People often ask me if booking a hotel online is safe. And if so, whether I can provide links to hotel booking sites that are trustworthy and/or offer hotel rooms at the lowest prices available. Since I’m merely running a blog about Istanbul (and not a travel agency), this has always been a tough question to answer, up until recently!

Is Booking A Hotel Room Online Safe?

Recently my good friend Darren from Travel-Rants wrote a post on lack of credit card security when booking hotels online. In short, booking online via an established third-party hotel booking website is secure, if you follow the following internet safety basics:

1. stick to the bigger, well-known hotel booking websites
2. before entering personal and/or credit card information, make sure the webpage is on a secure (https://…) server
3. check if the bottom of your browser shows a padlock

Luckily, the majority of the established hotel booking websites has implemented these security measures. The only thing you can never be sure of is human carelessness after all your details have been wired to the hotel of your choice. Hotel staff writing down your credit card numbers on a piece of paper or in a spreadsheet may always occur, regardless weather you booked online or in person after arrival. Unless you carry/pay cash, but then of course other security concerns surface.

Best Price Guaranteed

So yes, in my experience booking online via well-known hotel websites is not only safe, it can also result in a fair hotel price discount. The question remains of course, what third-party hotel booking website to use.

Already back in August last year, to serve my readers better, I conducted a little research on this topic. I reviewed a handful of the most-known hotel booking websites, and decided to promote Booking.com for the following reasons:

• they have a very user-friendly and clear website
• hotels I had already previously recommended to friends are in their 220 Istanbul hotel list
• they provide detailed and accurate information about every hotel
• they offer extensive customer reviews with pros and cons about every hotel
• booking a hotel is easy and hassle-free
• you can view the website in the language and currency of your choice

Moreover, since 2009 Booking.com also added a Best Price Guarantee. You can find the full details here, but in short they promise the following:

“Booking.com wants you to pay the lowest price possible for your hotel. Should you find your hotel room, with the same booking conditions, at a lower rate on the internet after you have booked, we’ll match it. Just contact us within 24 hours of booking, with details of the website.”

This new Booking.com Best Price Guarantee policy just confirmed that I already back in August 2008 chose the right hotel booking website to advice to my readers!

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