Accomodation booking ideas

Dear Confused, Here's what we (my wife) do. Choose a city, say Cologne. Do a computer search "Cologne hotels". Pick one. Email the hotel directly. You may want to do this with several hotels to find one that sounds good. Email the hotel and make your reservations. Some hotels will ask for a credit card number. Don't let this daunt you. Its okay. There you go. Now, pick the second city and do the same thing. Wife has had exceptional luck doing this. Getting a travel agent involved is unnecessary.

Sometimes we have arrived in a town and just asked at a hotel. Usually we have been lucky and always have found a room at the first hotel or the one next to it.

johny I would never go to a travel agent to book rooms in Europe... they will only put you in places that pay them commission.. they likely have absolutely no more personal knowledge of a hotel or area then what you could easily read for yourself online too.. !!! You'll likely end up in chain hotels.. and pay more for it.. plus they do not have a clue what a central area really is as many travel agents have not even been to where you are going or have only been a few times.

The easiest way to do it is to state where you are going and ask for recommendations from actual people who have stayed there and visited there.. then .. back that up by reading hotel reviews on several sites.

I would not just go without reservations unless I had a car and didn't mind staying in highway hotels while in transit..

Travel is a lot easier then you think johny.. I don't have a college degree and I only speak engligh with some hs French.. and yet I have booked my own travel for decades now.. ( and at my age I am not computer savvy but have managed,, I do not even own an iphone.. and I travel without all the toys too)

Why not start simply.. where do you want to go.

When is your trip.

I have stayed in clean, central and cheap places all over.. I have never been shocked or upset at arriving at a hotel I have booked either.. research pays off.

PS I would not do the find hotels as you go thing on such a short trip.. if you say you may only go 10 days and you seem to want to visit several places.. who wants to waste even half a day trying to find accomadation !

I did that form of travel when I was 23.. poor, not picky.. and had 3 months in Europe.

Appreciate your replys guys.
We (Me n my wife) are goin in October and need accomodation in Paris, geneva, Lucerne, Zermatt, st Moritz and Venice. And we r goin to spend atleast 2 nights in each place.

I always use booking.com and have always had great results. They only invite you to review after your stay so I find the review scores pretty accurate. Great pictures and the site is well laid out.

I also use booking.com for most reservations. If you post separate questions in the forum for each country, you may get better recommendations (or more of them) than by posting only in General Europe.

You might also get the Rick Steves guidebooks for the areas you are going to travel to and look at his hotel recommendations. Many can be booked online.

You did not ask a question about this, but it sounds like you are moving around a lot for your short time frame. Do remember that if you are flying from the US, your flight often will be overnight so will arrive the next day. You may experience some jet lag which will cut down on what you can enjoy that first day.

I'll underline the advantage of using booking.com. While it's true that they don't list every possibility, they have a broad selection of lodgings - - - hotels, b&b's, apartments - - - at a wide price range, most with authentic reviews. You can see what's available and get instant confirmation. All your reservations will then be in one place on your computer, a great help with organizing your trip preparations..

I would not try to wing it. At the very least that would cost you time. You've listed a lot of destinations for such a short trip. If you stick with that itinerary (and I advise that you seriously consider trimming it), you'll be spending time every couple of days sorting out the next accommodations. Also, I agree with the comment about travel agents.

"for around 10-12 nights" "Paris, geneva, Lucerne, Zermatt, st Moritz and Venice. And we r goin to spend atleast 2 nights in each place."

Doesn't look like you have this well figured out yet. Six stops of at least 2 nights would be at least 12 nights. And you need to look at the order - Luzern to Zermatt to St. Moritz involves a lot of backtracking and St. Moritz is probably the origin of the expression, "you can't get there from here". I'd do Geneva to Zermatt to Luzern to St. Moritz to Venice, but even then, St. Moritz to Venice is pretty roundabout.

"which way will be the best to save bit of money."

With the places you've picked to overnight, saving money is almost impossible. I think Geneva is one of the most expensive cities in the world to stay in, and some of the others are not far behind. And why did you pick cities? Are you looking for big city specific things to do, like museums and shopping, or are you looking for natural settings? Try staying in some small towns. Accommodations that way should be a lot easier to find and less expensive. Forget searching on the Internet for certain hotels. Sites like TripAdvisor and Booking.com fill up the search and make it almost impossible to find a hotel's actual website. I once did a Google search for a hotel for which I knew the name, and I got pages and pages of links to TripAdvisor and booking website. I finally found the hotel's own website on page 5 of my search. And using sites like Booking.com will only get you the most expensive accommodations in a town. I find there are 2 to 3 times as many properties (small family run "hotels" or B&Bs, on a town's own website as there are on a booking website, and the places on the booking website are the more expensive places.

So, find some small towns of interest and go to their website, www. town_name .ch ("ch" in Switzerland). A lot of towns will have the tourism part of their website in English. If it's in German, look for "Unterkünfte" or "Übernachten". Often, even if the website is not in English, individual places will have an English option.

"And using sites like Booking.com will only get you the most expensive accommodations in a town."

This is absolutely false. As Rosalyn said, they usually have a wide selection of accommodations at a range of prices. Some of them very inexpensive. It's true that all the B&B's, small family owned inns, and real 'low end' hotels located in a particular town may not be on their website but I have always been able to find well reviewed small friendly inexpensive places to stay using booking.com and have never picked a bad one. If using any booking website be sure to read the reviews carefully, make sure you understand any restrictions and requirements for a discount price and/or cancellation rules, and verify the location of the hotel for convenience before clicking the "book it now" button.

We are going to be in Europe for a month and I decided to use booking.com so I could have all my accommodations in one place. We are going to be going through Europe by train so I opted to choose hotels within walking distance of the train. Their reviews were very helpful and while no system is perfect, I feel comfortable with the places I have chosen. I was able to book without paying in advance, costs more, but I can cancel 24 hours before in case our plans change.

Thnx guys for ur advices... I did but of research and found around $1000 cheaper accomodation Thn travel agents quote, which is a lot of money I think and I can spend it somewhere else like on food n all...
And Lee, I can change my order Thts not a big deal BCz I haven't booked anything yet, But just a question, is it possible to get a glacier train from lucern to St Moritz?? The okg reason I was goin to Zermatt was to catch tht train otherwise m not really interested goin there. I can spend tht time somewhere else.
And m not interested in museums n art sort of things, I wud rather goto sight seing and for natural beauty stuf...

If you truly want the whole Glacier Express route to St Moritz you need to start in Zermatt. You can however take the regular train from Lucerne to St Moritz with stops in Thalwil and Chur - the portion from Chur to St Moritz is part of the Glacier Express route.

It may seem confusing to look at the big picture, but just break it into steps and take one step at a time, whether booking train tickets or hotels for each city. Booking hotels through a travel agent limits your options, often to more expensive hotels that give travel agent commissions, and/or you will pay a fee for the travel agent's service. I always start with Rick's guidebooks and book through each hotel's own web site or email. But if you use other online search tools, you are looking for a balance between price, central location, and any other amenities you consider top priority.

"This is absolutely false."

Nancy, with all respect, if you had never analyzed costs to the extent I have, you would not say that.

First, I have compared Booking.com and the town's own website for numberous towns I have visited. Just today I looked at a town where I stayed last year and compared the listings for a double room on Booking.com to what I find on the town's website, and I find the town's website to have more listings than Booking and, on the whole, less expensive properties.

The town website lists 59 properties, of which 45 are actually in town; Booking says there are 53 properties available, but when I checked 5 dates between now and October, only 13 different places in town showed up on Booking for any of the dates - 10 hotels (8 regularly, 2 only for this month) and three apartments. For all five dates, Booking said that one of the apartments had just been booked 6 hours ago (the same for all five dates?).

Nine of the hotels showed up on both Booking and the town's website. The average price for Booking was 99€. On the actual websites for the nine hotels, the average price was 92€ (if the price depended on the season, I took that into account). In some cases, it was because Booking only offered the most expensive room, sometimes a suite, when there were actually less expensive rooms in the hotel. In other cases, the hotel website's price was just less.

Booking offered one hotel, at 68€, that was not offered on the town site. The town offered 11 hotels that were not offered by Booking, with an average price of 74€. Six of those hotels were less expensive than any hotel offered by Booking.

In addition to the apartment that had always just been booked, Booking offered two apartments at an average of 48€. The town website listed 11 apartments with an average price of 38€.

Finaly, the town website listed 13 private double rooms in homes averaging 40€ for two people. Booking had none.

Secondly, I have analyzed trips I have made in the last 7 or so years, comparing what I would have found on Booking to where I actually stayed. Sometimes Booking did not have a property in the town where I stayed, and I had to substitute a property in a nearby town. I have usually found that I would have paid a third to a half more using Booking.

I have used this technique, town website, successfully for 15 years and save hundreds of $$$.

I have often used booking.com and never paid more than the hotel's advertised rate, but I book almost all reservations in Italy and France. Lee is an expert on travel in Germany, so I believe him about town websites there, but in my searches for accommodations in Italy, I have found the town websites generally show fewer listings.

Zoe,

I also trust hosts in Germany and German speaking countries. I've never stayed in a place in these countries that wasn't clean and well maintained. Sometimes (only a couple of times) I have stayed in a small room, but nice nevertheless. It's a Germanic thing. I'm not sure I would have as much confidence in Italy or France. I'll let others comment on that.

Appreciate your help guys.
Just one question whn u said try to look on local website, h mean Google it or just enter the hotel name or something?? Because I want to compare every where I can so tht I can get the best deal.

And the other question in my mind was, what is te better option to pay them, I mean with dollars or euros?? Because m not quite sure how they calculate ( rate comparison) in dollars??

Most towns in Germany, at least those that expect visitors, have a website (www town_name de). For instance, the Black Forest town of Bad Herrenalb has a website at www.badherrenalb.de. If you can't find it that way, Google the town name. When you get to the website, it has an English side. If it only has a German side, Übernachten means "Overnight", Unterkünfte mean "accommodations". Almost all of the hotels, Gästehäuser, Pensionen, Privatzimmer (Private Homes or B&Bs), Ferien Wohungen (FeWo, vacation apartments) will be listed on the site.

I agree that Lee is the expert on Germany and I will concede that he knows much more about booking accommodations in Germany than I do. There is much good information in his responses regarding hotels in Germany, however the OP is not going to any towns in Germany.

For a novice traveler to Europe to book their own hotels the first time I find that a booking website, whichever one you prefer, is the easiest to navigate. And you can look for all of your different cities in one place.

When I find a hotel/apt/b&b I am interested in on booking.com I always go to their own website to compare prices before I click the "book now" button. I also go there to check availability when booking.com says there are no rooms available. Only rarely have I found the prices on the hotel's own website to be quite a bit less than on the booking site and often the rules for free cancellation are not as liberal as they are on booking.com. And, yes, I have booked on the hotel's website if it gave me a better deal.

And johny2627, most hotels will tell you when you book how they expect you to pay. I only use a cc to reserve the room (I never prepay) and then pay cash in the local currency either when I register or when I check out, whichever the hotel requests. Others will have different views on this.

I am heading to Italy for 5 weeks this Saturday. I have booked accommodation in 8 places. For 5 of these places I looked at booking.com and the accommodation provider website.

In one case the B and B offered a 8% discount for cash if booked directly with them. Of the other 4 places, 3 were IDENTICAL in price, and one was 5euro cheaper on booking.com.

So, if you have a life beyond trying to save every last cent, booking.com is a reliable and reasonable way to go in Italy!

Johny, don't pay in dollars, you will almost surely lose money that way. Use bank-owned ATMs to withdraw cash with your debit card as needed. Let your bank DNS credit card companies know you will be using cards in Europe so they don't block transactions for suspicious activity.