If you’re booking hotel rooms online, you’re a fool. I’m sorry—I’m just the messenger. I’ve been doing it, too, for longer than I’m willing to admit, tapping my way to a long weekend at Hôtel de l’Abbaye in Paris and, embarrassingly, paying whatever I was told.
A small fortune: squandered! And it would have gone that way forever, except some of us are getting desperate. This summer, as newly jittery Americans are marveling at the borderline-offensive cost of European vacations, tightfistedness is a prevailing trend. And that’s where things are getting interesting.
