? On line hotel booking sites

Hi, are these agencies?? Why not book directly with hotel, most hotels have their own sites.( just google them) I have never used agencies , but I have only booked hotels in Italy, France, UK, and Germany. I can't imagine Switzerland is any different.

We book directly with the hotels or Bed and Breakfasts when we travel. I check out some of the other sites just to see what they say about the places, but find the places we are interested in staying at websites by a google search.
I print out their email response and make sure I have their address and phone numbers with us. This year, I emailed them back about a week before our trip to reconfirm our rooms.

I agree with the above posts. Book directly. I have saved some money. The hotel pays a fee for online booking networks.

You might take a look at www.tripadvisor.com for hotel ratings for locations where you plan on staying. Listings there will give you an idea of how others rate the hotels. Unfortunately, Trip Adisor links you to Orbitz, Expedia, Travelocity and others and not the actual hotel. Once you get some ideas, you can google the hotel name for the actual hotel site. Most have their own site. This works most of the time.

Thanks everyone!

I have used booking.com and venere.com with success. I try to book direct, but some smaller places don't have websites (though email works, too). We stayed in backpacker hostels in Switzerland a few times - they are pretty nice (we're a couple in our 50s).

Booking directly is not always cheaper especially in non-peak seasons where discount booking companies like www.octopustravel.com may have purchased blocks of rooms and are trying to unload them.

This happened to me last March when visiting Venice. Booked the Palace Bonnvechiatti via the OctopusTravel website for about 1/2 of what the actual hotel quoted us.

I typically prefer booking directly with hotels - but not when I can get it for 1/2 price elsewhere.