Booking Hotels online?

Nothing is TOTALLY safe.

Nothing is totally safe, but I have booked hotels on line many, many times and I have never yet been burned. I do, however, contact my credit card company after I book the hotels and tell them how the name of the hotel will appear, the cost (in US dollars) and when I am going to be there. I always get a printed confirmation and print a reconfirmation right before I leave for the country I'm going to. Most of the time the rates are better on line, although I have had a local travel agent make reservations which were less than what I could have gotten on line, I have bargained for better rates online and I have just "shown up" and bargained for a hotel room (my least favorite way to get one) After you return, you can "lose" your credit card, and get another one with a new number to thwart any future unauthorized use of the number.

Ditto above. I once booked an hotel in India. The cost should have been about $90 but I was charged about $3,000. I contacted the hotel and cc company and in about 6 weeks the charges were reversed. Don't worry about unauthorized CC charges they will be taken of your card!

I have used 'asiarooms' for the last two visits to Vn. No problems with using the card.

I use Passionasia.com and Wiredestinations.com

Has anyone used wotif.com to book hotels? I saw it mentioned on another thread and I thought I might try it.

I booked a room using hotels-in-vietnam.com & although the rates were the cheapest I found there was a little problem at 1st. When we arrived at the hotel the booking co had not yet forwarded any $$ to the hotel so they wouldn't give us a room. The front desk got onto them, there were discussions back & forward & about half a hour later it was all sorted.
I also used asiarooms for our hotel in Siem Reap & although I wasn't very happy with the room we originally got ther was no problesm as far a payment. (on asiarooms they showed pictures of the main building & rooms only but neglected to mention their rates were for a smaller older building with less features.) We upgraded & payed the difference.