I have given up making holiday plans through agencies for some time now. They have standard offers only, and at least in Romania, they seem to be highly inflexible. So now I employ a different procedure: I make my plans, choose the destination, then decide how to get there (car, plane, bus) and finally make my hotel reservation online.

Besides offering the opportunity to book hotels while benefiting from important discounts, HotelReservations.com offers complete services, helping you book a flight to get to your hotel, to rent a car while staying there or to choose entire vacation packages. The site is available in English, German, French, Italian and Spanish and is further localized on a per-country base, allowing quick searches for country such as Germany, Canada, Austria and many more. You can also opt for single bookings or group bookings, a special phone number being available for the latter.

I really loved their multiple browsing opportunities when looking for a hotel, motel or a resort. You can search by city, by country or choose to type the exact location and select exact dates for your stay. There are many possibilities to explore and the maps offered are pretty comprehensive. Which is really important, as finding and address in a city you've just gotten into can sometimes be a real challenge.

Paying opportunities are not limited, you can choose any type of card you like: Visa, MasterCard or American Express. What I also think is very important is the fact that phone numbers are available 24/7. Issues occur at any time, therefore such a service should weigh a lot when making booking decisions.

There are also a few things HotelReservations.com could improve. One is more of a personal taste suggestion: the color palette. Gray shades on white do not really agree with me and create a poor contrast, not really catching your eye. The other suggestion is for a more technical aspect. While providing Italian, German and French versions of their site, which I think is great for attracting customers who have little knowledge of English, only Spanish and English are available in the language selection menu. Also, the selection flag images can fail in generating results.

While analyzing the many pros of HotelReservations.com, I am pretty sure that they have good odds of becoming the online booking site for hotels around the world. A great pricing policy, doubled by efficient customer support can easily turn HotelReservations.com into a reference point for online touristic services.

My next unbooked holiday is for New Year's. I am sure to check their site before making any plans.

Entry sponsored by HotelReservations.com