booking your stay by email

Hi Marilyn,

I don't think this will save any time.

Generally, your initial inquiry is just a request indicating dates of stay, number of persons, and type of room desired. The hotel will get back to you indicating whether they have availability. They may also offer a choice of rooms with different rates. They will also identify what you need to provide to make the reservation (often a credit card number). Once you provide that information, they will confirm that you have a reservation. Some of the hotels will include additional info at this time, such as directions from the train station, etc.

Not real sure what you are asking. Often times the hotel, B&B will have a formal or standard inquiry form that will request that information when inquiring about the availability of a room. There is nothing wrong with providing that information --- it is generic and public. Or are you concerned about some security issues if you send your name and address? Contrary to public rumors e-mails transmissions are very secure if that is a concern.

I used both email and telephone. Most long distance carriers have a plan for international calls that cuts the price tremendously, and you aren't required to keep the plan past the time you need it. For the B&B's that wanted a credit card # I found telephone especially helpful, as I didn't want to send that # by email. Besides, you know right away whether you have the room or not. A couple of times the hostess volunteered to meet us at the train station when we arrived.(We traveled by train or bus most of the time in both Ireland and England.)

thing is some hosts prefer to phone instead of email so its a good idea to write ones phone no. when inquring for a room, it saves lots of emails.

I've corresponded with a dozen B&Bs via email with no problems. Imagine the phone bills if we were calling back and forth across the globe! I'll save the calls for the day of our stay, when confirming arrival times.

I just did this a couple weeks ago with a hostel in Dublin. In my initial email I just inquired about availability. They sent me back an email with prices, and what information they required. I sent back an email with the info. They sent me a confirmation. Not a lot of emails in total; I don't think this process would have been shorter if I had included more information in the initial email as the truly vital info is the credit card and I wouldn't want to give that to someone without having had prior contact first. I always include my name and email address at the end of emails and my phone as well on work related emails; I suppose doing something like that would give the proprietor the option of emailing or calling depending on what they prefer.