Welcome to this series of hints and tips designed to improve your travel experience. This time we have a question relating to whether it's safe to book overseas accommodation while you're online. For instance, is it safe to book this particular hotel and am I likely to get what I'm expecting? You can certainly book directly through the hotel and in general bookings made directly through the hotel may be considered to be secure, as long as the property doesn't change hands between the date of the booking and the date of your visit. But ensure that you take a copy of your booking confirmation to protect against this. We had an example, for instance, when we arrived at a shadow in France, fully expecting to be able to move into a room which we had booked and paid for, only to discover that the property had changed hands and that the previous owner had forgotten to let the new people know about the booking. Luckily, we did have the copy of the booking and were able to verify it and in fact did manage to find accommodation. Are your credit details safe? It's advisable to ensure that your browser is in a security mode before parsing your credit card details across the internet. The website address shown in the browser's address bar should begin with the letters HTTPS colon. This implies that your information is being encrypted and is being kept safe from prying eyes. In addition, the browser should show a padlock icon, generally on the bottom bar, indicating that it is in a secure mode. Is your booking flexible? Remember to check whether the booking that you're making is flexible. Many hotels offer different pricing depending upon their cancellation policy. If the booking is to be non-refundable, the cost is often lower than a refundable tariff. However, you are then locked into that particular date. The hotel may, however, still be prepared to allow you to change the date, but not to cancel the booking. But there's no obligation on them to do so. You can also book your accommodations through agents, and we recommend that you should use agents who'll take a booking on your behalf, but not charge an upfront fee. These agents take their fees directly from the hotel. If you choose a refundable booking, then you still have the flexibility to lock in accommodation when you're finalising your artillery. An example of this style of agent can be found at www.booking.com. You should always take a printout of your booking and take it with you. So that when you check into the hotel, you can ensure that the hotel will be aware of the terms and conditions of the booking that you've agreed to, such as, has it been prepaid? What type of room you've requested? What's included in the tariff, etc. And in the worst case scenario that you really do have a booking at the hotel.