I have heard a lot of you use this website. Do they have a phone or fax and where are they based? Italy? Has anyone had problems with them, sending credit card info; cancellations, etc.?
Thanks for all the help I can get. Want to make a reservation asap.

Many people report using venere to "shop" hotels for availability, price etc. & then contact the hotels directly to book. The hotels will generally match (or better) the price on venere. That said, I am unaware of any problems from venere but the answers to your questions (cancellation policy etc.) should be on their website.

I have used them 10 or 15 times, maybe even more than that, counting the cancellations. Knock on wood, but flawless for me, so far.

I have had some screwups with other internet things (ITWG? but I actually think that even that was my fault) - - but never venere.

Phone Fax? I have no idea - - I am comfortable with the (rather sill, I suppose) idea that they simply exist somewhere in cyberspace. I know that expedia has some operations in Atlanta, but for all I know they may have something in South Dakota or India. Likewise clueless about Travelocity, Orbitz or eBay.

Doesn't eBay run its billion dollar business with like five employees or something?

Trust Venere.com

Best wishes,

Rex

" I am comfortable with the (rather sill, I suppose) idea that they simply exist somewhere in cyberspace."

I'm not. If something does go wrong, you will have 0 recourse. Who wants to do business with a company that you cannot call up and talk to a real person? And they could easily disppear one day like so many other internet businesses and take your money with them.

And what do you get for taking the extra risk? Nothing. They provide absolutely no added value.

Venere frequently, although not always, provides hotel rooms at a discount that is not obtainable through any other site. That is the value they provide. So far, almost every report of their work has been favorable.

They are very trustworthy, IMO. I usually book directly with the hotel, but have also used venere.com several times with no problems whatsoever.

There is a FAQ page and e-mail addresses at which you may contact them on their site. Customer Service: [email protected]

It is a Verisign secure site, which means your information is encypted and secure. If you click on "venere.net" or "about us" at the bottom of the main page you can pull up information about the company itself. It is headquartered in Rome, and has been in business since 1995. Properties in Venere's database: 175,000. Registered users: 600,000.

"Venere Net employs over 80 people in their Rome, Paris and London offices...."

If you book/buy other things on-line, I don't see any reason not to use venere.

<<They provide absolutely no added value.>>

Well, this seems SO easy to challenge.

Any central collection point of information - - especially real time information, provides ENORMOUS added value.

I think there were some guys who gathered under an elm tree or something like that, on some little place called Wall Street. You can still find companies, and invest in them directly, of course, but I would be hard to pressed to say that "brokerages" do nto provide added value.

Thousands of hotels have something to sell, and they get to access to thousands of buyers, affordably through Venere.com

There are trends away from the Expedia/Travelocity/Orbitz oligopoly, but I am not sure that I am so keen on supporting - - at least not exclusively - - usair.com or delta.com or nwa.com

I would hate for the big search engines/ticket agencies to go away.

I booked a hotel in Milan through Venere.com I will be saving 180 Euros for a 3 night stay (compared to the price I was quoted directly from the hotel. I am assuming it will work out just fine.

t

I booked a hotel in Venice through venere.com and everything went smoothly. However, the hotel owner told us to phone him next time as he would have been able to give us a better price. Of course, when they are booked through venere.com or veniceby.com they have to pay a commission which they can easily give to the customer if booking directly.

I usually try to book directly, but in the case of my upcoming trip, I called the hotel, and they told me they couldn't offer me the Venere.com rate. So I guess if one is price conscious, checking both ways makes sense. I just wonder if getting a better rate could mean not getting as nice of a room.

Having booked several hotels in Italy for this summer, I've gone to venere and checked all of them. For one, I got a price of 138 euro per night from the hotel's website, compared to 180 per night from venere.
At another I got a "Great Deal" price from Utell for the hotel on Ischia at 140 a night, that was 189 a night on venere.
In the past I have found deals on venere, but not this year!! But if you do find one, I wouldn't hesitate to book it that way.

have just booked a hotel thru venere for April in Florence. Will let you know how it goes. I was able to select the type of room where as thru a travel agent they just give you the next available, give no guanrantees, don't refund and once they've got your money don't care! as I found out recently on a trip to Canada from Australia ( too far from home to do anything) so this time I have booked directly myself

Correction, venere's price for the hotel on Ischia (Miramare and Castello) was 230 euro per night compared to the 140 per night rate I booked with Utell. At five nights, that's a lot of difference!!

Patrick, what's the website for Utell?

I was thinking of using Venere for hotels that don't have their own website. Maybe Utell is good as well.

I generally prefer booking straight with the hotel, just for peace of mind, but it is hard when you can't find a phone no.

Will - www.utell.com/

From what I've seen, they tend to deal mostly with larger, chain, and/or luxury/high-end properties. But Patrick's rate deal for Ishia sounds fabulous, so certainly worth a look!

Yea, Utell is an odd one, and usually larger higher end properties, but not always.
I was looking at all kinds of places in Ischia, but wanted to be near the "centers" of Ponte and Porte. When I found this deal at the only 5 star around, I jumped at it.
By the way, the Utell site is kind of weird. You need to look up in the right hand corner and find "special offers" or something like that to click. Otherwise when you go to individual hotels it doesn't seem to offer their "Great Rate" specials.

It takes a lot of effort to get the UTELL Great Rate specials. So far in my limited use, I haven't had anything from UTELL that beat what I could get from other sources, but I know it happens for others.

But since I use Priceline a lot, I want to be sure I've gotten the lowest possible deal from all other sources before making a bid, so UTELL is helpful in that way anyway.

One major difference between Utell and some of the others. The big discounts I've gotten from them have been way in advance of going. That great rate I got for Ischia was done about 10 months ahead. As time goes on, their rates go up, not down. I doubt that you can still get it for prime season and it is even more doubtful that you could get it on Priceline unless you're bidding at the last minute, which means you take a major chance that they're already fully booked and not available at all.

And there are a fair number of destinations where Priceline is of no use - most places in Scandinavia for example (also most places in Italy, etc.).