China - Newbie: Good website to book hotels in China

Hello, I am a newbie, and I remembered a few weeks ago I found a thread here at FT about good websites to book hotels in China, one of whose site contains numbers, but I can no longer find that site.

Can any of your high flyers point it out to me or make some recommendations? Thank you in advance!

Don't quite know a web site with #s. But you might give AsiaRoomS a try. Here is a link
http://www.asiarooms.com/

Caution: don't type in ASIAROOM.COM, without the (S) after "room", you get a totally different kind of web site (social network?).

I used www.ctrip.com.

They were great. Easy to navigate. It is in English.

Cheers

I used www.ctrip.com.

They were great. Easy to navigate. It is in English.

Cheers

Many people also use www.elong.net or www.sinohotel.com

They've all got mostly the same hotels and rates, although if you're going to a more remote location its worth checking a few sites as some have more esoteric hotels (good for budget travelers).

For big cities, I've always liked this site for good deals on higher end hotels:
http://www.wotif.com/search/Advanced?country=CN&region=1110&viewType=all&accommodationTypeMatch=&roomTypeCategoryMatch=&starRatingMatch=&maximumPrice=&propertyNameMatch=&assumedCountry=CN&selectedSuggestionId=&searchTerms=

It's especially useful if you want to buy up to a slightly higher class of room at a particular hotel.

Ctrip is a good site, I think its significantly better than Elong service wise and my friends would agree (though not in website layout). Though the English site has a long way to go compared to its Chinese counterpart. However, their English speaking service is very very good.

I have looked at the sites listed and have come to find that the best prices are through the hotel web sites. I booked the Regent and also the Meridien for prices lower than through any of the discount web sites.

I have used www.asiahotels.com a couple of times. Not bad. Sometimes they have some good deals.

I have looked at the sites listed and have come to find that the best prices are through the hotel web sites. I booked the Regent and also the Meridien for prices lower than through any of the discount web sites.

ctrip and the like are good for pinpointing --and scoring decent rates at-- hotels that don't show up on expedia's radar (i.e. 3-5 star chinese hotels).

if you require a prime property (as i often do), you're better off seeing if you qualify for a corporate discount.

but, it is worth saying that, when shanghai gets busy, the fancy hotels all fetch $400 per night, while the ctrip hotels remain "normal".