Cheap Paris Hotels - A Quick Guide to Booking a Paris Hotel

Finding a good hotel for a great price in a big city like Paris, France is not as hard as finding a needle in a haystack, but it’s not that easy! If you are lucky to be able to get a friend who knows Paris well, or better yet, if you live there and can recommend a good Paris hotels in a nice Paris district, then you can have them help you when you book a Paris hotels. However, not all of us are so lucky! For most of us, using the internet to find a hotel that offers excellent value for money is the best alternative, and hotel booking is a potentially rewarding adventure.

If you follow a few basic rules, it is quite possible to find a hotel in Paris. First of all, you need to know where you want to stay. Paris is a big and diverse city and hotel kokum can make a difference between magical memories and a nightmare-filled holiday made real. A link to a good map with descriptions of Paris arrondissements (county) is available at the end of this article.

Secondly, you need to decide what kind of hotel services you will need. Some people want everything from air conditioning to a minibar to room service, and there is a four-star restaurant on site. Others have content with a bed, bathroom, and shower in a safe area of Paris.

Because the criteria for rating hotels vary from country to country, in France hotels are graded between one and four stars based on existing facilities; however, such ratings are not an indicator of the quality of accommodation. This means that the star rating will give you a basic idea of what only a hotel has to offer. Two-star hotels need an elevator (if convenient), a phone in each bedroom, and at least 40% of the rooms in the room (en suite). Three-star hotels must have breakfast room service, 80% of rooms must be en suite, four-star hotels must have a restaurant sign and all rooms must be en suite.

After deciding how many stars you need, you are ready to start. Going to a travel agency will usually only provide access to a limited number of hotels in Paris and will not be the cheapest hotels in their category. If your goal is to negotiate, you will be better off searching the web for Paris hotel booking websites based in France and therefore can offer on-line booking for a wide range of boutique hotels. Such hotels often offer great value for money!

Keep in mind that a moderate quality three-star hotel in Paris can be less expensive than the best two-star hotel if you have a good price purpose. Similarly, a good two-star hotel located in the Latin Quarter, Saint Germain or Marais can be the same or more expensive than a three-star hotel on the road corner of Paris.

When you find the Paris hotel you are looking for, you need to verify it’s eligible for the dates you want and then make a reservation. On most websites, you can instantly check availability, or you’ll need to send a form and wait for availability approval. Either way, you’re often asked to provide credit card information. As long as the reservation is sent over a secure and encrypted connection (website addresses starting with “HTTPS” are secure), you don’t have to worry about someone addressing your credit card information.

There’s one more thing to look out for when booking hotels online. Al if some hotels don’t want any advance payment, they’ll most likely approve your credit card, which means a certain amount will be blocked until you arrived or canceled your booking. Other hotels may request an upfront payment for one night if this payment is refunded if the booking is canceled at least 24 hours before arrival. To know exactly how much flexibility you have, you need to look at each hotel’s cancellation policy. Either way once booked the hotel, you will probably no longer have access to a certain amount of funds!