Travel blogger Ric Garrido recently wrote an interesting post about a trip he took to Romania, which began as a nightmare. Essentially, Ric arrived at his hotel—booked through Booking.com—to find no reservation under his name and the place sold out. The post is titled “My booking.com hotel reservation with no ***king room upon arrival, yeah!” and yeah, it’s worth a read.
The main takeaway from his experience, in my opinion, is also today’s tip: You should always reconfirm your hotel reservations multiple times. I would do it right after booking and then again the day before you leave just to be sure you’re all set. You can call or email. This is especially the case when you book through a third-party site instead of through the hotel directly (and when you’re further off the beaten path in Cluj-Napoca, Romania).
Has this or something similar happened to you? Let us know in the comments below!
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It is the first thing I do whenever I plan to travel.
We, too, learned the hard way. Booked a Best Western in Florida and upon arrival found out that the hotel was closed! Two elderly ladies stranded at the airport at 8PM and nowhere to go as all hotels were booked that were on the airport hotel board. Finally, called the main number for Best Western and told them of our dilemma. They offered to call around and find us a place to stay. After a long wait they called to give us the info and then we had to wait for the hotel shuttle pickup….and it was a real dump! We had no choice as by now it was 10PM and we were sailing away the next day. Ever since then we always call to check our bookings frequently and especially on the day before we are due to arrive. Lesson learned.
When I was in Europe, several hotels and Bed & Breakfasts couldn’t find my reservation. Some offered a room, but at a higher price. I always take a folder (the kind with the three prongs to place 3 hold-paper in for each country. I make copies of my hotel reservations and say, “Here you go.” I also have a copy of my Passport & credit card in the folder just in case either of these are lost, as well as my flight reservation. I place information
for each country such as sites, transportation, Emergency #, American Express offices in the folder.
Yes, had an international trip and booked a hotel with hotels.com. Got a confirmation email when I booked two months prior, but checking a week before I left (when availability was not good), found the hotel had canceled my reservation without contacting me because they did not take my Discover card. No where in the fine print did it say they did not take that card. Luckily, calling hotels.com resulted in a fairly good experience as they helped me book a new room in a different hotel at the last minute.