Here at HotelChatter we get all sorts of questions about booking hotel rooms such as where to book (boutique hotel or a place with a loyalty program?), how to book (phone or website?), how to get a cheap rate, how to get free upgrades and the always lovely "Can you hook me up with a free room?" (We can't.)
But we do realize that you have a lot of good questions about booking hotel rooms. So once a week we're running Everything You Wanted to Know About Booking Hotel Rooms where we will give you the latest news, advice, tips, and answers on booking a room. And just maybe we'll be able to hook you up with a free room after all.
This week we're chatting with Barry Boone who is the founder of CurrentCodes.com, a one-stop shop for all of those special promotion codes for bargains, sales, discounts and more. CurrentCodes is expansive, listing promo codes for nearly 60 different retail categories totaling about 1,800 stores from clothing to cellphones to jewelry and travel.
Of course, we're focusing on the travel category here and more specifically, hotels. CurrentCodes list codes for some of the major hotel chains and their spin-off brands as well as for booking sites like Orbitz and Travelocity. If there aren't any codes available or listed, CurrentCodes will list any other promotion or special rates that it knows of at the hotels like a AAA discount or any package deals.
If you like to visit Vegas a lot, you're in luck as CurrentCodes has a ton of codes for hotels on the strip. Here Barry explains more about using the codes.
It has a fabulous location: a quiet, quiet street but only a ten-second walk to the main St Germain axis of shopping, strolling and dining streets. And of course, close enough to the Eiffel Tower to walk there.
It has the potential to be a great hotel - 39 rooms of varying sizes, some with terrace balconies based around a small central courtyard. And perhaps at one time it was. But its faded, battered exterior and grotesque 60s décor (original, with the original wear and grime as well) mean it's a grandma's choice if anyone's.
We were rather cheeky about the Hôtel Bellechasse in our review of design hotels in Paris. But we take it back, as if you're looking for a special hotel on a buzzing street, seconds from the Orsay Museum, a pop across the river to the Louvre, and only a short, nice walk along the Seine to the Eiffel Tower, this is the place you'll find love.
The Bellechasse is a Christian Lacroix baby, a thing which you see immediately on entering the small foyer - unmistakeable bold, bizarre mixtures of colours (including a yellow ceiling) and deep, plush fabrics. The staff are super-helpful, if rather brusque in a very French way.
Quietly sleek, it's the kind of place unassuming honeymooners spend their first night of bliss.
Just off rue St-Germain on a tiny, one-way street, you'll bump into its restaurant first, which spills out onto the pavement terrace. The clientele are usually well-dressed thirty- and fourty-somethings, with sunglasses and Versacci jeans and tiny mobile phones.
They're both on streets running off from the Champ de Mars, on which the Eiffel Tower proudly stands among a sea of screaming children and knick-knack sellers.
And they're both, well, not the crème de la hotel scene in Paris, but a decent choice at what's usually a fairly decent rate (depending on special offers).
Sigmund Freud was right. The number of requests we get for hotels near the Eiffel Tower, that King of phallic symbols, you'd think there was nothing else to see in Paris.
Okay, so it's a dramatic site. In A View to a Kill, the bizarrely-named Bond baddie May Day parachutes off the top of the Eiffel Tower after a mad chase by Bond - in fact, if you look closely, you see she actually parachutes off a platform specially made for the film.
And it's been the site of a real-life struggle as well. When Hitler rolled into the city and tried to hoist the swastika on the top of the Eiffel Tower, the sneaky French cut the lift cables so he'd have to climb the stairs to the top. In fact, his first swastika blew away in the wind, causing great hilarity, and the red-faced Nazi soldiers had to hike up their to hoist a smaller one instead.
But drama aside, let's get a couple of things straight:
Here at HotelChatter we get all sorts of questions about booking hotel rooms such as where to book (boutique hotel or a place with a loyalty program?), how to book (phone or website?), how to get a cheap rate, how to get free upgrades and the always lovely "Can you hook me up with a free room?" (We can't.)
But we do realize that you have a lot of good questions about booking hotel rooms. So once a week we're running Everything You Wanted to Know About Booking Hotel Rooms where we will give you the latest news, advice, tips, and answers on booking a room. And just maybe we'll be able to hook you up with a free room after all.
This week we spent some time chatting with Clem Bason, the VP of Merchandising for Hotwire.
For those of you unfamiliar with Hotwire's hotel roulette, here's how it works: You select a hotel in a city that's has whatever location, star rating, and amenities that you desire. The price is listed but the hotel name is not.
Then once you select your hotel and hand over your credit card info, Hotwire tells you what hotel you will be staying in. You can't change the selection and the room is non-refundable. So it's truly for those on a budget or those who just want a bargain buy high which btw, is addicting and habit-forming.
Now Clem fills us in on some more advice about booking a hotel room on Hotwire.
You know the dilemma. You're just about to book a hotel which you think looks and sounds wonderful. And then you read the scathing bloggers' reviews, telling horror stories of non-flushing toilets and hairs in the breakfast eggs, of strange lumps in the bed and bumps in the night.
We have that dilemma about Les Jardins du Marais in Paris. Please help if you can - here it is:
The website looks promising, despite the tacky music. The location is excellent for young trendies - it's on a quiet street right slap bang between the trendy Marais area (designer boutiques, trendy restaurants, cosy wine bars and gays) and the up-and-coming Oberkampf area (Arabs and Brazilians, cheap happy-hour, loud live music, fun & japes).
0 Comments - Add Yours
by juliana
