The Unnerving Truth About Online Hotel Reservations

Those so-called time and money saving hotel reservations sites ( such as Travelocity, Expedia, etc) claim they will get you the best deals online for any hotel you want to make a reservation at. They brag about their cost-cutting ways and all the expenses you avoid by simply using their services. While most of the time, these claims are accurate in getting you better (and cheaper!) deals online, there are things you need to watch out for.

I work in the Hotel industry, and have seen first-hand the downside of online booking. You see, these online agencies make their money by charging the client much more than the agency charges the hotel.

For example, say you are booking a reservation at a hotel and are using an online booking site (not the hotel itself) to make the reservation. Say the booking site claims they can get you the room of your choosing for $80.00 a night. You think this is a great deal, and use them to book the room. The online booking site will then charge your credit card for the amount they got you the room for and allow you to print out a confirmation page, which you will take with you to the hotel when you check in.

Lo and behold, your reservation upon your arrival shows up "confidential" at the Front Desk, telling the staff that you have booked your room online. This means that the rate that shows up on our screen will not match the rate you paid to book the room. The credit card we will also have on file for the room will be the credit card of the booking agency itself, not yours, and we will charge them the rate posted (which is much cheaper that what you paid, trust me) as you've already paid for the room. You pay the booking agency, they pay us. As confidential information,(requested by the agency) you, the guest, believe you are getting a great deal for your hotel room, whereas in real life you probably ended up paying more than you would have if you had just booked through the actual hotel itself. And you never would know the difference.

The deal is basically this-say you pay the agency around $80 a night for your hotel room, the agency charges us about $65 (a quick $15 profit per night for the agency-not bad!) and the kicker is that had you just called the hotel itself beforehand you would have learrned that the RACK (normal) rate for the room was $70 per night. Meaning, you not only got screwed by believing the online agency got you a great deal, the agency ended up making a killer profit off of you, and we could have gotten you the room cheaper at our normal rate had only yuo asked before booking online. This is just an example of how a lot of online booking agencies work, not necessarily all of them, but you get the idea.

By the way, if by chance you somehow DO find out that you were overcharged for your room, your beef is with the agency who booked your room, not us. Since you paid the agency for the reservation and THEY charged us, any dissatisfaction you find in any way cannot be discounted or dealt with through the hotel, but only through the agency you booked with itself. Not cool.

People often times even book their resrevation through agencies who then NEVER book the actual room with the requested hotel. Just last week a poor individual checked in with a confirmation code and printout of his room description for OUR hotel-however, we had no reservation on our expected list for him. We ended up calling his booking agency (who he had already prepaid for his stay-also paid $20 MORE than we would have charged him, by the way) got hung up on twice, and then they finally admitted they had never truly made the reservation with us. Luckily we had a room for the poor man, but since we had NO method of payment for the room-guess what?- we had to charge him for the room (again, in his mind) and he was forced to take up his issue with the booking agency himself to get his money back from them. He was quite relieved though when he found out about the "discount" we were giving him when we booked his room. In reality we were just giving him our normal rate.

Don't think this type of thing doesn't happen often-it happens WAY more than it should. Unfortunately for the hotel, the agency, and the poor guest.

Another downside to online reservations besides being overcharged (most of the time) and reservations never being completed (not through the fault of the actual hotel, I'll have you know, but with your booking agency itself) is that agencies will often make a reservation and then forget to book an actual room. Meaning, when you check in, yes, you have a reservation under your name, yes, it is a King, non-smoking, but 'whoops!- you forgot to get an actual ROOM NUMBER! When this happens and the hotel is completely booked, the poor individual ends up having to take what the hotel has left (usually a smoking room) or you end up taking a room that wasn't exactly what you wanted. NOt your fault or the hotel's, but but it definitely becomes your problem. And once again, your beef is with the agency. Not cool again.

Scary, dissapointing, but also very true.

I'm not trying to dog booking agencies. Not at all. Often times, you actually WILL get a better deal booking online than you will with dealing with the actual hotel itself. But there are a lot of unattractive risks you take when trying to save a few dollars.

Here are some suggestions to making sure you truly ARE getting the best deal when you travel-

First of all, call the actual hotel you intend on staying at and find out what their RACK (normal) rate is. If you have AAA, AARP, are with the Government (such as military or forest service, etc) or a truck driver or traveling on business (trucker and corporate rates, respectively) find out what deals you can get if you qualify for any of the above-mentioned rates. Find out from the Hotel the cheapest rate they offer at the Front Desk.

After you find out their cheapest rate, find their actual hotel online, and compare the cheapest online rates with the cheapest rates you were quoted over the phone. Sometimes simply booking your room to the actual hotel online with thteir own actual website with a credit card will give you a discount.

After finding the actual hotel rates you can now check with the booking agencies to see what they can get you for a rate as a comparison. If they can get you a cheaper rate, keep in mind that you will be paying the booking agency rather than the hotel for your room, so if the agency accidentally books you the wrong type of room or you find something dissatisfactory with the hotel after your arrival, you will not be getting a discount from the hotel iteslf. You WILL have to deal with your booking agency for all financial issues with your hotel stay as the hotel will be the third party in your reservation, not the booking agency. Just keep this in mind.

If you choose the booking agency to make your reservation, after receiving your confirmation number call the actual hotel to confirm that they not only have your reservation on their file, but that they have your reservation correctly. If you've already paid for your room (which you will have-the booking agency will make sure of that) make sure your credit card isn't holding the room so you don't get charged twice when you check in. Make sure that your reservation is for the correct arrival and departure date, that you have a room number (the hotel will not give your room number out to you but they will confirm that you have one, and what floor it is on and its general wherabouts) and that you are getting the right room, such as bed size, smoking or non, number of beds, etc.

Also, make sure that you get a confirmation number from the hotel, even if it's the very same one that the booking agency gave you.

Now that you have all your bases covered, you are set to go and have fun traveling! Just remember, always follow through with your reservations, no matter how you make them, and don't forget to confirm your room(s) no matter where you are staying!

Happy traveling!