Vouchers or not?
 

Vouchers or not for B & B's in Ireland?

I keep reading about the voucher system for accomodations. Some travelers just want a place to sleep,but we are the type who like a nice place, especially when it's for more than 1 night. I'm not talking about a $200+ castle hotel, but in the $130-$160 range. And we like to have a reservation ahead of time.

That said, even if you make reservations way ahead of time, what kind of room will you get with a voucher? And will you get bumped to another property if a better paying customer wants to make a reservation?

The reason I ask is that we have done a few package-type vacations and what you get is the worst room in the house. We'd rather pay a little more and have a nice place to stay.

What has been your experience with the vouchers? We are new to Ireland but have traveled extensively in Europe before.

There really aren't many advantages to the vouchers IMO. No, you don't get 'bumped'. But any B&B that takes vouchers also takes non-voucher patrons -- and lots of places don't take vouchers. Vouchers don't guarantee you a room -- only that if a room is available it will have already been paid for.

I'd just book and pay like most people do . . .

janisj----you just confirmed our suspicions. Thanks.

You may even get a better price by not using vouchers ;).

Many B&B owners get frustrated with taking vouchers because it takes so long to get reimbursed and so many have opted out of the deal.

I agree with the above that you will do better to book on your own.

Not never, no way, no how. :)

EVERY time that I have called a B&B (or had the Tourist Board call for me -- They do that, you know, for a small fee), to see if there was a vacancy, the very FIRST response (WELL before an answer) is to ask if I am using vouchers!!!

Now, I've never claimed to be the brightest bulb in the box, but I sense a definite correllation between those two "V" words -- VACANCY and Voucher. ;)

Bob

We ruled out the voucher thing. We are used to making our own reservations, but in trying to find a better flight price, we looked at some fly-drive packages, and many of them were with Vouchers.

It appears on Expedia and Orbitz we can get the flight and car together at a little better price than the flight and car separately.

Our biggest disappointment is not being able to get a direct flight from Chicago to Shannon. We'll have to change on the East Coast----bummer, not our favorite thing to do as there are so many delays.