**TIP** Hotel Booking

First look around on any site with hotels in the city you are looking for. Once you have narrowed it down to a few hotels, then look for those hotel's web sites. Always start with the Hotel's actual site. Find the price they offer - the cheapest price they can offer is called a Rack Price. Then you can go on to look at other hotel booking sites, in order to compare prices.
Remember:

• If one site says there are no rooms available, other sites could still have rooms.
• The sites with "live chat" help are very useful.
• Compare apples to apples -
• Make sure you are comparing prices in the same currency.
• Does it include breakfast.
• What are the rules for cancelation.
• How close is the hotel to the railway/bus station, and the sites.

To give you a few names of booking sites, and also illustrate how much the prices on the net can vary, have a look at this example, for booking 2 nights in a double room in Helsinki:
Hotel Linna 14/01/09 - 16/01/09 Double
Booking.com 340 Euro
Hoteltravel.com 286 Euro
Linna Hotel 340 Euro
Agoda.com 150 Euro

Needless to say my favorite site is Agoda. Apart from having excellent prices, they also credit you a few Dollars for your next booking, and have livechat help. Notice though, that they can quote the hotel in any currency you choose, but the final bill can then be quoted in Dollars.