Jiejie, I used to use qunar and gave up on them because of the high rate of problems just as you described above for Ctrip. So, in comparison, elong and Ctrip are far less painful.

I happen to follow Ctrip on Seeking Alpha, so am not an expert but I do get company quarterly announcements. Businesses in China are adjusting to slower than expected growth this year and many companies, including Ctrip, had been sacrificing margin growth to invest in sales growth. Even though Ctrip's growth has been good, they obviously thought it would be even better but with the slower growth net operating margin has actually dropped nominally over last year. Not a good sign. Or maybe some new hotel booking engine they implemented has been over budget and under performed. In their current financial situation of margin pressure they are also less likely to honor bookings which came in right after rate changes (were meant to) occur.

Ctrip may be pushing it, but reading their legal verbiage they are careful to stay within their own defined limits. Which are too broad for me, but that's another story.

So if anyone has any news what's happening in Ctrip, do share. I still believe, in China, people are quick to complain and shuo da hua! (I don't have Chinese fonts on this laptop) which creates unnecessary noise when trying to sift for real issues.