Booking hotel in Madrid

If emailing your credit card number is your only option I recommend sending it in parts, that is one email has part of the number, another email has another and any verification code in another separate email.

it's ok but if you can find a website say trip adviser or whatever you can book with them, and these websites take credit card and you don't pay extra. the other thing is that madrid has plenty hotels so if you're not going in the high season you don't really need a reservation. this is probably true for the majority of spanish cities.

While it is commonly recommended to break your cc number in an email transmission, you actually gain so little increased security that it is not worth the effort. The probability of a transmission being intercepted AND your number put back together is so low that you can really say it is impossible. If you number is stolen it will be stolen after the hotel puts it back together and enters it in their system. That you cannot control.

I'm a little worried about just sending the cc number into cyberspace. The hostal is a Rick Steves recommendation but the website is "under construction." Found the email through a travel review site. Another hotel has direct on-line reservations, as well as through a booking service. Booking service shows a big discount (42 euros v 60). A deal or a headache (other folks have commented on hotels not acknowledging booking agency deals)?

There is no realistic danger to sending one email with your credit card info as long as you know the email is valid. As mentioned, the real danger of a stolen credit card info comes from the hotel employee, not the email itself. And how many times will you give your card to a waiter and they leave the room to process? That's actually far riskier than an email.

Suggest you might google the name of the hotel, or check www.madridman.com which has an extensive list of hostals and hotels...you might get a different direction to the web site= the one you are now being directed to might be out of date or whatever.

The problem with sending an email with ones entire credit card number and verification number is if the person on the other end discards a printout of it into the trash or just leaves it laying around the possibility for fraud is there, whereas is if it is at least broken up the chances are lower for this to happen. Granted either way a dishonest employee at the hotel getting it is the biggest problem of sending it directly instead of through a secure system that handles the booking. All things being equal your best alternative is as others mentioned using TripAdvisor or Madridman.com and find accomodations that will accept a secure transaction. Madridman has links to quite a few places you should be able to find something there. Along these same lines I often wonder why some people insist on having Euros in their pocket when arriving in Europe, the arguments often given are they may be too tired after flying to deal with getting them from the ATM (which should take about one minute) or not being able to find a working ATM have never made sense to me, in all my travels to Europe I've never encountered a problem with ATMs at the airport, theres always quite a few of them. The time, effort and cost of getting them at home seems like a waste. My point being what may seem like a waste of time and effort to one person might give another peace of mind.