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#11
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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 |
#12
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Best hotel booking portals?
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 |
#13
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Best hotel booking portals?
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 |
#14
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Best hotel booking portals?
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 |
#15
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Best hotel booking portals?
"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. |
#16
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Best hotel booking portals?
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 |
#17
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Best hotel booking portals?
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) |
#18
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Best hotel booking portals?
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) |
#19
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Best hotel booking portals?
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#20
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Best hotel booking portals?
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 |
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