oh, and as for hotel availability, there seems to be a number of things seemingly affecting availability:
1. places are busy for the Easter & May holidays this year, and prices have gone up especially for breakfast add-ons in France.
2. Some hotels seem to be limiting availability on the big booking sites, presumably due to the rising fees. I have been using Google maps to check availability which often has a price from the hotel's own website or preferred booking agent but nothing from the usual suspects (who seem to be owned by one of two companies, Expedia or Booking).
3. free cancellation very close to the travel date seems to be disappearing which affects group bookings as you do not have the flexibility to cancel a room if someone can't travel.
4. many more places are asking for prepayment, sometimes at the time of booking or a few days before arrival, maybe once the cancellation period has ended. In the past I have booked multiple rooms on my account but for future trips, I might need to ask others to book themselves and take responsibility for cost to change dates etc.
In the current economic climate, this is all very understandable as hotels in the past have been encouraged by the booking sites to take a lot of risk with no advance payment and free cancellation terms.
As ever, if you want to stay in a particular hotel or location, you might need to go old school and contact the hotel. Most will respond to an email and a translation service makes this easy.
cross posted to Touring Tips
1. places are busy for the Easter & May holidays this year, and prices have gone up especially for breakfast add-ons in France.
2. Some hotels seem to be limiting availability on the big booking sites, presumably due to the rising fees. I have been using Google maps to check availability which often has a price from the hotel's own website or preferred booking agent but nothing from the usual suspects (who seem to be owned by one of two companies, Expedia or Booking).
3. free cancellation very close to the travel date seems to be disappearing which affects group bookings as you do not have the flexibility to cancel a room if someone can't travel.
4. many more places are asking for prepayment, sometimes at the time of booking or a few days before arrival, maybe once the cancellation period has ended. In the past I have booked multiple rooms on my account but for future trips, I might need to ask others to book themselves and take responsibility for cost to change dates etc.
In the current economic climate, this is all very understandable as hotels in the past have been encouraged by the booking sites to take a lot of risk with no advance payment and free cancellation terms.
As ever, if you want to stay in a particular hotel or location, you might need to go old school and contact the hotel. Most will respond to an email and a translation service makes this easy.
cross posted to Touring Tips
