Booking Hotel Accommodation Online Safely

1 day ago, in Travel & Play

As with any product, service or information we require these days, the internet also provides us with a multitude of websites offering their accommodation booking services for hotels and holiday destinations across the world. It is estimated that up to 60% of reservations are done online. Yet, there are also still a mentionable number of people who are understandably too skeptical about entrusting their accommodation arrangements and money to someone they have never met. Inserting a credit card number onto a web page and accepting our information is safe and will be kept secret takes a whole lot of trust.

Even those who fairly regularly purchase online will often stumble across a website offering exactly what they want at an unbeatable price, but the website or company name is not known to them and immediately doubt sets in. Not only is the existence of scams a reality, but even if the website or business is a legitimate one, how can we be sure that particular website has the ability to protect the information we provide and in particular our credit card numbers?

When booking online tours, flights or travel packages, you may have to check a number of different providers. So even if one is legitimate in a package, you may end up with a dud booking. Ensuring your adventurous Fiji holiday or romantic rail journey through Europe is legit is not so hard when you look for identification and tourism board memberships.

ID Authority Credentials

There are several online security companies specializing in validating and authenticating websites and online businesses. You may recognize names like Verisign, Entrust, Thawte, Comodo and Godaddy to name a few of the bigger ones. Online business can apply to such security companies to validate their websites. A stringent check is then done to determine the authenticity of the website before the security company will issue an ID authority certificate and embed this on the particular website.

Most of the time you will notice the certificate at the bottom of the website displaying the security company name and words like ?authentic and secure?. You should be able to open the certificate by clicking on it which will reveal the applicable information and credentials about the online business and the confirmation by the security company that the website belongs to a legitimate entity. At the same time, the security company will also indicate that you are insured for a certain amount when relying on the information supplied by them on the ID authority certificate. If you really want to take it one step further you could now contact the security company and confirm that they have issued the certificate to the particular website. Any website used to trading online should carry a certificate like this.

SSL or TLS Certification

SSL is short for Secure Socket Layer and TLS stands for Transport Layer Security.? These are cryptographic protocols and protect the integrity of information being sent over the internet. In short, it encrypts or scrambles your personal details like credit card numbers when sent to a third party online. In most cases the ID authority certificate we spoke about above will indicate whether a website uses this technology to protect the information you sent to it.

A simple way to check if a particular important web page like the one where you have to insert your credit card number is SSL protected is to look at the address bar where it usually says www.http://.? If you are on a secure page, this part should have an S added at the end ? https://. You should also notice that the colour of the address bar changes, usually to blue or green. You should never provide a credit card number on an unprotected page and more important; never e-mail your details to someone over an unsecure connection.

Agent License Number

As mentioned earlier, many people choose to use the service of large and well-known brand names when booking hotel accommodation online as this in itself is a guarantee of your safety. However, there are many legitimate and very safe smaller websites sometimes being able to offer a very good deal, but because they are less known we are skeptical of using them. There will be nothing wrong with asking them for their travel agent, tourism bureau, authority number or insurer number in the case of travel insurance. Once again, you are now able to check their membership with the appropriate body.

Confirm Booking Directly (Before Payment)

The reason we often do not book directly with the hotel is of course because we can get a better deal by booking with an agent, whether online or otherwise. In many cases, the website we use is an automatic booking system, meaning you choose your hotel from the website, choose your room and insert your dates of stay on the website. The website will immediately and automatically confirm the price, refer you to their payment page, you insert your credit card number and the deal is done. When you use a website like this and want to make sure all is safe, simply contact the hotel and ask them if they have a contractual agreement with the website or business.

However, there are also those websites who handles the above booking process manually. In these cases the website should be making your accommodation reservation first and then provide you with a link to a secure payment page. This in turn allows you the opportunity to contact the hotel direct, confirm that you reservation instructions have been carried out and only then do you pay.

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About the Author:

George Conradie lives in Thailand where he works in the tourism industry. He regularly writes articles for websites like hotelsphuket.travel which offer an accommodation booking service for the best hotels Phuket has available.

Source: http://www.informationgateway.org/booking-hotel-accommodation-online-safely/

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