So what's with booking.com

[Caminomary525]

I will do the second leg of my religious retreat/outdoor adventure/450 mile pub crawl (aka The Camino) , from Logrono to Leon , to mark the occasion of my seventieth year starting mid-September. As part of my over planning I try to identify hostals/private albergues where I can get a private room. I can only manage short stages so knowing where I am going to sleep is important to me.

I use booking.com as a tool to look for suitable places along with mundicamino, jacobsfreunde, and that eroski consumer site. (Did I mention that I over plan?). Well, I am noticing that booking .com is indicating that several places are full even as far out as October although booking.com will sometimes suggest other dates.

So is this a booking.com oddity, ie only so many rooms are available for online booking while a direct phone call will reveal vacancies? I was only planning to do reservations one or two days in advance but the "no room in the inn" notices on booking.com are making me nervous.

Thanks for whatever info others can share.

 

[jirit]

I have used booking.com to book hotel rooms and beds at B&Bs in cities while traveling, but never on the camino.

The camino is a low tech, cash society.

Given the fees that small individual hostal and private albergue owners face by using booking.com, I assume many just simply lock the rooms, so it looks like they are already reserved.

So if you desire a private room while walking the camino, you will find that calling 1-2 days ahead and paying in cash will be more successful than reserving months in advance, via booking.com. It won't work every day but there are plenty alternate arrangements. There is a steady stream of pilgrims like yourself that will simply call ahead, reserve the room/bed by phone and pay them cash.

That is how the camino works

 

[Tia Valeria]

So is this a booking.com oddity, ie only so many rooms are available for online booking while a direct phone call will reveal vacancies? I was only planning to do reservations one or two days in advance but the "no room in the inn" notices on booking.com are making me nervous.

Thanks for whatever info others can share.

You could also try venere.com. Phoning direct, or checking out the hostal/hotel etc website is another option. Booking.com etc do not have all the available rooms in any one place as far as we know, but have an allocation.

 

[Roger Hogstrom]

Try http://www.infohostal.com/ better on small places along the camino.

Roger

 

[ivar]

I have talked to some people that tried to book rooms in private lodging in September, and they had problems finding beds. It seems like the high season now is starting earlier and ending later.

 

[annakappa]

Why don't you simply use the e-mail address given on the various sites such as mundicamino and contact them directly? Anne

 

[Dutch]

Booking.com only advertises with the number of rooms that they are allowed to sell. So it is very possible that the chosen hotel does have rooms available trough other sites or trough their own website.

The way booking.com does this, was on of the reasons why they got a slap on the wrist from different national advertising associations. It was proven and found misleading and booking.com has to put a stop to this way of selling in certain countrys. They will probably find some other way of misleadimg us hahaha
It was on the news here last month.

 

[tyrrek]

I booked a room in Ourense with Booking.com for my Camino last month. The site suggested I'd got one of the last rooms but the place didn't seem to be busy. (It may have been, but I didn't meet anyone in the lift/corridor.) I got the impression that the reservation was totally superfluous, and that the receptionist was only vaguely aware of the whole Booking.com thing anyway. I was charged exactly what the site said, though, and the hotel was fine for the money.

 

[Dutch]

Booking.com is an ok site, totally legit, they just are not allowed to advertise rooms like that any,ore in certain countries.

Dozens of sites, if not more, sell hotel accomodations. It isnt strange that hotel receptionist do not know every single one of them....eventhough booking.com issss one of the biggies.

 

[Diogo92]

People, Booking.com it's just a platform. It's the Hotels and other types of places who do most of the branding about rooms, discounts etc. The Hotel always has the possibility to choose what he wants to put there.
So, if you do a reservation, saying that it’s the last room, but the Hotel it’s empty when you are in there, the problem it’s from the Hotel, not from Booking.com. Who updates the availability it’s the back office department or the Reservations department.

The only thing that I remember that we (I work in an Hotel) can't mess with is with the after 04PM discount of 10%.

The biggest problems with Booking.com are their customer service and the commission fee that they charge to Hotels. But hey, if it wasn’t that platform, a lot of Hotels would close.
F
or small places, I like to use Hostelworld.com, mostly because of the point system that they offer (you can get a free sleeping night after a number of reservations).

 

[Bogong]

I will do the second leg of my religious retreat/outdoor adventure/450 mile pub crawl (aka The Camino) , from Logrono to Leon , to mark the occasion of my seventieth year starting mid-September. As part of my over planning I try to identify hostals/private albergues where I can get a private room. I can only manage short stages so knowing where I am going to sleep is important to me.

I use booking.com as a tool to look for suitable places along with mundicamino, jacobsfreunde, and that eroski consumer site. (Did I mention that I over plan?). Well, I am noticing that booking .com is indicating that several places are full even as far out as October although booking.com will sometimes suggest other dates.

So is this a booking.com oddity, ie only so many rooms are available for online booking while a direct phone call will reveal vacancies? I was only planning to do reservations one or two days in advance but the "no room in the inn" notices on booking.com are making me nervous.

Thanks for whatever info others can share.

We found this recently in Paris,too. Completely booked out according to Bookings.com. but a room was available when we contacted the Hotel by email, and several other rooms were also not booked when we arrived. This followed a big lap around Spain with my wife and sister in law after I walked the Camino from St Jean to Santiago and then the Camino Jacobeo to Fisterre and Muxia. I'm also in my 70th year, and left St J on 28 February at around 10.30 am. The weather was vile. Aside from nine glorious days of sunshine across the Rioja/Meseta (marvellous places), it snowed, hailed, rained, sleeted and blew nearly all the way. The worst day was from Logoso to Cee. As I was meeting them in A Coruna on 5 April I had to push it a bit and got to Santiago early morning 26 March (wet, muddy, filthy and smelling like cat's pooh) , took a days break and then arrived in Muxia on 31 March. It was a bit of a slog. I had enough of the rain by then so chickened out and caught the bus to A Coruna. I had four days to explore this most delightful Spanish city.

Here's one from left field re getting to St Jean. I did the trade route thing and caught the TGV from Paris to Bayonne then the bus to St J (the train wasn't running). If I did it again, I would go to UK and catch up with a few mates, take the ferry from Portsmouth to Bilbao and do the Guggenheim, get the train (Euskotren?) or bus to San Sebastian and spend a few days there(classy city which makes Barcelona look like a giant amusement park), then Euskotren to Hendaye, train or bus to Bayonne then the usual thing. I didn't know this at the time.

Best regards

John (aka Bogong)

 

[Sraaen]

I dk if this will help but maybe worth a try. http://steveport.com/caminomap

 

[Sraaen]

But the mobile tripadvisor app is the best. Especially the "Point Me There"
feature.

 

[Thengel1]

Lots of hotels advertise a few rooms on the major online booking sites as a form of advertising. Neither the website or the hotel is attempting any kind of fraud, they just don't want to give the website a commission on every room they have.

I have used Booking, Hotels.com and Venere for years for researching hotels without difficulty of any kind. (a little less fond of Hotels.com, but it is still passable)

Two small tips:

Just because you use the website for research, doesn't legally obligate you to book the room with them. Look for the website of the actual places you decide on and see if you can get a better deal (a good percentage of time, you can). I figure, if you can't get a better deal by booking directly, then use one of the booking sites (they do provide a useful service).

If you do your research early, you can figure out places you might want to stay at and make a note of them. Then, when you are ready to book (closer to your travel date), you can still have a list of places to check out, even if the booking engines say they are full.

Glen

 

[CaminoKris2013]

I've been using booking.com post my Camino, and it has been great.

I am sure that in order for a hotel to be available for more than just booking.com customers, they may contract a certain # of rooms/day. Once those rooms are booked, you may need to go to another vendor or call the hotel directly.

As for the Camino, I found that Eroski was good, as it lets you know whether or not a private Albergue will allow you to reserve and how.


Sent from my iPhone using Camino de Santiago Forum

 

[StuartM]

Why don't you simply use the e-mail address given on the various sites such as mundicamino and contact them directly? Anne

Have you had much success that way? I've had a pretty poor response rate for email for hotels in both France & Spain. I assumed it must just be a cultural thing.

 

[annakappa]

Have you had much success that way? I've had a pretty poor response rate for email for hotels in both France & Spain. I assumed it must just be a cultural thing.

Well we don't book on our Camino, but away from the Camino we always use the hotel e-mail address and make a direct booking. Never had any problem. It stands to reason that these booking agencies only have a certain quotation in each hotel and if the hotel can make a direct booking, they are saving on commissions. I wonder what cultural thing you mean Anne

 

[zolarose]

Oh no Ivar! I will begin my walk Aug 24. You are only saying private albergues are full, right?

What about pensiónes and hotels? Now I'm nervous. Afraid I won't have enough money if albergues are full.

I want this to be a spiritual time, not a mad rush for a room. Maybe the European Peacewalk would be better?

 

[GreatDane]

Hostelworld.com - are they showing the per person rate or a room rate (for example when it is a double - two twin bed - room??)

 

[Caminomary525]

Thanks to all. It's helpful to know that booking.com doesn't represent all the rooms at a particular place.

 

[Jesse Gararring]

Hi.

I'd visited website where you can book in advance your hostels accomodation (www.onlypilgrims.com).

I was not sure about it because I'd never heard about it but it works!!

There were two problems, they only booked bunks and you can't book any kind of room, but for me was enough. Moreover, they have not to much hostels, but since I visited for the first time the website there are a few more.

 

[StuartM]

Well we don't book on our Camino, but away from the Camino we always use the hotel e-mail address and make a direct booking. Never had any problem. It stands to reason that these booking agencies only have a certain quotation in each hotel and if the hotel can make a direct booking, they are saving on commissions. I wonder what cultural thing you mean Anne

Hi Anne,

a French friend has told me in the past that it isn't unusual for small French businesses to not bother answering emails, I wondered if the same applied to hotels, that's what I meant about the cultural thing. I've not had much success in the past from emailing French and Spanish hotels, particularly in rural places. I'd love to be able to make email reservations, I know a reasonable amount of French and Spanish but my ear just isn't good enough for telephone calls.

Cheers,

Stuart

 

[nreyn12]

http://www.onlypilgrims.com/en/

It looks like this is a new service, started within the last couple of months. I saw a poster for it in Zubiri when I went through last week, and it hadn't been there in May. From what I can tell they incorporate a one euro fee into their quoted prices, and you can pay via Visa, MasterCard, Amex, or a PayPal-like service called 'iupay'. About 80 of the 330+ albergues on the Camino Frances can be booked through this site. I bet that's just because they are new, though, and many more will soon be available.

 

[jirit]

Be aware if you have used booking.com in the past to book a room, and you are using booking.com to search out places, and you have a Facebook account;

All your booking internet searches (even if you are not logged into Booking or Facebook) are tracked by Facebook's cookie, which passes on this information to Booking.com

Ditto with Trip Advisor.

 

[GreatDane]

I've forgotten to mention that when I used booking.com, by the time I got to my Madrid hotel the night before I flew home, I'd earned a discount. Which was good since it cost me 3 times what I'd been spending all along (yes I know I could have stayed some place real cheap but I wanted to stay at the same hotel my husband had in 2013)