Reconfirmation of reservation - is it needed?

In the past, I have never "confirmed" a reservation in Germany. They always expect me. The process goes like this, 1) I send an email in German requesting information about price and availability. 2) They send back an offer. 3) I send an email stating that I accept the offer for date, how many days, type of room and rate. I think a few times I have sent another email that I am now in Germany and will see them on the agreed date, but not often. The only time this process has broken down was on my last trip. When I arrived at the hotel, the host acted surprised, but his wife hurried up to prepare the room. Later, he gave me a lecture about how I should confirm the reservation. He was not native German and his German fluency was a little suspect. When I got home, I pulled up our emails, and I saw that I had, indeed, told him I was accepting the offer. However, I had not used a form of the verb, bestätigen (confirm), so maybe he had not realized I was. Several times, I have been asked by a host to specifically confirm the reservation. No problem, I just sent back an email using the word bestätigen and all was fine. Apparently, unlike this country, where the hotel sends back a confirmation, in Germany, the quest does the confirmation.

No, BUT if you want to get in before normal check-in time, suggest you e-mail that kind of request.

I haven't bothered to reconfirm any kind of reservations in years, and never had a problem. But doing so is harmless, and if it will make sleep better at night go for it:)

I did have a problem once with not reconfirming a room - last year as a matter of fact. We had a room reserved (with a credit card) in Rouen France. My husband ended up in the hospital, and I called from Honfleur to tell them we needed to cancel. (Called 2 days ahead of time.) They had given my room away because they hadn't heard from me they said. But, my card had been charged already. Never could figure out why this happened for sure, but we were able to get a refund.

It wouldn't hurt. We recently had a bit of a mix-up with our first room reservation, but they quickly fixed it when I pulled out the email with our confirmation on it. But I would rather have handled that by email a week before then on premises all jet-laggy.

Why not? We have had some mixups over the years, and whether or not reconfirming would have helped is unknown. But it only takes a quick email or phone call to ease your mind.

I am back to confirming flights a few days ahead of time. At one time that was a standard procedure but over the years never had problems so dropped the habit. After all, with the internet and cell phones the airlines will notify you of any changes. Right? Maybe ! Our US connecting flight to an International flight was eliminated when the summer schedule went into effect. Had we shown up at the airport on our regular scheduled time there would have been no flights available to make our international flight. As it was, through another accident of time, we arrived at the airport about 90 mins earlier than planned and were just able to catch another connecting flight on a different airline. We are back to reconfirming reservations especially critical ones.

Alice, I always confirm my reservations to be on the safe side. I always print out my reservation confirmations or email with the hotel to show that I have a reservation. It has saved us a few times in the past when they have said they did not have our reservation. I show them my email/confirmation from them then they have to provide us our rooms and at the stated price in the confirmation. I think it is better to play it safe and confirm them myself, it does not take that much time and is worth it to me. Have a fun trip.

Thank you everyone. Very good advice. Especially Frank's since the trip over includes Denver to Phoenix to Charlotte to Paris. Lots of opportunity for stuff to happen. Once was flying from CA (John Wayne) to Phoenix and plane was delayed - they lost the crew. Had been assigned to something else. Very long afternoon -

Darn tootin' - reconfirm, and bring printouts! Our 'confirmed' reservation for the first night in Europe wasn't - grrrrr. So, we frantically searched my back-up hotels on an airport internet terminal and got our Paris hotel that way. Also reconfirm your ATM/credit cards, too.

I have recently made two reservations for places to stay in Germany (Berlin & Trier) and after all of the e-mail exchanges the last ones from Germany both acknowledged my reservation. I will take a copy of those e-mails with me including the ones with the price. I would only contact either of those two places if I am delayed in arriving.

I always do it. One time, four years ago, one of the B&Bs I reserved wrote back that they had lost my reservation. They said they could accomodate me if I didn't mind changing rooms each night, or they told me of another place that could accomodate me. It was much better to discover this ahead of time while I still had time to make other arrangements than to find out when I got there that they didn't have my reservation. We elected to stay with them and ended up only having to switch rooms once. Bottom line -- it's easy to do, so why take a chance?

We always reconfirm our reservations. Several years ago our Paris hotel had delays in renovations and the email to reconfirm, with the room not available, allowed us to move to our backup hotel. Ever since, we book two hotels for all of our journeys, and always make sure to cancel one at least 30 days prior to travel. That means two things to travelers. One is that there might be a late room come available, and second, we never inconvenience the hoteliers since we cancel a month prior to travel. We never book those places that require a night's charge to our credit card. Works for us.