In Reply to: Booking Accommodation online posted by mdins on Saturday, 17. September 2011 at 16:57 Bali Time:
, whether a hotel or private villa. Good tip is to email all the hotels directly, and ask for their 'best price', which is usually a lot cheaper than the price advertised on their website.
However, sometimes it is cheaper to go through someone like Qantas online (can just book hotels without flights) because they bulk-book some of the popular hotels and can therefore offer a cheaper rate.
A good idea also is to check what other people think about your chosen place on both this forum and on TripAdvisor, but of course you need to take some opinions with a grain of salt- some will complain about the tiniest things. You can get a good general idea though and see others' actual photos of the rooms etc. rather than the hotels' glossy ones.
Definitely if you are interested there are many many privately-owned villas on Bali that can be booked online, check out the websites FlipKey and also VRBO (vacation rentals by owner) for a start, often much much better value than hotels and resorts.
Good luck and have fun!