In 2007, while I was traveling to Canada from India, en-route, I had to stay in Bangkok for few days. To select a good hotel, I just searched the net and clicked on the link on one of the results that was appearing one the first page of results; and booked room at though this link http://www.sawadee.com/hotel/TH_bangkok_comfortsuites_book.html .

The booking process was smooth and as per the offer, pick up request facility was available. For this facility I had to confirm the flight details before arriving, which I did. Unfortunately customs clearance, took about one hour extra than normal, and there was no vehicle for me to lick up. I was told that pick up vehicles don’t wait for that long.

So the very start of the stay began with a sour note. The room was spacious, but the bath room was stinking and required repairs. Taps were leaking and blankets bad and smelly. When I asked for refund, reception staff simply refused. Definitely not worth the money it charges. There was nothing much I could do, except to, and keep in mind that I would share this experience online for other travelers benefit.

Next stop was Ontario in Canada. This time I wanted to be careful while selecting the hotel. As I searched the net for good hotels in Vancouver, I clicked on various results to find the one that would be good.

One link that I tried for booking was http://vancouver-hotels.travelape.com/pacific-palisades-hotel-vancouver.html. It described the hotels in good details but had two major limitations. First, for booking, one had to call toll free number, and I could see no option to book the hotel online and secondly, I could not see link for customer reviews.

Then I tried another site www.Hotels Combined.com for online booking of the hotel, which I truly found very helpful. Browsing the site was simple and i selected this link http://www.hotelscombined.com/City/Vancouver.htm for selecting a hotel in Vancouver. This site I particularly found quite informative. You could select a hotel based on your requirements.  At a glance you could browse the results and see the thumbnail pictures of hotels, price range, star rating, and read customer reviews, which had become very important for me after Bangkok experience. This site helped me know various aspects of the hotel before I finalized one for stay.

After this experience, I would like to share few parameters to select a hotel online. I would suggest booking of the hotel through the site that offers real time booking, indicates rates in desired currency, indicates location of the hotel, facilities available, etc in full detail.

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