So you decide to book a room in Bangkok. You typed this in a google search and got results from websites and booking engines. Even there are numerous of them there are just 5 for hotels/hostels/guesthouses which hold all the others:
Booking.com
Agoda.com
Asiawebdirect.com
Hostelword.com/hostelbookers.com
Booking.com
Popular in Europe, but not that much in Asia. Have added commission of minimum 15% normally 20%. Will ask you for your credit card details and provide it to hotel stuff for charges.
+ Popular brand, have easy interface for hosts (probably hotel stuff will not forget about your booking)
– Will not solve any problem about accommodation, it is only advertisement website
– You make your credit cards details very unsecure, hotel stuff will have access to it. There are numerous cases when you get paid cash on arrival and then after 1 week got charged your credit card like no-show cancelled booking.
– Totally useless for last minute bookings because require hotel stuff to update the calendar so normally has 24 hours delay on changes, you will get lucky if you get the room you actually booked
Agoda.com
Popular in Asia. Have added commission of minimum 20% normally more. Will charge your credit card themselves and transfer to the hotel.
+ Popular brand, have easy interface for hosts (probably hotel stuff will not forget about your booking)
+ Customer service try to solve problems about accommodations
+ Keep your credit card details secure
– Huge commission of minimum 20%
– Hotel will not get any contact details from you, hotel stuff will not be able to contact you or provide any directions or updates
– Totally useless for last minute bookings because require hotel stuff to update the calendar so normally has 24 hours delay on changes, you will get lucky if you get the room you actually booked
Asiawebdirect.com
Will charge you 15% booking fee. Will provide you hotel contact details for that. No human customer service, hotel does not get your contact details, not popular service – most likely you can get double booking for the room, because hotel stuff forgot about this website.
Hostelworldcom/hostelbookers.com
Actually both websites belong to the same company. Used to be popular in Asia because of loneleyplanet source. Have added fixed commission of 15%. Will charge your credit card themselves for those commission and give your credit card details to hotel stuff.
The only reason this websites used to be popular is that before 2014 their commission was the lowest from other websites – just 10%, nowadays they charge 15% the same as booking.com
The thing is if you decide to use their service it is better to do booking.com instead, because hostelbookers/hostelworld have ancient and inconvenient booking engine for hosts which makes it difficult for host to take care. All the rest are the same with booking.com
– Will not solve any problem about accommodation, it is only advertisement website
– You make your credit cards details very unsecure, hotel stuff will have access to it. There are numerous cases when you get paid cash on arrival and then after 1 week got charged your credit card like no-show cancelled booking.
– Totally useless for last minute bookings because require hotel stuff to update the calendar so normally has 24 hours delay on changes, you will get lucky if you get the room you actually booked
Resume:
–Booking websites make only advertisement services, all the rest depends on hotel management
–Any booking website charges minimum 15% normally 20% commission
–Any booking website is totally useless if you want to make last minute booking
The way to do things:
–If you book at least 4-7 days in advance contact 10-15 hotels around area that you would like to stay, you can use booking website to find ones and then just contact them directly. The way hotel stuff will reply you will mean the way things are arranged with bookings in this hotel.
–If you have a last minute booking the best thing to do is contact hotel directly and make sure they have the room available for you (most likely they will have no time to update availability on the booking websites) and then just walk in and pay to the hotel directly
–For advanced bookings use PayPal for payments if will keep your credit card details secure
