I'm just looking ahead to my trip in July/August - 3 days in Bangkok and 11 in Samui.

I've found some absolutely fantastic hotel rates on both Asia Rooms and Planet Holiday.

As I've never booked with either of these internet agents before, I was wondering if anyone had any experiences or views they could share with me.

I normally like to book with my regular travel agent in Melbourne and prepay the entire trip, but the best rates they can get are so much more expensive (ie average of about A$90 more expensive per night!) that it just seems ridiculous to spend an extra A$1,200 on accommodation for a two week trip if I don't have to!

I'd love to hear any feedback please ... good or bad - hopefully good!

Thanks so much
DB

Have used Asia Rooms several times and had no problems at all

I've never seen any complaints about Planet holiday either. Sawadee is another online booking agent with a good reputation...very efficient and easy to use.

Asia Rooms had a terrible reputation not so long ago, to do with getting your money back if you legitimately cancelled.

Asia Rooms Warning Page

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I have used Planet Holiday many times, always with outstanding results. I believe AGODA.COM and PRECISIONRESERVATIONS.COM are the same company. They usually have the best prices. I have also used SAWADEE with good results but they are usually more expensive and sometimes add on a fee.

I've used Planet Holiday but my recent experiences with them were not good. They take several working days to get back with confirmation and also seem to have problem accessing my c/c (no other service I've ever used has caused me as much anxiety as AGODA/precision reservations!! and I wouldn't recommend them)
I've used sawadee and asia rooms with no problems either, but the best I've used are wired-destinations (wired-destinations dot com who get back to you virtually right away and booking usually confirmed within 24 hours.) and wotif dot com (this is fantastic... you can see availability online and get auto confirmation as soon as you book and pay NO WAITING. Last time I used them, I telephoned and spoke to a very helpful girl in Brisbane who gave me info I needed and offered to make and confirm the booking there and then.

I heard a while ago people having probleems but I used them 4 months ago and had no problems and there rates were brillant. Also used Sawadee. Hope this helps.
Garrett. Dublin

Hmmm, a bit of a mixed reaction. Mark's comments on AsiaRooms particularly disturbed me!

Hopefully we won't have any problems as we know both of the properties we want to stay at and our dates are confirmed and very unlikely to change.

I used Sawadee for the first time last year and they were good to deal with ... the hotel in Samui was shocking - despite the rave reviews from our friends! - and we left after just one night and they were very good about refunding our money, minus the one night's stay, which is fair enough. I normally like to prepay the entire accommodation bill in advance, and of course with Sawadee, you only pay them the 20% deposit at time of booking, and the remainder to the hotel on departure.

The deals on AR and PH just seem better, but I certainly know the old adage that you get what you pay for and some things are too good to be true!

I guess I'm just staggered at the enormous difference in price. For our hotel in Samui, my fabulous travel agent here in Melbourne quoted me A$335 per night including breakfast, while Asia Rooms has the same identical category of room for A$238 per night including breakfast ... it just seems ludicrous to pay an extra A$100 a night - it all adds up over a two week holiday!

I honestly didn't think the discrepancy would be so great, and I thought it would be a few dollars' difference here or there, and on the cost of a whole trip for two people, I'd happily pay a couple of hundred dollars extra for the security of knowing that everything was being handled by my travel agent, but it's hard to say that when the difference is around $1,400!

Does anyone have any experience of going to the hotel direct and saying "I've been quoted $XX per night by XX website, can you match this?" Surely they'd rather get the money from the guest and not have to pay a commission!

Thanks again for everyone's comments - I really appreciate it.

We used Precision last year to book our accommodation and it saved us quite a bit of money compared to all the brochures from travel agents. Agoda and Precision are now one and the same and their quoted prices now are all inclusive (before they did not include some taxes). One of our choices of accommodation was full so they emailed with a list of resorts available for our dates and were really helpful with changing our original arrangements.

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For some reason that I've never quite grasped it doesn't work like that in Thailand. Internet rates are almost invariably cheaper than walk in for mid to high range hotels. Once I tried to book a hotel in BKK for someone in person and the receptionist recommended I book online as it would be a lot cheaper!