Has anyone used venere.com to book hotel? Please let me know if its reliable.

You can see my post from a couple of days ago on Venere. Their website states clearly that they don't charge your credit card and that you will only have to pay when you get to the hotel. After I booked, a deposit showed up on my credit card. My confirmation says something in Spanish about a 30% deposit, which I gather I would get back if I cancel in time, but this was only AFTER I booked. I just think they are misleading.

I booked hotels in both Florence & Venice a few years back and had no problems. Good hotels and the price was right.

I booked hotels in Florence and Rome through venere this past October. The only charge was that made by the hotel after my stay. All went well.

It's good to read that <i>recent</i> experiences with venere.com are remaining positive - - as were my experiences, of at least a dozen different times, though none more recent than 2002.

I have seen a definite transformation in the website in the five years since I first learned about it. As far as I can tell, they are the &quot;big banana&quot; in Italy hotel reservations, and they continue to list more and more hotels in more and more countries all across Europe. Sometimes service slips, or new, less user-friendly policies get introduced, simply because they know they can do it.

There are literally hundreds of favorable reports of using Venere, here on this forum - - but it remains wise to seek out <i>recent</i> experience.

Best wishes,

Rex

We have just come back from a weekend in a hotel in Venice, booked through Venere and we also used them at Christmas for a booking in Budapest, making 4 times we've used them in all. Everything worked as expected, the user hotel reviews were invaluable in chosing a hotel and the booking and prices were exactly as expected.

I haven't used venere.com, but have noticed whenever I use tripadvisor.com to compare rates on a hotel, that venere.com comes up with &quot;no availability&quot; when Expedia, Orbitz and Travelocity do have rooms available. Venere consistently says no rooms, at least 90 percent of the times I've tried it. Don't know why that would be.