Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Booking Engine
Ok, so, you’ve been scrimping and saving and cutting costs left and right for a year or two and now you have money in hand, ready to take your dream vacation. And now, if you’re not careful, the stress begins. Where do you start? Do you book directly? Do you get a travel agent? Do you use an online booking engine? What do you do?
If you use a travel agent, they’ll do all the work for you and offer you little tips along the way, (if they’re any good), but most often you won’t actually be saving any money. In fact, sometimes you’ll pay more because the agency charges you for booking for you.
Well then, do you book directly? You can give it a try but unless you are an experienced traveler, this is not advisable. A lot of people think that they’ll save money by booking directly. I am here to tell you, with years of experience in the industry, that is not necessarily the case...especially in cruising.
So, how about those online booking engines? You’ve seen various ads on t.v. but maybe it sounds a little scary. Maybe it seems hard. You know what? It’s one of the easiest ways to book your vacation and chances are that you’ll get a very good rate.
For example, Hotel Reservations.com is a website dedicated to getting you there by car, plane or ship and giving you staterooms, hotel rooms or condo rentals, depending on your wishes. It is very easy to navigate through and when they say their prices are cheap, they are telling the truth. How do I know? Because, as you well know, I’ve worked for two different cruise lines in the past and I know those cruise lines’ prices. The first thing I did when I got on to this site was to click on the cruises, click on the cruise lines I worked for, picked an itinerary and scanned their prices. Those prices are legit. That makes me feel pretty good about the rest of the website.
So. Let’s say you and three of your closest friends want to book a hotel room in Kuala Lumpur in March. You go to the website, click on the drop down menu and select the area of the world you are interested in. Then select your country, (Malaysia, kids....I know you knew that, anyone who reads here is obviously brilliant). Choose your city, Kuala Lumpur, then click “Search”.
The next page that loads will ask you for the dates of your stay and how many people will be in the room. Pick your dates in March, select 4 people and click “Search Available Hotels”. The following page that loads has a plethora of hotels. A plethora, I tell you. You may index your search by location, price, amenities, etc. The page will also let you know if you found a great deal. At the top of your search section you may see a box that reads, “You have found a Special Internet Rate”. They go on to explain that they are able to negotiate great pricing just for you because of all the bookings they do with the companies they have available. In fact, they guarantee you that these are going to be the lowest rates you can find. A guarantee? That’s pretty solid.
Ok, so now you’re really excited to book this vacation. Next, you may scroll through the hotels and read the description and location of each hotel and what they have to offer. If you see more than one hotel you may like, you can click a little box in the description field of each hotel titled, “add to compare” and when you have exhausted your search for fabulous hotels in Kuala Lumpur, you now have all your favorites lined up to review again.
Now you’re ready to book. You can book directly on line, right then and there, if you wish. Granted, a lot of people are still hesitant to give their credit card information over the internet but Hotel Reservations.com takes your privacy seriously and has safeguards in place to protect you. Still, if you can’t shake the leeriness of giving that information over the internet, they provide you with phone numbers to call no matter where you are in the world.
So, now you have your hotel all booked. How are you going to get around? You can take public transportation if you would like but that can turn in to a whole new mess when you’re over there. What if you get on the wrong train? Maybe you want to feel like you’re really part of the country and want to drive yourself around. Click on the “cars” tab and begin your reservation process.
The site not only books all kinds of reservations for you, it offers valuable information as well as answers many traveler’s questions. The site provides 24 hour customer care so if you are anything like me, your questions come to you at 3 in the morning and you will be unable to go back to sleep unless you have the answer right away. Additionally, they also have a group department dedicated to those who are planning special events with a large number of people. As with any group reservation, you need to make your request in advance, providing all the information you can. You will then be assisted through your booking process and once again receive fantastic rates.
Now one of the coolest things I’ve found on this site is their “city guide”. So, there we are, booking our hotel and car for Kuala Lumpur and we click on “city guide” in the upper right hand corner. HotelReservations.com has taken the time to offer interesting information about the city you are going to be visiting including when it was founded, brief history as well as tidbits about the city and great places to visit while you’re there. They discuss places to eat, the nightlife, markets and shopping and even give you ideas on where to go from there if you have the time and money.
We are bombarded with commercials for online booking engines but most of them either book only hotels or cars or flights or they aren’t all that easy to use nevermind informative. HotelReservations.com really has it together and basically holds your hand through the entire process so that you can plan for your dream vacation with ease and no stress.
Now, one thing to point out: The prices, at least for the cruises, are per person. When you are looking on the cruise pages, for example, it doesn’t say that. They do discuss this issue in their Frequently Asked Questions section but, again, having worked in the cruise industry for so many years I know the drama that evolves when people don’t read everything or understand everything. So, make sure that when you are booking that you know if the price is per person, total or per day, etc. In the end, when you go to make your reservation, you will know the cost per person and what that cost includes, (usually does not include the taxes) but I would say that is the only thing I would improve on that site. Otherwise, that site is magnificent and the next time I decide to take a vacation to some place, it will be the first place I shop.
