Hotel Club type services - bait & switch or room availability on arrival?

Posted by Karen (Edmonton, AB, Canada) on 03/27/08 10:22 AM

Hi, being a novice traveler I have gone ahead and booked my hotel rooms in Europe using club type services (my timelines to make arrangements were short) and then started my travel research! (duh). Now I'm a little worried that I might arrive at a hotel to find there is no room for me there, even though my credit card was charged for the full amount two months prior, or that they send me to a lousy hotel somewhere else. I have booked 4* hotels. Does anyone have experience or insight about this? How reliable are these kinds of bookings now that I am stuck with them. They can not be cancelled of course.

Thanks!

Posted by Tim

Knoxville, TN, USA

03/27/08 12:05 AM

7209 posts

I've used octopustravel.com in the past for a Venice hotel. I had to pre-pay, and we ended up having a great hotel at a great price. So not all pay-ahead type places are bait and switch

Posted by Flight Attendant

Niagara Wine Country, Canada

03/27/08 11:17 AM

808 posts

What exactly do you mean by "club type services"? Please explain.

Posted by Karen OP

Edmonton, AB, Canada

03/27/08 01:10 PM

27 posts

I'm not up on the proper lingo but at Hotel Club one part is you get a free membership. They buy up blocks of rooms from hotel chains at discounted rates, and then they sell the rooms at a higher rate, to you. I think it is the same type of deal with expedia and other such sites. It's always worked well for me in Canada but I saw a post somewhere where someone arranged for this in Europe and got dumped in a shabby hotel by the four star, because the four star said all they were promised was a bed, not a four star bed.

Thanks,

Karen

Posted by Nancy

Bloomington, IL, USA

03/27/08 02:14 PM

9371 posts

I've never heard of this organization, but if the rooms can't be canceled, there is little point in worrying about it now, is there? Take printouts of your confirmations, and copies of your payment records. You would have some recourse through your credit card if you don't get what you pay for, but that could take awhile to sort out. If you know the names of the properties you could verify your reservations with them directly.

Posted by Karen OP

Edmonton, AB, Canada

03/28/08 09:10 AM

27 posts

Thanks to everyone for your input and suggestions. I appreciate your input! Next time I will be definitely following the advice in Rick's guidebooks a lot more carefully.

Karen

Posted by Jed

Seattle, WA, US

03/28/08 03:44 PM

519 posts

If you are talking about hotelclub.net, a relative of ours who lives in Sweden uses the website frequently for her work-travel and really likes it. We are actually using it for 2 of our hotels when we visit Stockholm this summer. We have already booked. I found the price we paid quite a bit cheaper than the one quoted from the hotel website, from e-mailing the hotel, and other sites like Expedia. Downside is you have to pre-pay your room (which seems to be turning out good with the price of the dollar!), but you can cancel (with a small fee). Upside is you can collect "dollars" for each stay to use on future reservations. Of course, we'll see how smoothly things go, when we get there, but our relative travels quite frequently and spoke highly of the website!