venere hotel reservation -- how sure is the room?

You are hearing things I have never heard. I have used venere several times with no problems. My confirmation from venere always listed a contact for the hotel. Contact the hotel a head of time to confirm. And I do think you are worrying a lot.

I have found Venere to be reliable. I have never had a problem in France with reservations being honored. Bring a hard copy of the confirmation with you, and if they mess up and do not have a room, a lot of times hotels have a relationship with another hotel, etc. and they will figure out a way to accommodate you through their partners. It's has never happened to me, after twelve trips to Europe, including forty nights in France. Not even for one night. So from one worrier to another -- no need to worry.

This is unfamiliar territory for you, so maybe you should just call the hotel and ask them if they need your number. Someone will speak some English. I'm not sure where you read this guarantee stuff, but I've had the opposite experience many times. When I've phoned small hotels in France for reservations, some hold a room with no credit card number, even refusing to take the card number when offered--and the reservations have been honored. When I've asked if they want the card number, they've told me it's not necessary.
Again, for your own peace of mind, you should just call them--during their daytime hours, not when the night watchman is on duty.

I have found even small hotels have email,, which hotel are you staying at,, bet you could just email them. Just google and look for the offical site,, or let me know which it is,, I bet I can sleuth out the email for you. Venere is btw well known and reputable, so chances are your reservation is fine. I always print out confirmations and bring them with me anyways. I confirm rate on check in also.

Thanks for the replies, I feel better about it. If something happened here in the US to mess up a reservation I'm sure I could handle it, but add in a foreign country where I don't speak the language... As to where I got the info about reservations, its from the book "The Unofficial Guide to Paris" 6th Ed. pg 75 which says "Legally, in France, holding a reservation with a credit-card number is not a true guarantee for either the hotel or client. The only way to make sure that a reservation is guaranteed is for the client to instruct the hotel in writing to debit the card (usually for one night). With the authorization to debit the card and the charge going thru, the hotel is obliged by law to respect its committment. If the hotel doesn't debit the card it can't know if the card is valid and is not bound to respect the reservation." As you might understand, this made me a bit nervous.

I've never used Venere, or other booking websites, but I have no doubt as to their reliability. If they weren't reliable, word would quickly get around on websites like this, and they would be out of business. My biggest complaint is that, like Rail Europe, they only show properties that they book, and those are often not the most economical place. If you can find (and read) the official websites of the town, you will often find the biggest s_lection and the best prices.

I have used them several times and never a problem.

I usually contact the hotel to confirm a non-smoking request or notify of a late arrival or just ask directions from the train station. Their response is confirmation for me that they have my reservation. I've never had a problem with venere or with hotels.com which I have also used.