Best hotel booking portals?

Alfred Molon wrote:

For our just completed trip to Poland and Czechia we essentially booked
everything through booking.com. Was ok, but for instance in Cesky
Krumlov I saw many pensions with signs 'rooms available', while when I
booked Pension Antik it seemed to be one of the few alternatives
available. Which makes me wonder if booking.com is perhaps listing only
a subset of the accomodation available. Which hotel booking do you
recommend?

No reservation system / booking site can show you all
hotels/pensions/places to stay in a city, because they want money for
this. And not every hotel is willing to make a contract with the
systems and pay between 12% and 25% (can go up tp 40% with GDS) of
the amount for the booking to them.
And there is no "best booking portal" because all of them has a § in
the contract, that the rate in their system must be the same as in
other systems.
So if a hotel is noted in more than one booking portal, you normally
don't get a better rate in another portal.
Try the hotel itself, and you can get a better rate (because they
don't have to pay the reservation system) or you get a better room for
the same rate which was offered in the system.
(I know, what I'm speaking about - I work in a hotel and with booking
portals)

Greetings from Cologne

Andreas

Martin wrote:

and use it in conjunction with Tripadvisor.

Which was part of Expedia.
Expedia sold the stocks of Tripadvisor some time ago and since then TA
is trying to sell "buisiness entries" to the hotels.
I would not trust TA so much any more.

Greetings from Cologne

Andreas

Alfred Molon wrote:

I find Google maps a good starting point. Search for the town you want
then once you have it search for "Hotels and Motels" or "Bed and Breakfast"
or similar terms and you will get lots of dots marking where they are.
Then it's a case of following links, looking at reviews and making choices.

The curious thing is that Google Maps does not show Pension Antik, the
place where we stayed in Cesky Krumlov.
Also, I have the impression that in Cesky Krumlov there are way more
hotels/pensions than shown on Google Maps.

If the owner/manager of the hotel didn't add the hotel to Google maps
or earth it often don't show the hotels. Even in western european
countries I didn't see hotels (some of them 4* hotels) I know.

You could try OpenStreetMap as well, because there are other persons
adding the streets and the POI to the database.

Greetings from Cologne

Andreas

Alfred Molon wrote:

Even the homepage of the tourist office of Cesky Krumlov does not show
the place where we stayed:

More and more tourist officed are working like booking portals. And
only hotels, which are willing to pay for the bookings are listed on
the websites. In the printed lists you might find all hotels, but
remember, the database for such a printed list normally is one year
old.

Greetings from Cologne

Andreas

"Alfred Molon" wrote in message
...
In article , Graham Harrison
says...
I find Google maps a good starting point. Search for the town you want
then once you have it search for "Hotels and Motels" or "Bed and
Breakfast"
or similar terms and you will get lots of dots marking where they are.
Then it's a case of following links, looking at reviews and making
choices.

The curious thing is that Google Maps does not show Pension Antik, the
place where we stayed in Cesky Krumlov.
Also, I have the impression that in Cesky Krumlov there are way more
hotels/pensions than shown on Google Maps.
--

Alfred Molon
http://www.molon.de - Photos of Asia, Africa and Europe

It's not perfect and, in a way, it proves my point that nobody has
everything. But I find it a useful starting point.

Actually I think it does show Pension Antik http://goo.gl/maps/vA9i One of
the disadvantages is that in somewhere with a lot of choice the results are
spread over many pages and unlike the normal Google search where results
tend to get less appropriate on later pages with this method they remain
appropriate. Actually, I say that but sometimes the results include
businesses such as Travel Agencies that book accommodation and Car Hire
people in an hotel or that deliver.

Joe Makowiec wrote:

For our just completed trip to Poland and Czechia we essentially
booked everything through booking.com. Was ok, but for instance in
Cesky Krumlov I saw many pensions with signs 'rooms available',
while when I booked Pension Antik it seemed to be one of the few
alternatives available. Which makes me wonder if booking.com is
perhaps listing only a subset of the accomodation available. Which
hotel booking do you recommend?

We had decent luck in Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic a couple of
years back using http://hotels.com

With hotels.com, you choosed one of the systems with the highest
commission.
Why a hotel should be listed in hotels.com with a commission twice as
high as bookings.com, if they are not listed in there.

Greetings from Cologne

Andreas

Martin wrote:

On Mon, 11 Jun 2012 10:02:51 +0200, Andreas H. Zappel
wrote:

Martin wrote:

and use it in conjunction with Tripadvisor.

Which was part of Expedia.
Expedia sold the stocks of Tripadvisor some time ago and since then TA
is trying to sell "buisiness entries" to the hotels.
I would not trust TA so much any more.

Greetings from Cologne

As long as there is a spread of likes and dislikes for hotels it is a
good source, if you are judicious with the credibility of some of the
comments.

One thing that I wish tripadvisor would disallow is replies from the
hotels that don't actually address the particular complaints made. Some
hotels clearly just copy and paste a "we take your feedback very
seriously, everything you complained about has been fixed" reply...

In general all the comments on hotels I have stayed in that
are in Tripadvisor matched my impression. If I had known about it
before I stayed in some UK hotels I could have avoided unpleasant
experiences.

I find detail important in either likes or dislikes. I remember one
traveller complaining about the steps in a hotel at Aguas Calientes,
Macchu Pichu, Peru. I mean, think about it...

Luckily, it didn't dissuade me, and it was a terrific hotel.

David

--
(*) of the royal duchy of city south and deansgate
www.davidhorne.net (email address on website)
"[Do you think the world learned anything from the first
world war?] No. They never learn." -Harry Patch (1898-2009)

On Jun 11, 12:06*pm, (David Horne) wrote:
Martin wrote:
On Mon, 11 Jun 2012 10:02:51 +0200, Andreas H. Zappel
wrote:

Martin wrote:

and use it in conjunction with Tripadvisor.

Which was part of Expedia.
Expedia sold the stocks of Tripadvisor some time ago and since then TA
is trying to sell "buisiness entries" to the hotels.
I would not trust TA so much any more.

Greetings from Cologne

As long as there is a spread of likes and dislikes for hotels it is a
good source, if you are judicious with the credibility of some of the
comments.

One thing that I wish tripadvisor would disallow is replies from the
hotels that don't actually address the particular complaints made. Some
hotels clearly just copy and paste a "we take your feedback very
seriously, everything you complained about has been fixed" reply...


Yes, many do shovel out a standard reply. I only ever had 2 management
responses out of my 69 (just checked) reviews. One was a bit touchy
and the other very content. However, in my review of the latter, I put
a couple of points forward. I was unsure if there was a price
difference between staying at the main building or the lodge and a
comment about a walk I say mentioned in our bedroom info pack, but
didn't provide information as to where to actually find it, let alone
something like, say, a sketch /map . I got just the standard "thanks"
reply, and was left none the wiser.


In general all the comments on hotels I have stayed in that
are in Tripadvisor matched my impression. If I had known about it
before I stayed in some UK hotels I could have avoided unpleasant
experiences.

I find detail important in either likes or dislikes. I remember one
traveller complaining about the steps in a hotel at Aguas Calientes,
Macchu Pichu, Peru. I mean, think about it...

It's odd when several reviewers comment about certain details (the
same or thereabouts) and the MR denies all, eg, things like , but we
don't have a room facing a quarry, or, we don't have bedding of that
nature. I don't have specific examples right now but saw quite a few
from discussions in the support forum and sometimes it turns out that
the management were telling bold faced lies in their responses, whilst
other times it might have been that a poster with multiple accounts,
or a several posters had conspired to tell the same or similar lies
over and over again.

We went to a venue in the Netherlands late last year. I had received a
present which would allowed me to choose a one nights stay amongst 50
Hotels choices given. The hotel we picked was because of location and
it was the only one in that area that I could choose from within the
gift pack.

I checked with TA. It sounded awful, but we went ahead anyway. And had
a wonderful stay at a great location, within a lovely hotel, where
everything was 'modern' clean, etc, and entirely unlike the impression
given by most of the reviews.

That is not the first time we've encountered that sort of phenomenon
either. Whilst hotels that were supposedly the bee's knees turned out
to be just so-so.

Luckily, it didn't dissuade me, and it was a terrific hotel.

David

--
(*) of the royal duchy of city south and deansgatewww.davidhorne.net(email address on website)
"[Do you think the world learned anything from the first
world war?] No. They never learn." *-Harry Patch (1898-2009)

(David Horne) wrote:

One thing that I wish tripadvisor would disallow is replies from the
hotels that don't actually address the particular complaints made. Some
hotels clearly just copy and paste a "we take your feedback very
seriously, everything you complained about has been fixed" reply...

Did you ever had the possibilty to answer an complaint?
I did try three times to reply to one - the first and second came back
because it wasn't compatible with the regulations for the answers.
In the end the reply wasn't much more than a "we take your feedback
very seriously".

I find detail important in either likes or dislikes. I remember one
traveller complaining about the steps in a hotel at Aguas Calientes,
Macchu Pichu, Peru. I mean, think about it...

Most complaints can give you an idea of the hotel, but not much more.
Meanwhile there are several customers for discounts or other benefits,
or they will write a bad review.
BTW there are fewer and fewer complaints at the receptions. Because if
a customer complain there the hotel could solve the problem - and than
there is no more chance to complain at TA or at the reservation
system.

Greetings from Cologne

Andreas

Andreas H. Zappel wrote:

Most complaints can give you an idea of the hotel, but not much more.
Meanwhile there are several customers for discounts or other benefits,
or they will write a bad review.
BTW there are fewer and fewer complaints at the receptions. Because if
a customer complain there the hotel could solve the problem - and than
there is no more chance to complain at TA or at the reservation
system.

I've had a number of irritations of varying degrees of severity cured very
nicely by people at reception desks over the years 8-)




--
Erilar, biblioholic medievalist with iPad