VENERE.COM.....how reliable?
 

I've just booked a 3 night stay at Hotel de la Bourdonnais in Paris(7th arr.) in a quadruple room for 569euros,taxes inclusive. Venere.com does not require a deposit, just a card to hold the reservation. They provide you with a confirmation sheet, which you are to present at the hotel upon arrival.

Has anyone used this booking engine? What were you're experiences? Given that we did not actually get charged for a deposit, I'm a bit concerned that the room will not be available upon arrival.

Thanks everyone!

I've used venere.com on several occasions and never had any problems. You can communicate directly with the hotel to confirm your reservation as well.

I have used them as well without problems

Ditto...

I use it to do a search and to read the hotel reviews.Then I go to the hotel site and compare the rates.Honestly the hotel rate many times was better or just matched!

I always use Venere in my research (the overview map with city neighborhoods identified is especially helpful) and have booked through them several times -- everything OK. I also confirm with the hotel.

I agree with kayd. It's a must for doing research.

Chapla, the hotel reviews are a must, saved me from bad hotels many a time.

One caveat. Expedia bought the company in 2008. A bias might be creeping in.

I've used Venere to book, but I also always do what Chapla says and check the hotel website as well to see if they offer a better rate. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I've not had any problems with Venere so far.

Hotel de la Bourdonnais is very near the Eiffel Tower. The area around the hotel has a good number of restaurants. We have rented apartments on Ave de la Bourdonnais and have been very satisfied with the neighborhood. It is also near rue Cler with its markets, shops and cafes, if that interests you.

Used Venere multiple times in multiple countries and never had a problem. The one thing you need to understand are the individual property cancellation policies. Each one is different and Venere really doesn't have anything to do with it. Some people do not realize this, cancel a booking only to find out there is a penalty to do so and end up blaming Venere when it isn't their problem at all.

dave

Have used Venere many times with no problems. As others have said, to be on the safe side, be sure to contact the hotel directly to confirm (usually I just send an email to reconfirm my Venere reservation). I also use the email as an opportunity to let the hotel know approximately when I will be arriving. In any case, it is always nice to have some direct communication with the people you will be staying with.

As other posters have mentioned....Venere is good for research, but I have found contacting the hotels has not only brough me better prices, but when Venere says there are no rooms available, the hotel still has them. They only block so many for Venere, Expedia, etc and keep the rest for people who contact them directly.

We booked 3 rooms for 2 night in Paris last week. Offer was prepay, non-refundable. Confirmed twice by venere.com.
But when we arrived there was no reservation. We got the rooms anyway, but the next day the room keys were disabled.
The front desk said that there was no payment received.
Everything was solved evantually, but not after much discussion with the front desk staff about the rate. On the morning of departure the hotel manager apologized for the problems and gave us free breakfast. I usually use either hotel sites direct or booking.com with which I never had a problem and you always pay directly to the hotel.

Have used Venere and never any problems. They abide by the hotel's policies regarding reservations, cancellations, etc. I always contact the hotel about my arrival time, for directions, or just to confirm and never any hitches.

Have used many tomes; always read the reviews and cross check with Tripadvisor; not all hotels are listed and for my next trip we are getting something through booking.com. I usually confirm with the hotel as well.

I recently made a booking through Venere.com and the reason I chose them over my normal choices, after researching the best deals, was because of the guarantee that no money was due until my arrival at the hotel. This was quite explicitly stated at the point of booking and then reiterated on the confirmation invoice. There was also supposed to be free cancellation, which was also important to me.

I was very unhappy when my credit card was debited hundreds of dollars and the free cancellation somehow voided - this was passed on to me by the hotel itself.
I travel a lot, have not used a travel agent for 10 years, and I have never experienced such misleading - sorry, incorrect - booking conditions before. But even if it was a mistake, the fact that they don't even want to know about it is just the icing on the cake of how bad this business is. Hotelscombined should take heed: shoddy!

Venere is like Booking.com and a bunch of others which don't require you to do anything other than give a credit card as a guarantee. It is a booking mechanism many hotels use to move unsold inventory.

I used to use www.venere.com all the time, but now I prefer www.booking.com , not that I had any problems with Venere, but I like the web (and app) tools of Booking better.

On a recent trip, I got a message from my credit card company saying that one of the four hotels I had booked had requested a charge on my card. I contacted the hotel immediately, and they said they were just checking the validity of the card and that no charge had actually been made.

In a situation like this, you really have to contact the hotel. A booking service is just that. The hotel is supposed to honor its side of the contract, but sometimes they don't, either through carelessness or through error. You have to settle these issues with them, and if you don't succeed and feel you were wronged, then complain about the hotel's behavior to the booking site. The only thing they can do is delist them, which they might be reluctant to do if no one else has ever complained.

Many hotels offer a lower price on booking sites if you pay in advance. I almost never accept these offers, but once I did by mistake. I complained to the hotel, but they said I had chosen the advance-payment price, and when I checked again, I saw that I had.

By the way, the contracts between hotels and booking sites stipulate that the hotel can't offer lower prices on its website. They can honor discount codes however, such as a code to get a special conference rate.

By the way, the contracts between hotels and booking sites stipulate that the hotel can't offer lower prices on its website.

That may be but that should not deter anyone from also cross-checking the rates ON a hotel's website or even asking if the hotel will match or even discount a rate found on a booking engine.

Not all inventory is necessarily ON a booking engine, either.