How Reliable is Nippon Travel Agency?

Hi all,

I have searched high and low for a mixed gender bath ryokan and settled on Takaragawa Onsenkaku.

The issue is, both on its official English booking website and Rakuten, on my desired dates (in July), the Main Building Japanese Room isn't available. On Japanican, I simply could not figure out which room type belongs to which building. I'm pretty set on this particular type of room because it is wooden, has a private toilet and a nice river view. The basic 10,000yen/person/night Annex Room is not something I want as it has no private toilet. Anyway, long story short, I managed to find this kind of rooms at the English Nippon Travel Agency website and the rate appeared to be even CHEAPER than Japanican and Rakuten (when Rakuten has the room on another date), all with two meals per day. Specifically, it is cheaper by like 1000 yen per person per night than the official booking site from takaragawa.com, Rakuten and Japanican. I've snatched the room for two nights from NTA at a total of $48,400 yen total (two pax). It would have been like at least $52,000 if it were available at the official booking or Rakuten website.

I'm now very concerned re: how reliable is NTA's booking. Why does it have room availabilities when the official reservation website itself and Rakuten do not? Why is the rate cheaper?

Please share if you have any prior booking experience with NTA or Takaragawa. It's our honeymoon trip and I want to make sure we get the desired room at this ryokan (love the mixed gender outdoor bath!)

Thank you very much!

Chloe

NTA is one of Japan's oldest and largest travel agencies. Generally very reliable. How good their English online reservation system is, however, I am not sure.

I have searched high and low for a mixed gender bath ryokan and settled on Takaragawa Onsenkaku.

According to the website, the name is Osenkaku, with "O" pronounced long.

On Japanican, I simply could not figure out which room type belongs to which building.

I agree. Japanican seems to be not mentioning even the fact that this inn has an annex.

If a hotel or an inn has an annex, a main building is usually called "honkan" while an annex can be called in one of various ways such as "bekkan" (as in this inn) and "shinkan" (meaning a new building).

I'm now very concerned re: how reliable is NTA's booking. Why does it have room availabilities when the official reservation website itself and Rakuten do not? Why is the rate cheaper?

I am not sure of your particular cases, but as long as you use an official website of a major travel agency like them, I think you do not need to worry about reliability. Nippon Travel Agency is a large and old agency while Rakuten Travel is a popular and Internet-based agency, so I suppose reliability and risk (of its website being attacked, for example) are about the same among the two agencies.

My understanding is that an accommodation facility assigns rooms for reservation via websites, allowing an agency to give a discount to some extent. If a facility assigns rooms completely independently for each of the reservation websites, it is no wonder that a large and old agency (like Nippon Travel Agency) still handles an option when a popular and Internet-based agency (like Rakuten Travel) does not handle the same option because all the rooms are fully reserved.