The Megalomania of Hotel Booking Sites

I will not be using Booking.com or Hotels.com or any of these hotel booking websites any more. They have fallen victim to rapacious megalomania and enough is enough.

Over the long weekend of the first of November, my DB and I decided to go on a motorbiking road trip around Auvergne. The weather was set to be fabulous, a change from the last time we were there when low clouds obscured views of everything, and especially the volcanoes we had hoped to see.

We went onto Trip Advisor to look at hotels in Clermont-Ferrand where we wanted to have a base. It was a busy weekend and lots of hotels were full. However, we found two that had rooms available, and looked at the prices. We decided to book one and take pot luck with the other. 

After looking at the plethora of prices through Trip Advisor's partners, we went onto the Hotel Oceania's own website and found a good deal that included breakfast. 

For the first night, Friday, we went to the Best Western Hotel Gergovie near the Parc des Exposition. There we had a chat with the receptionist. We had seen on Booking.com the price of €63 for the room. When we asked the price of the room, we were quoted €75. I said that I had seen the lower price on the internet and asked if we could have the same rate. The receptionist told us that, no, that was impossible because Booking had access to their reservations software, and they were not allowed to offer the same price! Not only do they monitor reservations, but they also observe who is looking at a hotel on their website and then goes onto the hotel's website (definite shades of Big Brother). 

If that wasn't shocking enough, she went on to say that booking websites take 20% of the amount paid. Twenty percent! That leaves a measly 3% margin for the hotel. How can they survive with such a small cushion of security? 

She said that while she couldn't offer us a lower price, she could throw in breakfast. I was pleased to hear the way the negotiations were going because I love hotel breakfast buffets. My DB agreed and we checked in.

It was very nice and they did a very tasty truffade in the restaurant at dinner.

When we arrived at the Oceania the next morning, we were given two tokens for a free drink each as we had booked through their website. A nice touch and much appreciated.

The good thing about all this is that competition makes businesses work harder. Breakfast is included in a price, and/or the client is offered a free drink. 

I wondered if it was just Booking/Hotels that behaved so greedily, and found that it was not. A quick search on Google (more megalomania) brought up a blog by someone who had investigated Expedia.com. His experience was that the website took 25% of the fee! You can read about it, and see the photo he took of the reservation received by the hotel (and not for the client's eyes) here. In the comments section, a hotelier writes about his experience with Expedia and the pros and expensive cons of having a contract with them.

While it is useful to see what people have thought of a hotel, and it's definitely convenient to be able to book a room in the same place, we will not be making reservations that way any more and encourage these sites to take even more control of booking systems with their mucky fingers. I can just imagine them ultimately wanting to make it obligatory to go through their central system, and then, of course, put the prices up, and the hotels would not be able to do anything about it.

Keep hotels free from plunder! Use their own websites to make your bookings. Before it's too late...

Cwrt Bleddy Nightmare

Cwrt Bleddyn, Llangybi nr Usk

Doesn't this place look lovely? It's the Cwrt Bleddyn Spa Hotel not far from Monmouth set in the most beautiful grounds. All manicured and prettily landscaped, with pond, little stone bridge, stone cottages, and impressive manor house.

Unfortunately, the four rooms we saw were far from living up to the expectations inspired by the grounds. To the point that, upon stepping into one room, I was immediately transported back to my granny's house which smelt of damp and dust, an instantly recognisable odour that I would never expect to find in a £117 per night hotel.

Some of the hotel rooms have been refurbished, none of the ones we saw had however. Despite the price, they were basically crappy. Peeling paint on the window frames, ratty, dirty carpet, old scuffed furniture, well-used bed, slightly grubby chipped bathroom, and no hot water upon arrival. We were not impressed with any of the rooms we saw but felt obliged to stay anyway because of the unlikelihood of finding anywhere else with space available.

Thankfully, our nerves were soothed by steaming gently in the ham-man of the spa, a G&T, and then by the excellent quality of the restaurant. The food was absolutely delicious. I had a whole bream, preceded by salted duck on kumquat chutney. My TWDB had veggie dishes which were imaginative and tasty.

I didn't see inside the refurbished rooms, but I hope they get the un-refurbished ones modified rapidly because they are quite shameful compared to the quality of the grounds and the restaurant. One final insult, I couldn't even print off an airline reference because the printer in the 'business centre' had run out of ink, and there was no new cartridge. We left confused and thankful to be gone, back into a saner world where coherency featured highly.

TGO - the Corbières

Hotel Château des Ducs de Joyeuse, Couiza

Keen to make use of the last boy-free weekend, my TWDB and I jumped back on the bike and headed down to Cathar country to explore it further.

When we'd been there the previous week, the temperature had been around 14°C and a bit chilly for me. This time it was over 20°C and yesterday even got up to a sweltering 30°C outside Beziers.

The idea was to take as many green roads as possible, not difficult as it's a stunning region, the Corbières. You get these lush mountain meadows undulating over the lower slopes, then rising starkly behind, grey rocky crags with scrub clinging to every nook and cranny. The contrast is pretty amazing and very picturesque.

There are several gorges down there too, the road cut out of overhanging rock, wending its way along the same path as the river below, but higher. Speeding crazily is not advised...

One of the most dramatic roads we took was the road from Barbaira down in the flats of the dried lagoon of Marseillette which climbed steeply and single trackly up to 507m along the north face of the Alaric Mountain. As we climbed we got a more and more impressive panoramic view of the flatlands north-east of Carcassonne. On this side, there was green vegetation protected by shade and damp. On the south side it suddenly changed to dry and scorched garrigue scrub.

From there we drove to Lagrasse, stopping for a coffee and then in and around the routes of the Corbières mountains, in the sun, looking down on the basking little villages with their higgledy piggledy roofs and old stone walls.

We stayed the night at the hotel Château des Ducs de Joyeuse at Couiza, near Rennes-le-Château. It's a 16th century castle in a style midway between medieval and renaissance, with 1-metre thick stone walls and spiral staircases at each tower. It's set next to the river Aude which originally protected its west side and offers a charming music to wake up to if you keep the window open at night. Dinner was fabulous there too, with Pompadour wine to bring out the best in all the flavours. We just had to start with an apero of Blanquette de Limoux, the town being 16km up the road.

Yesterday we rode up to the castle of Puylaurens but didn't go in because climbing up the path carrying bike helmets is no fun. We did get some spectacular photos though of it set against a very blue cloudless sky.

We had a quick lunch in Cucugnan and then a snooze along the banks of the Torgan river - another one with a gorge to its name. Driving on, up and over various passes, the views totally breathtaking, we got back to Lagrasse and then took the road to Lezignan Corbières. That's where it started hotting up, and by the time we had reached Béziers we were melting! Amazingly, from there to Sète, the temperature took a nose dive back down to 17°C and it even rained along the beach of Les Aresquiers! The air was fragrant with the wetness of it all - flora, tarmac, earth.

Once home, we rounded off a perfect weekend with three bottles of rosé from Listel, including our favourite, the Flamingo bought at the cave on another of our jaunts. We'll definitely go back!

The boys are also back having spent the last couple of days guess where... around Carcassonne!! It's a small world!

Brava Begur

Please don't tell anyone 'unsuitable', but there is rather a exquisite hotel on the Costa Brava - the Sa Calma Hotel in Begur. This is strictly confidential and the only people privy to this information should be ones you can vouch for personally, because we don't want it ruined by those you wouldn't rub shoulders with on a good day and come away unscathed emotionally/physically/psychologically.

Just click on the link and you'll see what I mean.

We hadn't intended going there, my TWDB and I. When he suggested going to Spain for a few days, I looked up 4-star Begur hotels on the internet and found El Convent just outside town. It seemed like a haven of peace and tranquillity, set in an old convent and beautifully converted with taste and restraint.

However, after the last time I made a reservation via the internet when we went to Banyuls and the hotel turned out to be a crappy medical spa, this time I just noted the address. Good thing too, because when we got there, all they had was a tiny cupboard-type room with a view of a wall 1 metre away just below the road, and all for 200€. Not quite what we were hoping for... It was all a bit austere too, I felt they hadn't got the décor balanced between restraint and luxury. It just missed.

Disappointed, we took the car and tried a couple of other hotels. At one, the 4* Sa Punta just down the road, we were greeted rudely by a receptionist who told us we couldn't see a room because she was busy, and to come back later. Shocked, we went to look at the pool. It was surrounded by the restaurant which was heaving with people and this just confirmed our desire not to stay there under any circumstances. Who wants to try and relax in a goldfish bowl?

So we went back to Begur to see if there were any alternatives we hadn't tried at the tourist office. There was one - the Sa Calma Hotel. We were a bit dubious because it didn't have a pool and as it had only been open a short time the tourist office couldn't tell us much about it. However, it was only a short walk away so we decided to give it a go.

Our first impression was very favourable. Set in the middle of the medieval quarter, it stood out as a building of note with its walls of haphazardly plonked bits of stone and occasional brickwork. Set into the exterior were little fresques showing different local activities and crafts. It was pretty hot outside so we rang the bell and stepped into a haven of cool peace. The polished terracotta tiles and pale creamy walls gave an elegant feel, while the 'lobby' looks more like the drawing room in a stylish townhouse with its library set along one wall, facing sofas, large chess and backgammon boards in a corner, huge bowls of flowers and various sculptures. There were funny things to see everywhere you looked including a miniature tailor's dummy dressed in purple and a glass-bead necklace.

We were warmly welcomed without English or much French, taken to see a room and, finding it totally acceptable, left to take possession. We cooled off in the jacuzzi on the roof terrace, sipping beer and admiring the castle on the hill. Breakfast next day was a copious Spanish affair of coppa, saucisson, cheeses, bread, baguette rubbed with tomato and olive oil, toast, jam, croissants, and freshly squeezed orange juice. We decided to stay another day, and moved to a room with it's own terrace which faced the castle and was easily large enough for two sunbeds, a table and two chairs. As it got the shade after lunch, I sat and read and dozed during siesta time.

We left having spent two marvellous days, in peace and quiet and beautiful surroundings, totally refreshed.