Using Booking.com to make reservations?

"We are planning most of our trip using probably booking.com because they say they dont charge anything to your card in advance"

As long as that is your criteria, fine, but understand that these booking websites don't offer any great prices. In large towns, where they have to be competitive, I have not found them to be much, if any, lower than the accommodations' actual websites, and in small towns they usually don't represent the most economical properties.

Notice these booking websites never give you the hotels website. If they really had lower prices than the properties own websites, they wouldn't be afraid for you to check it out.

I have spend about 100 nights in Germany, all in places I found on the towns' own websites, and I have never had my card charged in advance. In fact I have almost never (maybe never) had to give them a card number.

To me, booking websites are like buying point-point rail tickets from RailEurope - convenient but you sure pay for the convenience.

I've used booking.com a couple times. I don't think they charged my card when until I was at the hotel. I'm pretty sure they didn't. I like that booking.com has the cancelation terms for each hotel and they stick to it. It is easy to change and cancel reservations with thier website.

I've used booking.com over twenty times and have had no problems. But, at some hotels they will they do require that you prepay the full amount of your stay. Make sure you take the time to read the complete rate rules.

I disagree with what Lee said. Booking.com works as a consolidator at some hotels in that they buy up blocks of rooms, and then offers them lower rates than you can get at the hotels own website.

"they buy up blocks of rooms, and then offers them lower rates than you can get at the hotels own website."

That's nice in theory, but it doesn't hold true in practice. Maybe for large chain hotels that have LOTS of fat built into the price, but not for economy places.

I checked four places that I have stayed in the last 1½ yr. In Nördlingen and Bad Herrenalb, the places I stayed were within a few block of the Bahnhof. They were not offered by Booking.com. The least expensive properties, still 16-43% higher on Booking, were miles out of town. For closer in properties, Booking was 42-78% higher.

In Oberammergau, they offered the same place I stayed in for €28/nt. I paid €25/nt in Oct 2007. Her direct booking prices might have gone up a little since I stayed there, but I doubt that €28 per night is a substantial savings.

Lastly, I tried Hotel Königshof in Mainz, a place I recommend because of it's proximity to the Hbf and FRA. For a weekday, they offered €61, a whole €1 less than the hotel's own website at €62. Booking claimed they were offering a discount from €71! On the weekend, when the hotel offers €5 less, €57, Booking offered €72 - €15 more than the hotel's website, but said it was a discount from the "regular" price of €105!

So, maybe if you only want to stay at very overpriced accomodations, you might pay relatively less than the website's own rate, but, if you are looking for inexpensive accommodations, you won't get them at Booking. I'm not picking on Booking; I've tried this in the past with other booking websites with similar results.

So, I'm not saying not to try Booking.com, but don't do it blindly. ALWAYS check the hotels own website as well as other places on the towns own website.

"That's nice in theory, but it doesn't hold true in practice. Maybe for large chain hotels that have LOTS of fat built into the price, but not for economy places."

In my case it does indeed hold true in practice. Do you seriously think I would blindly accept booking.com's rates without checking the hotels own website?? In every instance (over 20 times) booking.com's rates were cheaper. And yes these were all business class chain hotels..so what? Not everyone is into small family run B&Bs.

We have used Venere.com for Italy for a number of years. You settle the bill with the hotel when you are there. Credit card details are taken in case of "no shows"

Like Venere for a couple of reasons:

Prices are often the same or lower than going direct and their cancellation policies are often more generous than the hotel's own.

Also the customer reviews are from people who have actually stayed in the accommodation, lessens the risk of reviews from the owner's family and friends! You can always compare the reviews with those on other sites eg TripAdvisor.

The company was taken over by Expedia in 2008 but so far have not noticed any difference.

"Not everyone is into small family run B&Bs"

Maybe that's why I can travel in Europe, stay in hotels, not hostels, and eat mostly sit-down meals, for about $100 per day.

BTW, when I traveled on business, the company put us up in multi-star, business class hotels. I found them to be a "blah", sterile environment. That's why I like to stay in culturally rich, family run Pensionen and Privatzimmer. I don't think I have ever seen anyone on this website ask, "What is the most expensive place in this town".

Last November I stayed for 5 nights in a 3-star hotel in the Harz. Booking shows it as €40/nt. That is the same, no less, than the hotel's normal rate, but because I stayed five nights I was able to get a special package, €199 for 5 night, with Halbpension. Booking didn't offer that package deal.

Lee,
Reread my original post. I said at "some" hotels they buy blocks of rooms. They obviously don't do that at every single hotel in Europe. So yes sometimes the rates are cheaper the hotel's website and some times they're not. A few years ago booking.com had a special rate for the Grand Hotel Krasnapolsky (one of the top hotels in Amsterdam) for only 99 euros a night. The cheapest rate the hotels own website was offering was 300 euros a night. The Ibis hotel at Centraal Station was charging 150 a night. Which hotel and which website do you think I used? I'll give you a hint in the lobby of the hotel I did choose, I saw Sandra Bullock;)

I have used booking.com on at least a dozen occasions over the past year and have been very happy with them. To say booking.com does not offer "cultural rich" accommodations is simply not true. I have booked b&bs, small guesthouses, medium sized hotels, and large-chain hotels through the site and have been perfectly happy. I am sure there are cases where the prices are higher (and that is why you should check the hotel's website or another sources), but there are also many cases where the price is lower or also includes a breakfast or some other perk. In fact the hotel I am staying in this weekend I got on booking.com for €50 off the hotel website and it includes a full breakfast (and this is a small hotel -12 rooms - in a small Dutch town). Booking.com may not always be the best deal, but many times it has been for me.

Ryan, you don't have in your post how many are in your family. We just got back from Ireland with our 2 kids, and we used booking.com to book a room by the airport in Dublin for our first night.

I agree that you can often find cheaper accomodations by looking on local websites. The thing I liked about booking.com was that they compared rates for several hotels on one page. The price was about the same as I could get off of the hotel's website, but I could compare it with other hotels. It can be very difficult to find a reasonably priced room for more than 2-3 people in Europe if you don't do your research.

We looked into getting a B&B in a suburb by the airport, too. The rates were about the same, but our hotel offered a free shuttle to the airport. When you factor in a 15 euro cab ride each way, we saved a lot.

We have a group of 4 adults, my parents, my wife and me. It is a real trick trying to get places to stay together at reasonable rate. Most places seem to be designed for 3 people or less per room. We've been finding and booking apartments mostly. We're going to Paris, Normandy, and the northern parts of italy down to rome over about 3 weeks. We have a strange criteria that we need to use American Express cards to pay for our accomodations because we are using timeshare points that turn into American Express credit cards to pay for the rooms we use. Booking.com also always says what credit cards the hotel/apartment accepts, so that has been great. So far we've used booking.com exclusively.