Frankfurt - Marco Urban of Frankfurt found the offer on the internet portal attractive: an overnight stay at a bargain rate in Amsterdam's Aalborg Hotel. So his disappointment was all the greater when he learned on arrival that a room too few had been reserved for him and his friends. Instead of beginning their short holiday with a stroll around town, the group had to look for another place to stay, a place that put their travel budget under more strain than they had anticipated.
It can pay to book hotel rooms on the web. In Germany, online intermediaries like Hotel.de and Ratestogo.de wage veritable price wars with each other as marketplaces for hoteliers' last-minute offers. Many of them give what they call budget-price guarantees for individual offers.
The Cologne-based hotel reservation service Hrs.de, for example, advertises exclusive bargains that managing director Tobias Ragge says are 10 per cent cheaper than those of the company's competitors.
Rates can change quickly and vary greatly, however, so bargain hunters should shop around. Companies like Trivage.de, based in Dusseldorf, give an overview.
"According to our data, rates for a hotel on the internet vary by 32 per cent on average, so a comparison is often worthwhile," said company spokeswoman Ulrike Pithan.
There are other things to look out for when booking on the internet, as Marco Urban now knows all too well. "As far as photos and room descriptions are concerned, you have got to pay attention to the small print - sometimes the photos are only examples," warned Falk Murko of Stiftung Warentest, a Berlin-based independent consumer- protection group.
It is also important to note the category of the room to be booked, Murko said. Web bargains often involve the sparest rooms in a hotel.
"That's why they are so cheap," Murko remarked.
Companies such as Trivago.de are making increased use of hotel assessments by customers. "But they should be taken with a grain of salt since they can easily be biased," Murko said. And a study by Stiftung Warentest last year showed that hotel operators had no difficulty manipulating some internet portals.
"When making a hotel reservation, you should never rely solely on an online booking," warned Sabine Fischer of the Potsdam-based Brandenburg Consumer Centre. To avoid unpleasant surprises, she said, it was always advisable to request the hotel to send an e-mail confirmation or to call the hotel to make sure there are no misunderstandings.
In the event of a booking mix-up, Fischer said, the internet company is required to pay the extra costs for a room in another hotel.
"Then the online platform is liable, just like a travel agency that has made an error," Fischer explained. Customers have to prove the error, though. The only way they can get a reimbursement is by submitting records of the transaction along with the hotel's written confirmation of a faulty booking.
Defective hotel rooms are particularly annoying for tourists who have booked them separately on the internet because online companies do not consider themselves to be responsible.
"If the air conditioning doesn't work, individual tourists have to lodge a complaint directly with the hotel operator. That's often difficult," noted Paul Degott, a Hanover lawyer and vice president of the Wiesbaden-based German Travel Law Association (DGfR).
"Package tourists have it easier," Degott said. "They can turn to their tour guide and later make their claims to the organiser in Germany."
