the fees they have to pay this booking plattforms are are quite high.
Perhaps. But the weird thing is, that in many (usually bigger) hotels, you don’t get the same deal as online. I’ve been told on several occasions ‘please book online, I cannot give you the same deal’. Upshot – I don’t bother phoning anymore but simply go via booking.com (and sometimes HRS or others).
Im with luckymaaa I go on Trip Advisor check out the posts from worst to best. Eliminate the crazies and the unreasonable. Look at room hints then call for prices, comparing them to online prices. Have had very good results with this technique but it is time consuming.
France: has anyone used Cybevasion or Abritel?
The last place I stayed at in France (near Annecy) was a really nice old guy who said that while he does use AirB&B they take too much money, and he prefers two French sites which involve him in paying just a reasonable annual subscription:
He said both are intended for French people but I see that the first one has an English option on it. Obviously one could google-translate the second one but would any of the apartment owners go along with it?
He did confirm what I found on several trips: AirB&B and especially Booking.com are not that popular in France. When I was in Bastia in September 2015 I found surprisingly little in the town.
Booking.com takes a 15% cut, according to one hotel I asked. No wonder hotels put only a few rooms on it at a time (so you continually see “2 roms left” etc) because to them it’s a waste of money unless they are otherwise assured to be below capacity throughout.
Peter wrote:
Booking.com takes a 15% cut, according to one hotel I asked.
Or even 18 or 20 % if you want to rank high in the standard search result ordering of “recommended by booking.com”. Recommended in this context just means the hotel pays a higher commission.
To answer the question, no I haven’t used these two sites. In France I use Accor quite a lot, and in smaller places I sometimes use Google to find BnBs or also booking.com.
Peter wrote:
The last place I stayed at in France (near Annecy) was a really nice old guy who said that while he does use AirB&B they take too much money, and he prefers two French sites which involve him in paying just a reasonable annual subscription:
Cybevasion
Abritel
He said both are intended for French people but I see that the first one has an English option on it. Obviously one could google-translate the second one but would any of the apartment owners go along with it?
He is not absolutley right. Regarding to Abritel he is wrong. Abritel is part of homeaway.com and not only french customers dedicated. You will find the same location offers on every site which belongs to homeaway. I.e. Fewo-Direkt.de is the german version.
He was right according the fees. If you offer a location on one of these sites it will cost you only an anual fee. I don’t know exactly, but I think for the first house or flat annonced it is about 350,—€ the year. And it’s okay. For our house at brittany we we get sufficient request over the year to be happy with the resulting bookings.
Insane hotel prices…
This is not really related to a flying trip (at least not with an aircraft flown by myself…) but I really need a place for a good rant and there isn’t anywhere else 
Recently we flew a DJ and his entourage to the “Electrobeach” festival near Perpignan. As this was some kind of last-minute flight, our company was not able to book a hotel room for us. Arriving in Perpignan we found out that this festival was attended by over 50.000 visitors and every hotel room within 100km had been booked long ago. With some help from helpful people we were finally able to get what must have been the last free room in Perpignan, a very average double room (the first time I was forced to share a hotel room with a colleague in all my career, flying and non-flying) which we desperately needed because of our rest-time requirements. Hiring a car and driving somewhere else (which is what we usually do in similar circumstances, e.g. the 24 hours of Le Mans) would not have worked, our passengers had to catch a flight from Heathrow the next morning for which we flew to Farnborough and had to land there (and get out again) before the airshow started. So what did we pay for our room (which would normally have cost 80 Euros maybe): 430 Euros. A rip-off certainly, but paid for by the company (or our customers).
But this is nothing, absolutely nothing compared to what I just received: In a bit more than a year there will be “The Great American Eclipse” ( http://www.greatamericaneclipse.com/ ) maybe the last total solar eclipse in my lifetime within (fairly) easy reach. With a group of about 15 people from my astronomical society we plan to attend. After some research we decided that we want to see the eclipse somewhere in Wyoming (best chances for good weather, not too far from an airport with direct connection to Germany (Denver) and three dimensional landscape instead of flat corn fields from horizon to horizon. Flights and hotels can be booked at earliest one year in advance and so we are now about to finalise things. Normally I would not book a holiday that early, but this is really important… We contracted a travel agent (he incidentally happens to be the former CEO of Deutsche BA, the defunct german subsidiary of British Airways) who specialises on the United States, for booking us the flights, rental cars and accommodation (after the eclipse we will do a 15 day tour of various national parks in the “Wild West”). Initially we got a very reasonable quote for the whole package.
Now, I just got an E-Mail from him: “Sorry, it is still too early for booking, but I have the latest quotes for rooms at Casper, WY for you: 650$ per person (!) in a double room, 2 star hotel. Do you want me to proceed or shall we discuss your route again…”. This is insane. This is not the Cote d’Azur during a music festival. That is a godforsaken backcountry dead-end place in the middle of nowhere of which nobody has ever heard before! This would mean almost 2000$ for one night for the three of us (my wife and son and myself), breakfast not included. I rather sleep in the car. Who pays that kind of money? This is not the Ritz, it’s a small town Holiday Inn (or whatever) that only ever sees cattle traders who will certainly not pay more than 60$ for one night. Why can’t hotels just publish one price and stick with it, the whole year round?
Try the Premier Inn or Travelodge in Chichester when Goodwood Festival of Speed is on. A £45 room becomes £400.
what_next wrote:
Why can’t hotels just publish one price and stick with it, the whole year round?
Because the truth is they would be insane to do so…….what would you do if you were the hotelier? Don’t you thinking charging $60 when folks will pay $600 is more insane? 
Get a mobile home!
Misc. wrote:
Because the truth is they would be insane to do so
I don’t know. I remember times (here in Europe at least) when hotel rooms had fixed prices. No need to negotiate, no need to book them through some internet portals, no difference if you booked one day or one year in advance. And the hoteliers got rich and famous just the way they do now…
