I've been researching hotels and have been using tripadvisor.com for reviews and the recommendations on this thread from my previous posting. In searching, after reading the tripadvisor reviews, I'll check the availability on venere.com and then also check the hotels individual website. For one hotel, Raffaello, venere.com indicated that 4 double rooms were available for our dates but when I checked on Raffaello's website it indicated that 4 rooms were not available for one of our two nights. If I reserve thru Venere.com can I feel confident that rooms are really available? I have never used venere.com or any other hotel booking website. I've always booked directly with the hotel. Since I'm needing 4 rooms for 8 people it is giving me concerns.

The rooms might or might not be available thru venere.com or some other website. venere.com will inform you if the rooms are not available.

What I do is make a reservation thru venere.com or hrs.com or other website, then verify with the hotel the next day whether or not the reservations "took."

Also, normally a website will send you an email if they take your reservation and then find out the rooms are not available. But I always check directly with the hotel just to be sure.

PaigeS - I have used Venere.com on my last three trips and everything was terrific. I have not used them for a booking in Rome though, only Paris but I don't think it makes the slightest difference. I found them super efficient.

Paige...I would write to the Raffaello directly. Tell them you saw the rooms on Venere but would like to book directly with the hotel.

I would also recommend contacting the hotel directly. I recently booked 3 nights at a hotel in Rome and then decided we wanted to stay 2 more. According to Venere there were no rooms available. I emailed them directly and they said there were plenty of rooms and took off another 10E per night for the hassle. If using venere make sure you search for a 4% discount code you can find by searching other posts on fodor's or most other travel forums. Here's one
Discount Code: BENVDQG

Hi P,

sometimes the hotel will show no availability because they have dedicated some rooms to a broker, such as Venere.

Sometimes there is no availability and the computers haven't caught up.

I'd make the reservation through Venere, after checking the cancellation policy, and, if it goes through, confirm the booking with the hotel.