Late Rooms, founded in 1999, is an online hotel booking facility which allows you to search for multiple hotel vacancies in one area at a single time. It covers every country in the developed world including the whole of the EU and all popular holiday resorts too. They pride themselves on offering ... Read review
This review already contains more than 120 words. As a Ciao member you could earn up to £5 with this review.
A review by blonde_girl774 on LateRooms.com October 24th, 2005
Author's product rating:
Layout & Design
Average
Navigation
Good
How fast is this website?
Very fast
Search Facility
Good
Range of Services / Products
Very complete
Products & Services Pricing
Cheap
Advantages:
Easy to use, can book a hotel within about 15 minutes, great choice of hotels .
Disadvantages:
The site isn't very attractively designed and rather overloaded with information .
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
Late Rooms, founded in 1999, is an online hotel booking facility which allows you to search for multiple hotel vacancies in one area at a single time. It covers every country in the developed world including the whole of the EU and all popular holiday resorts too. They pride themselves on offering greatly discounted rooms as no hotel wants to be left with empty rooms and so as time depletes hotels often discount their rooms drastically rather than be faced with empty rooms for the night. Unlike most hotel booking sites Late Rooms actually states that it does not charge a booking fee and so saves you paying the middle man.
The website's homepage offers you a simple drop down menu containing all the countries it covers to choose from. The EU countries are listed at the top with all over countries being below in alphabetical order. There's also an option further down on the page to take you direct to "Popular City Breaks" if you need a bit of inspiration before you book. You can also search for hotels based on airport nearness and seaside resorts too.
Once you've selected your country you're taken to another page which lists all the hotels in that country along with their exact location, their star rating, how many a room sleeps and prices for the forthcoming 3 nights. At the top of the page there's fortunately a search option which asks you to enter the specific town or region you're interested in visiting as well as your date of visit, number of nights you want to stay and how many people are travelling. As you can imagine this will extensively cut down the list of hotels and make it much more relevant to your particular search.
When you've found a hotel that suits you on star rating and price you can click on either the hotel name for more details or the "details" button. This will take you to a new page with exact pricing information on depending on the types of room on offer (single/double, with breakfast/without breakfast) as well as a description of the hotel.
Once you've found a hotel to suit your needs to can click on the "book it" button which will then give you the option to book by telephone or online. If you choose the former you're given a number to call with a reference number to make your call quicker. By choosing the book online option you'll be asked to confirm your arrival date, number of nights and number of people staying. Next step is paying for your room which is done by filling in the usual details and then payment details (all normal cards are accepted but are used only to reserve the room, money is not actually deducted). Once you've completed the booking they send you a confirmation email with a code in to take to the hotel with you and that's all there is to it.
I personally find this site very convenient to use as it allows me to search all hotels in a certain area in one easy step. If you know the exact town you wish to stay in you can have a hotel booked within about 10 minutes using this site. By accessing one site you can gain a list of anything from 10 to 500 hotels for one town and be informed of the star rating and prices all on one page. I honestly don't think I've come across another site so compact. The only problem I've found is that if you're looking for a hotel near an airport you'll be presented with a list of about 10-40 but without clicking on the "details" button you won't be told the exact distance from the airport.
The one thing that does let the site down in my opinion is the attractiveness of the pages. The homepage is rather dull looking and overloaded with information which all seems to be crammed in. It's a cream colour with light brown writing which I'm sure you'll agree isn't too pleasing on the eye and certainly doesn't entice me to go any further on the site! The pages that list all the relevant hotels for one area appear to be rather crammed once again with too much text in too little space. The whole appearance of the site is rather old fashioned; I think a revamp is in order!
I've used Late Rooms about 5-10 times for personal use and about 30-40 times for booking in company business trips over the past 2 years and in all that time have only ever encountered one problem reservation. Unfortunately when a member of staff arrived at the hotel they had no knowledge of her booking but luckily managed to squeeze her in. My advice to anyone using this site in the future would therefore be to ring ahead beforehand and check they do actually have a copy of your booking in the hotel. I did however follow up the complaint with Late Rooms staff who were most apologetic and offered me a further discount on my next booking within 48 hours of contacting them so I've certainly no qualms with the customer service provided by the site. The cancellation policy is similar to that of many other hotels, 24 hours notice is required and you will not be charged for the booking.
If you're someone who does love to get the cheapest price I'd recommend this site to you. It may be worthwhile to check out the hotel price directly but Late Rooms do pride themselves on offering up to 70% off the normal price and can be great if you're looking a late booking. I've saved anything from £5 to £40 a night by booking through them in the past so next time you need a hotel in a hurry, try them.
Advantages: Great deals, comprehensive information about the accomodation, maps, easy to use Disadvantages: Would like to sort results, would also like to see what price includes
Then this is the site for you! I am about to go on holiday and needed a hotel near Gatwick airport as it is quite a trek, and with an early flight it was easier to stay nearby. I searched the web for hotel deals using most of the hotel/holiday search websites listed on Ciao. I’m not really fussed where I stay, just as long as I could leave my car at the hotel for 2 weeks…..and this was my main problem! Parking charges at most hotels were ... ...Add this to the cost of the hotel and we’re talking about paying at least £100 for one nights accommodation with 2 weeks parking (this was at a B&B or 3 star hotel). Then, I came across this gem of a website!
The Purpose
-----------------
The site provides a last minute bulletin board for hotels wishing to literally ‘flog’ their rooms at cut prices – a kind of pull em’ high sell em’ cheap service for hotels!! ...
Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Advantages: Offer some outstanding rates, efficient booking by phone, get to stay in some cracking hotels at vastly reduced rates Disadvantages: Difficulties in confirming e-mail bookings, search facility only looks for single rooms making multiple bookings difficult, not always the cheapest
...where to from here? Laterooms.com of course.
THE SITE
The first thing you see when you visit the site is a welcome in 5 languages;
• English
• French
• Spanish
• Italian
• German
You can search for accommodation in 100 countries; this includes each of the British Isles constituents as an individual country, still nevertheless comprehensive.
Once you have selected your country choice, you simply press Go (or of course aller, ir, vai or start ... ...breakfast, it was back to laterooms.com to ensure availability. The booking will depend on the accommodation and can vary between:
• Contacting laterooms.com by phone - 08707 507 107. You will be expected to quote a specific accommodation reference number. • By e-mail, you send the e-mail using the dedicated form, and, supposedly the hotel will contact you to discuss your requirements.
• On-Line - Laterooms are quick to point out that on-line is ...
Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Advantages: simple process a wealth of information Disadvantages: overly busy design
While looking to see if I could find a better deal for a hotel which may be more reliable with my booking than the Paragon was on my last visit to Birmingham, I decided to check out some of the hotel booking sites offered on the various cashback websites I use. One which appears on all of them was laterooms.com. So navigating to the site via the cashbacksite I am greeted by a fairly busy but easily negotiated home page. The bit which most interested ... ...a box for typing your destination, either postcode, town name or local attraction. Below this you can enter your arrival date, the number of nights you want a room and then the number of people you want to sleep in the room.
So for my purposes, it was Birmingham, later this month and 2 people. The next page shows you a simple map of the area in the centre of the screen with 'Quick Search' options down the side. Given the desire to not spend too ...
Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Advantages: Some very great deals indeed; we have used them. Disadvantages: Not altogether embracing the power of the web. So near - yet so far.
Excuse me a minute. Let me put my hat on. There! That's better. Why, you might well ask, am I putting on a hat to write this review? Is it sexy? No - not really. Is it a back-to-front baseball cap? Please! No! I'm 37! Am I going bald and need to keep my head warm? No - you're wrong there - just greying a bit - well, a lot. NO - you're all totally wrong. I've put my hat on so that I can doff it (I rather like that expression) to the rather entrepreneurial ... ...it very, very right.
With the advent of the internet, we have all become very much more penny-pinching than ever before; it's our prerogative. We tend to eschew high street travel agents, probably quite rightly, and seek out our own bargain deals without wishing to line the pockets of the middle-man. We revel in minor triumphs, whereby we save money (often, heaps of it) by getting a decent deal off our own backs. www.laterooms.com really helps you ...
Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Advantages: Good layout, easy navigation, huge database Disadvantages: Web site content is managed by the hotels, discounts may not be available
...their money.
WHAT IS LATEROOMS.COM ALL ABOUT?
“The hotel industry late availability database”.
Sounds good doesn’t it? This immediately conjures up images of a system similar to that adopted by high street travel agents, where hotel rooms will be slashed in price to make a quick sale. With the events of September 11th, the travel industry as a whole is going through a slump, so the deals available for customers should be better ... ...telephone. You’ll need to quote laterooms.com to get the rate advertised.
Other hotels will direct you to an online booking link. In these instances, the online booking is generally facilitated via the hotel’s own web site. The drawback here is that the rate you secure will often not match that advertised on laterooms.com.
I don’t mind booking over the phone, because in that instance laterooms.com has simply acted as ...
Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
