Can I ask a silly question please? How does this system work? I advise of the dates etc, give my credit card number and then what happens? Do I get a confirmation number? Does my credit card get billed then or not until I get to the hotel? Can any one explain please.
Very much appreciated.

Thanks
Anne in Australia

Hi Ann: Your credit card is charged at the time of booking. You should receive a confirmation e-mail. If you still didn't hear from them send them e-mail. We used them several times and were always very happy with the services and rooms. We always make a copy of our credit card statement which showed that we were already charged.

Anne,

We recently booked a hotel thru hoteldiscounts.com. I did the research online, then called the toll-free number to speak with a person. They charge your credit card, and there's a cancellation fee ($50, I think).

I prefer to speak to someone when making reservations, which is why I chose the phone route--it enabled me to request an upper floor, and to check on the availability of a rollaway bed. I'm also getting more and more nervous about submitting my credit card number online. However, I was nervous that I didn't have a printout confirmation. So I called the hotel to make sure we were listed, and we were.

The woman on the phone at hoteldiscounts was very nice--held for a long time while I ran to another phone at work to check a detail with my husband.

I did the same thing when booking through travelweb.com last fall. The difference there is that you do pay the hotel, though at the travelweb price. Even though I called to make the reservation, travelweb still sent me an e-mail confirmation. We did need the printout, as the hotel had us down for the standard rack rate, which (in NYC) was about $300 more per night!

Good luck.

I have used the services of this company and others before. My advice is to use the internet to shop the rate and even call the hotel directly (not the 800 reservations number) to see if you can do better before you commit. I have found on occasion that the rates are so close between using hotel discounters and dealing with the hotel directly that it is not worth getting committed to the cancellation charge. Most hotels allow you to cancel within 1-3 days of your arrival date, some as late as 6 pm the day of arrival. In other instances, if you decide to use a discounter, see if you can find out what kind of room you will get. Often, the deeply discounted rooms are the worst in the hotel. Good luck.

I have used hoteldiscount.com and did not have a problem. However, I prefer to use Quickbook.com since they do not charge your credit card in advance. You just pay at the hotel at the end of your stay as you would with a normal reservation.

You might want to be careful with this. We just booked a condo in Florida and found out that if we would have called the Real Estate agency direct our per day rate would have been $70 per night less, or for the same price would have had a 3 bedroom gulf front condo, instead of a 2 bedroom gulf view, that had a wretched view at that. You will get the confirmation on your e-mail if you book with them.

I found that their rates were no less than other travel web sites that do not impose a $50.00 service charge or bill you in advance for a room. I had an unpleasant experience with this service and I would not recommend using it.

Thanks everyone for your advice - very much appreciated. Steve, I had a look at Quickbook.com as I think I prefer the idea of paying at the end of the hotel stay but the price difference is $19 in favour of Hoteldiscounts. I am going to email Quickbook and see if they will match the price.
I guess my other questions now are how do you know you will only pay the price given by the discounters? Even if the hotel has your reservation, can it charge you the normal price?
Sorry for my cautious attitude but when converting US$ to A$ we are talking about a fair bit of money also I don't want to arrive in NYC and not have accommodation.

Thanks again

Anne in Australia

Anne,

It's Penny answering again. We did use hoteldiscounts. The hotel gave us no charges--they're all coming thru hoteldiscounts. Now, we don't have our credit card bill yet, but I'm assuming the charges won't be any higher than what I was quoted on the phone.

We made the reservations only 4 days before our trip--we'd had reservations somewhere else, which we canceled when we got the good hoteldiscounts rate--so we knew we wouldn't be cancelling (barring illness or other calamity). Thus we were willing to accept the $50 cancellation fee.

Reading all the other posts, it seems that you've just got to shop around a lot (by phone, if possible) to get the best rate. Sometimes it will be from the hotel directly, and sometimes from different services. I do recommend doing online research and then following up by phone--just to confirm some details.

When we booked through travelweb, we did pay the hotel as usual, at the end of the stay. However, we did have the confusion over what the rate was. Sometimes the hotel desk clerks aren't aware of Internet deals--we had to get the manager involved to get the Internet rate, even with the confirmation printout from travelweb.

Hope this helps!

Anne,I've used quickbook a number of times and I never had a situation where the hotel tried to charge me more. You will get a confirmation letter from quickbook and you can just show it. I stayed at the Doubletree in Chicago just one month ago using quickbook and again had no problem at all. Quickbook is a really legitimate company and has been around since long before the internet. I started using them around 10 years ago. My understanding is that they started out as a service used by large conventions to book discount rooms for their attendees and have evolved into a service for the general public. I first used them when I attended a large trade show in NYC and they were company that discounted rooms were to be booked through.
Sometimes I call the hotel a few days ahead just to confirm my rate, but that's just my paranoia. I never have had them tell me that they would not honour the quickbook rate.

Please make sure that you check all sources before making a commitment with hoteldiscounts. Last year I was able to get a great deal. This year their prices were much higher than when I phoned the hotel directly. I must add that the staff of hoteldiscounts are always very courteous.

I have used HotelDiscounts many, many times for Boston and New York. I have never had a problem. Sometimes their rates are better, sometimes the rates are lower by booking directly through the hotel (either by phoning or at the hotel's website) or other online booking resources. I usually narrow down my potential hotels to half a dozen and shop around. Then, I book at the lowest rate that does not require prepayment. Unlike much or Europe and Canada, where the rates are the rates, prices fluctuate at hotels in large US cities constantly. Last Christmas, I booked a room in NYC for $199 through the hotel's website. I continued to shop. The week before our arrival date, the rate at the same hotel on HotelDiscounts changed from $199 to $165 to $229 back to $165 all within one week. When it was $165, I booked through HotelDiscount. HotelDiscount does have a "guarantee", but you must find a lower rate within 24 hours, so if the rates fluctuate over weeks or months the guarantee apparently would not apply.