Comparison Shopping Pays Off for Bookings in Europe

The world may be shrinking, but Europe is still separated from us by time zones, currencies and languages, and that’s enough to daunt many travelers. Even consumers who merrily book their own flights and lodgings on jaunts around this continent tend to think twice before tackling a European trip. Many of them go to travel agents, and many travel agents then go to a wholesaler--that is, a U.S. company that draws on European contacts to deliver bookings at reasonable rates.

Some of those companies, which include tour operators and air-hotel packagers, can deliver better prices than a lone traveler could ever negotiate. But not all companies yield that kind of bargain all the time. It always makes sense to comparison shop, and sometimes, a traveler can get a better price by calling or faxing Europe directly.

Consider the test I ran one recent morning. First, placing a transatlantic call to the Airport Hotel Salzburg in Austria, and checking rates for three nights in late November, I got a quote of $145 nightly for a standard double room, which they translated to 1,680 Austrian schillings.

Next, I called Utell International ([800] 448-8355), a major booking service for European hotels, including the Airport Hotel Salzburg. The Utell operator first quoted a corporate rate of $148, or 1,690 schillings, then later “discovered” a standard room for $145 or 1,660 schillings.

Then an American Express travel agent in Los Angeles tapped at his computer and--apparently working from a more traveler-friendly set of exchange rates than the others were--offered a corporate rate of $136.32 or 1,690 schillings. The regular rate: $143.58 or 1,780 schillings.

Last, I called Euro-Connection ([800] 645-3876), a 5-year-old firm in Edmonds, Wash., that specializes in hotel, rental car and rail reservations in Europe. There, the operator said he’d need to fax Austria to get a specific rate, but estimated the cost at about $160 per night.

The bottom line, says Ed Perkins, editor of the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, is that “if you just make an ordinary booking through Utell or somebody like that, you will never pay less than if you contacted the hotel directly, and often you will pay more.”

Not everyone agrees with that. “In some cases, our rates are actually better than if they walked in off the street” to the hotel, said Euro-Connection’s owner, Mitch Mason. But, he acknowledged, if a traveler opts for the convenience of a U.S.-based booking firm, “by and large, you probably will pay a little more than if you dealt with the hotel directly.”

The trade-off, of course, is that time, language and currency differences are smoothed over, and, for a price, the company will dovetail your room bookings with a rental car, a ride to the airport or a train ticket to the next city on your itinerary.

Sometimes, however, the gap between a hotel’s advertised rates and a wholesaler’s charges can be dramatic and disturbing. Here’s another case study:

In March, Sharyn Lynne Sala of Los Angeles and her husband, Bruce, were planning a trip to Austria. They called a Los Angeles travel agent, who, in turn, called Euro-Connection. Among other things, Euro-Connection booked the couple three nights at the Hotel Elefant in Salzburg.

Sala and her husband were quoted rates of about $231 per night for a three-night stay. That seemed a little high to them, but they knew that lodgings there were in great demand during Salzburg’s famed music festival, and their late-August reservations coincided with the event. They shrugged and paid in advance.

But then the couple arrived in Salzburg and checked into the hotel, and Sala’s husband happened to glance at the notice on the back of the door. The room rate, posted in Austrian schillings, amounted to about $157 per night, Sala said. At the reception desk, a hotel reservations agent showed them paperwork indicating that the hotel only charged Euro-Connection roughly $150 for the room. (Don’t count on anyone ever doing that for you. That disclosure contradicted standard industry practices, under which hotels keep mum on the difference between the rates the hotel charges wholesalers and the rates the wholesalers then pass on to travelers.)

So how did the $150-a-night room became a $231-a-night room?

Euro-Connection owner Mitch Mason says his company made a 15% commission on the deal, about $33 per night. He gave this accounting for the rest: Aside from the $150 that went to the hotel, $23 per night (the standard 10% commission) went to the travel agent in Los Angeles; $7 per night (the usual 3% commission) went to the credit-card company; and about $18 (fully 12% of the original room rate) went to cover currency-exchange commissions or was lost in the downward fluctuation of the Austrian schilling against the dollar between the early spring and late summer. (Ruesch International, which tracks exchange rates, reports that the schilling lost 7% against the U.S. dollar between March 3 and Sept. 1.)

This case, says Mason, is “a poor example” of what wholesalers do for people, because the hotel gave his company virtually no discount to start with, and because those rates listed on hotel-room doors can mean very little during high-demand periods. His former customer, Sala, and Ed Perkins at Consumer Reports say they find the $231-a-night figure outrageous, no matter how the behind-the-scenes numbers are distributed. Both also say that a good travel agent would have questioned the rates.

But all sides can agree on this: Whenever you can, it’s wise to check a second source before you agree to pay any room rate or air fare. If you don’t, you’ll never be sure whether you got a fair deal.

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Reynolds travels anonymously at the newspaper’s expense, accepting no special discounts or subsidized trips. He welcomes comments and suggestions, but cannot respond individually to letters and calls. Write Travel Insider, Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles 90053 or e-mail chris.reynolds@latimes.com.