Asian Orientated Hotel Booking Site - Pay on arrival

[Chao Lao Beach]

I normally use Agoda, it is havng issues with the Thai debit card, funny, I have used that card B4, anyway, any suggestions for pay for stay when there in person ?

[Rumpole]

Asia Rooms lets you book in advance, but pay the hotel on arrival. They do however require a card (which is not charged) to secure the reservation so it may not solve your problem.

[slightlychilled]

Asia Rooms lets you book in advance, but pay the hotel on arrival. They do however require a card (which is not charged) to secure the reservation so it may not solve your problem.

booking.com often offers the same

[craigt3365]

Asia Rooms lets you book in advance, but pay the hotel on arrival. They do however require a card (which is not charged) to secure the reservation so it may not solve your problem.

booking.com often offers the same

But I think the price is higher, right? I booked a hotel this past week. Tried 2-3 different sites, then went to the hotel's site. They had a special that beat all the other offers. Doesn't always happen, but it's worth checking. Also, they tend to put you in "better" rooms. We got an upgrade for 200B/night that would normally be 800B if done via a website. We did this during the checkin process. I just asked!

[StefanBBK]

I used to book a lot with Agoda. Then one day the specific hotel we wanted was not available, so we switched to booking.com. mostly no Credit card required and pay as you arrive.

Made a point to call the hotel a couple hours after booking, just to make sure all went through,and tell them we would arrive late. All worked perfect.

[tolsti]

as above Booking.com is good and very fast. I have used them several times recently without a single issue. They also offer a short no fee cancellation policy.

[Muzarella]

I most use Asia Rooms. Very good service and right price.

If the price is lower in other sites, it is because it is lower class room, or no breakfast, etc....

[jimmybkk]

I can highly recommend hotelscombined.com. It scans a whole bunch of hotel booking websites including Agoda and Booking.com and shows you the best prices being offered on those sites - the prices they show are for the net total in Thai Baht (or any currency you choose) for the total number of nights you will be staying including all taxes etc., which I like. Once you click on the room you want to book you are then taken to the website offering that rate to complete your booking. It's pretty good I reckon.

I also agree with what Craig said about checking directly with the hotel websites for deals. Some of them guarantee that there price will be lower than you can find with any booking agent, although hotelscombined also checks the rates offered by the hotels and their price will also be displayed if it is competitive with the prices offered by the booking websites.

One thing I just discovered about trying to book direct with the hotels is that you tend to get less choice because they reserve a whole bunch of rooms for the agents they use. For example, I needed to make a booking for some visitors and they had requested one particular hotel chain. Calling round to the various hotels in the group we kept getting told they were either fully booked or the room type we requested was not available. Went online and had no problem booking what we were looking for.

NB - I just did a search on hotelscombined and found that a lot of their smaller affiliates (other sites that send traffic to them) are complaining about their tactics and not getting paid. Seems like the owners may not be very nice people. It's still a great site for making a booking but just thought I'd mention this in case anyone has a policy of vetoing sites who are found to do this.

[Chao Lao Beach]

Thanks for the tips.

[Jiu-Jitsu]

I use AtSiam Straightforward with no hidden charges, unlike some.

[Xircal]

I avoid hotel booking sites like Agoda and Booking.com like the plague! They all use the same grossly inflated prices model which they then 'discount' to give the appearance of offering cheap rates when in fact their rates are usually higher than those charged by the hotel itself.

Also they always present nighttime floodlit images of the hotel to give its facade an elegant appearance. To counter that, I'd recommend you always check the hotel's location on Google Street View so that you know what it looks like in daylight which can be downright ugly.

Edited February 23, 2015 by Xircal

[colin65]

Try ORBITZ as a booking engine I found it about 30 dollars night cheaper than Agoda

[AlexRRR]

Asia Rooms lets you book in advance, but pay the hotel on arrival. They do however require a card (which is not charged) to secure the reservation so it may not solve your problem.

booking.com often offers the same

Not exactly, i got caught, noticed the Koh Samui hotel charged my credit card when my booking was confirmed 3 months before my arrival, looking further into it found that some hotels will take payments on bookings so in future i will look a little closer when i book through Booking.com.