list of hotels and let her contact them. <BR>She got me a rate at very nice hotel in the 14th, just off Boulevard Montparnasse for less the printed rates. <BR>I don't know how she did it. <BR>My son and I use her frequently and there is not much service fee involved. <BR>On rental cars, she consistently beats web rates. If you want to know who it is, email me directly.

I'm sorry you had a bad experience with <BR>that hotel reservation service. We used <BR>the site to book our hotel in Paris and <BR>were very happy with it. I don't consider myself a naive web surfer, either. Travel agencies don't always have information on anything other than chain hotels, which we try to avoid. I'm not slamming travel agents either as we have several friends who own their own businesses. I make all our travel plans on the internet and try to be careful to select sites which are recommended by others and/or endorsed by the tourist board of a particular country or the BBB. I may get burned one day, but so far our experiences have all been very good. As for paying a fee for a reservation service, you may find a cheaper rate for a particular hotel by searching variouse reservation service web sites. In the end, we all pay one way or another. A phone call and fax cost money too and if you don't speak the language it can be useless anyway.

By the way, Elaine made a good point about e-mailing a hotel directly. We always do this when it's available and have had no problems so far. We also take a printout with us of any reservation for anything.

I'll put in a plug for hotelboulevard.com here. I used them last May and was very pleased with their service. Much more personal than I expected.