Booking accommodation in advance (Online)

Booking accommodation in advance (Online)

Booking in advance gives the traveller peace of mind that they will have somewhere to sleep once they arrive at their destination.

Ways in which you can book for accommodations

• Over the Internet

• Through a travel agent

• Over the telephone

If a guest has to be told that there are no rooms available despite having a reservation, the hotel will usually offer to pay for a night's accommodation at another nearby hotel or you could call the agent to rebook, but if there is especially high demand for rooms throughout the whole area, even this may not be possible. 

Client should reduce your chances of being walked, try to arrive at the hotel as soon as possible after check-in time begins.

Check carefully what you are booking. 

Search results often include offers even tens of kilometers from the location searched for. But if you are too busy to do that ask your agent.

Beware of hidden charges, such as a non-optional "resort fee" or "destination marketing fee"; the hotel may have no intention of making any room available at the advertised price. Ask for the full cost before you book anything. If a hotel refuses to rent a room without a credit card, which happens frequently but not universally, they may be planning to bill all manner of "incidental fees" or hidden charges to your card. It sometimes pays to read the fine print.

Ask Agents that know more about accommodation can give you better options and best suggestions. 

You can book accommodation on-line, either at the hotel's own web site or at the website of an agency. 

Depending upon where you are going, this can be extremely useful. Yet if you are travelling to somewhere a bit more out of the way, for example, a small city or town, you may find something, but there will be accommodation options not listed on the internet. In this situation.

Sometimes, a hotel has its own web site but doesn't publish the dates for which it still has vacancies. 

Booking online you will need to check the rate being offered if payment is needed immediately or upon arrival/departure. 

Discounted rates usually require that payment be made immediately, but regular rates will allow you to pay upon arrival or check-out at the property. 

In the case of the latter, you do not need to settle payment with the same credit card used for making the reservation; you can pay using cash in many establishments. However, you may still be required to present the credit card used for making the reservation (especially for pre-paid/advance purchase bookings to reduce card fraud).

One hazard of online bookings that are not directly through a hotel's website is that the reservations are sometimes lost in online transit between the booking site and the hotel, so consider calling the hotel directly to see whether they will match the rate you saw online, and if not, you might want to call them in advance to confirm that they got the correct information from the booking site. Also, consider the costs of required taxes and fees when comparing room prices, as the same price may be represented differently, depending on whether taxes and fees are included in the price that's shown or simply charged later.