I've had an interesting e-mail exchange with hotel.de, the hotel booking site that I have been using. As noted in the post below, a hotel south of Hamburg, that we were supposed to be staying in tonight and for the next 4 nights, claimed to have no booking for us when I phoned to cancel.
A very competent woman (with excellent written English-we've had a few e-mails back and forth) at hotel.de got back to me within 24 hours, having spoken to the manager at the hotel concerned, determined that they had indeed received our reservation, but that it had been misfiled by whoever received it. No foul, no harm - we will not be charged, and hotel.de will argue it out with the hotel.
Just out of curiosity, since no one seemed to be much concerned about a reservation in a prime property being lost, or cancelled on short notice, I dug around a bit on the Internet. It seems that by about tomorrow night, Hamburg time, 70,000 international visitors will be arriving for a major trade exhibition at the Hamburger Messe. I checked the availability at the hotel we had booked, nada. Then I checked the availability for the period we would be there at any hotel.de managed hotel within 100km of Hamburg - the first one was 48km out of Hamburg. I checked availability at hotels within 50km of our original booking, and the first one would have been 40km away in a direction that would have been problematical. No wonder no one was concerned about a booking gone missing!
Which leaves me asking; Who would have cared, had we arrived this evening, and there was no room at the inn?
Memo to self: When we re-book this trip next Spring, or any other trip before then with hotels booked on hotel.de, or on any other Internet booking site, a few days after booking, give them a call, to make sure they indeed have the booking!
The system is not perfect!
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