Sharon, I never tried the Hilton 800#, I've always either booked via the our corp. website (AMEX), or called the hotel directly (most of the stays are in the seme general area, hence the same hotels are involved). My experience is that the corp. website virtually always shows the lower rate as compared to calling the hotel directly. It seems the people in the hotel offices are very reluctant to give the corp. rate. The tradeoff, which is my main gripe causing me to start this thread, is that we (co workers and me) suspect the corp. rate is a smoke-and-mirrors thing, in that very few rooms, if in fact any, are actually available at the rate. We seem to have a one in ten success rate.

So, I want to get corp code, put it into the hilton website, and see if rooms are really available when our corp. travel site says 'no rooms at this rate'.

I also share your experience in that I check several sources, time allowing, before actually booking. This, however, seems to be a bad thing to do for our corporate travel folks, they want all the bookings to go through their pipeline, the old "the more travel booked, the better rates we can negoiate...' argument.