I recall another thread wherein most had vouched for its reliability. However, I had emailed one of our hotels directly regarding a very very late arrival and they emailed back saying they have no details/info - nothing of my reservation. I had already emailed venere of this and asked them to look into the matter and they have not replied still.

I have all the confirmation emails from venere but my worry is that my hubby and I will find ourselves without hotels when we are finally in Europe. Not only do we waste time looking for a new one but to do it in June when tourist traffic is particularly heavy!

This happened to me on hotels.com. It took some threatening but they had sent the wrong confirmation # to the hotel, which may have happened to you.
It's a pain, but maybe you should call both the hotel and Venere.

"We will answer your questions within 2 working days of receipt."

The above is from the Venere.com site so given what you've told us that doesn't sound promising at all.


I agree that if it is possible to spend the time and money to call Venere and tell them what the hotel has told you. This will be more efficient than relying on e-mail (which Venere is apparently ignoring) and a lot less painful in the long run than showing up and being told there is no reservation.

I have usually reserved rooms direct with hotels and have not used vevere.com until recently. I have reserved a hotel and recived the following message from venere.com. And the booked hotel also sent me the e-mail confirmation on the same day. I thought it was the prodedure. venere.com reserves a room for you but the hotel itself contact your for final confirmation. You want to check your booking status as mentioned below?

Here is the mail I received from venere.com. It says "YOUR RESERVATION HAS BEEN CONFIRMED" only because I picked a hotel for which Intatant Confirmaiton was possible.

"Dear ------,

Thanks for using Venere.com - Internet Hotel Reservation.

A message with your reservation information has been sent to Hotel ---.

YOUR RESERVATION HAS BEEN CONFIRMED.

We'd like to remind you that you can review your reservation status and details at this address

http://www.venere.com/cgi/user/

or simply by clicking on the YOUR RESERVATIONS link in the upper right corner of our homepage http://www.venere.com/ "

"Intatant Confirmaiton " > Instant Confirmation ....

Kappa, that is exactly the email confirmation I received from venere but when I emailed the hotel directly to tell them of my very late arrival, I got the email back saying they had nothing on my claimed reservation.

Will sort it out with a phone call I guess.

They failed me. I got that confirmation. AND I TELEPHONED to confirm our arrival at the hotels directly. Now it gets weird, the Hotels confirmed our reservations. The days we arrived they didn't have them.
Of course, "he" thought I put the written confirmations in my bag, and I thought he put them in his.
That said, the hotels found us better rooms at the same price at a sister hotel.
This was for our stint in Munich.
I personally give up on these services and will just email and call Hotels I like in the future. Lesson learned!

Zizz, did you check your booking status on the link above ?

Hi Z,

1. Send the hotel the Venere email confirmation and follow up with a hone call.

2. Call Venere at
1016969 011 39 971 9981
between 10:00 and 20:00 Italy time.

It will cost 10 cts/min.

The phone will be answered in Italian. Ask for someone who speaks English.

Hope this helps.

Suzie - I'm confused. Did you say you got a confirmation from Venere, then contacted the hotels directly, which also confirmed, then didn't have the confirmation when you arrived?

If that's the case, I'd wonder if the hotel gave my room away to an earlier arrival at a higher price. Did you let Venere know about your problem?

I've always had good luck with Venere, but then I've never had a problem with any hotel reservation. Karma runs out, though, when it comes to restaurants...

See my other post. Venere admitted cheating me and never made good. Deal directly with the hotel and you will get a better price and better service.

Previous thread

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34802385

Yes Worktowander. Exactly.

I'll probably use Vernere for information...who has availability, what things "look like" where they are, etc., but then I'll just go call the hotels.

I've used Venere many times to book a res. I print out the confirmation email and have never had a problem. I think they are very reliable.

I've just received a message from soggiorna la cupola in italy telling me that I have to cancel my booking with venere which was made 12 days ago because they were already fully booked and that they hadn't closed their booking system on venere to reflect this. My biff is that it took 12 days for them to realise this. The good thing I guess is that they emailed me and provided alternatives but I don't think that still makes up for the fact. I am now going to confirm my bookings directly with the hotels I've booked with venere and hotels just in case. It's frustrating as I've slipped into that relaxed mode as we're leaving in a week's time and I thought I had everything sorted already.

It seems like the failures reported on this thread are due to mistakes made by the hotels themselves, i.e. confirming a room then "losing" the reservation, not closing their availability to agents, etc.

It might be appropriate to complain TO Venere in hopes the properties would eventually be dropped.

wow. thanks so much to everyone for your help. I think I'm going to book with the hotel directly.

Theresa