HostelworldReviews 135

Hostelworld Customer Service Team:
I needed to merge email on account. Within 2 verification emails it was done!
Fast and Simple.
Keep it up!

Hotelier, if you have other choice, do not go with hostelworld!
They are NOT here to help you at all. They only want make money on your work, and will never give you a suitable service.
- They do not have any phone number since covid happen (why? No reasons.)
- They take a huge commission on your price (15%), and do not even have customer service,
- They do not have the phone customers phone numbers mandatory, even though you ask for it,
- They cancel your booking for free the day of the arrival, even though you have a 48 hours cancelation policy,
- They never answer to your request, but they will send you way too many mail asking you to lower your price to sell more rooms,

Booking.com is WAY MORE RELIABLE

This company will steal your money! They will hide behind the "policy" argument.

If I could I would give them 0/5 stars. This incident has happened too many times to people I know.

We were traveling to Maui but had to cancel due to Covid reasons. We reached out to receive a refund for the money they charged us upfront. It's been 2 months since then and have spoken to 4 different people and have yet to see the money. They have no sympathy or understand and do nothing to try to make things better.

One email correspondent actually stopped responding to the email thread.

The funny thing is the hostel we had booked actually answered our phone call and was super nice and willing to help us out but since it was through hostelworld they couldn't do anything.

Hostelworld stole our money and refuses to give it back.

If you're looking to book a hostel do yourself a favor and just call the hostel directly, you'll get better rates and won't have to deal with virtual customer service that hides behind made-up rules/ policy.

Minutes after booking I was told my creditcard doesnt work and told to book it through a different website. ( scam) And they told me to send my credit card details on a email. ( big scam, which I obviously didnt do)

Then they still booked the deposit through my creditcard and I lost that because they said thats just how it works. ( T& C's)

So basically how I see it is the hostel cancel the booking then tells people to rebook it through their website so they skip the commission to hostelworld. So win for them.

Then hostelworld still books off the deposit. So win for them.

HOSTELWORLD IS A SCAM!

They are taking your money without your concent! I book for 10 days in a hostel, UNITEDHOSTEL in barcelona, for 14.17 euros a night and I was charge it for 24.90 because they say it change regarding the day. They just charge me more of what I accepted in my credit card, but also If I were paying day by day in the hostal I will have got a betetr deal! Take care with this transnational, they just take your money legaly and do whatever they want!

Do not use Hostelworld for your bookings. You may loose your deposit.

On a recent trip to Porto, my booking was cancelled upon arrival. Nonetheless, Hostelworld refused to refund my deposit. They even presented themselves as generous in offering a 'credit' for future bookings with them on the same amount as a 'gesture of goodwill'. Obviously, the chance that I will make another booking with Hostelworld is zero.

Hostelworld's behaviour is second only to pure theft.

I booked through them last minute. As I had made the booking (non refundable) I realized it was the hotel that said they had no availability.
The contract stated, no matter what, I had to pay to Hostel World 38 Euro via PayPal and the Hotel would then charge me for the room to my cash card. It also stated that booking was conditional on confirmation by the hotel 24 hours prior.
I sent the hotel an email with the "confirmation" of Hostel World and never received a confirmation.
As my friend was arriving within hours I booked her into other accommodations - last minute and at a lower standard, since no availabilities could be found with my criteria (locality).
I never heard from the hotel, even though a local phone number was provided.
AFTER 24 hours into the stay of my friend my cash card startet to be charged 5 times at 40 Euro. Not the whole amount mind you, but a minor charge per day.
Talking with the proprietors they stated that it was considered as a no show, that I had to pay therefore and the room "JUST" had been rented out! So NO ROOM and NO SERVICE.

The Hotel Anixi Boutique Hotel at Athens will hear from me by legal way. They supported they never needed to confirm!
And... they said literally, that service did not mean or constitute communication with the customer, but only the provision of a room!

IT IS A SCAM!

I wish I could have read the reviews online before I booked too~ It's a scammer's website. When the transaction can't be proceeded by hostels, the hostel will cancel the registration but the platform would still charge people and cannot refund. Paid money but no service provided, That's whay this company did. I don't know why there are still people buying their shares in stock. Boycott it and make it shut down. DO NOT RECOMMEND TO ANYONE.

I wish I would have read the reviews before I had booked with this horrible horrible company. They give you one price and state that it includes ALL taxes, they then proceed to collect a portion of the reservation upon booking and tell you that you will pay the difference at check in. NO. You pay the full price upon arrival and when you ask WHY the representatives give you a round about answer and do not give you your money back. This company is full of liars and thieves. AVOID AVOID AVOID.

Booked hostel through them. Showed the prise as everybody else including tax, charged part for the reservation, the rest payable in place.
The place charged almost full price again.
Contacted hostelworld a week later, a rude representative started changing story and giving random excuses, maybe it is pending charge, maybe tax was not included (even if Booking conditions clearly state it is included), just any random nonsense you can figure out to push customer away.

Stay away unless you are looking for embarrassment and waste of time. Just charge back with your bank in case of problems as it doesn't the company would approach problems in good faith.

I started booking through Hostelworld many, many years ago. In the early 2000s the site was an excellent resource of independent properties and reliable reviews. Several years back, though, I started having issues with bookings and frustratingly slow responses. They've gone from bad to worse in recent years and I would warn anyone against using their site. They've held $76 in "flexible booking" credit that I've been trying for over a year to use. They keep extending the expiration deadline, which is useless because every property I have tried to book (in Mexico City, San Miguel de Allende, Porto Alegre, Curitiba, Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Dublin, London, La Paz and Bogota--so far), is listed with their new "free cancellation" bookings. (Or, Pay in full/Lose in full, if you prefer zero flexibility.) I emailed them a handful of times over the past year, imploring them to either refund my money (since they have changed their site/booking functionality), OR apply the credit funds to the price of a booking that offers "free cancellation". They have refused every time, growing snarkier with each reply. Absolute garbage service. And while $76 isn't a fortune, on principal, they are just wrong.

I wouldn't book with them again. I made a booking with cancellation and pay on arrival, was surprised to see the hostel had taken the full amount for my booking today. I went to the accommodation and Hostelworld asking why that happened. They stated it was for bauma and claimed it was in the terms. I checked the app as well as my confirmation email but it said nothing about bauma. I sent them the confirmation email and a screenshot from my app showing it didn't have anything about bauma so they resent me a new confirmation email claiming it was the original which included the bauma conditions, as if it was always there. My original confirmation email sent in November and the fact that it wasn't in the app shows otherwise. This is fraudulent behaviour. You can't change the conditions of the agreement after the agreement was made.