Hostelworld
reviews and complaints

I booked multiple hostels both with Hostelworld and on my own for trips made to multiple countries in January, 2018. One hostel in Barcelona could not find my reservation made through Hostelworld and didn't answer any emails. When I finally was able to reach them on the phone, that is when I found out they had no listing for me. So they said no problem, Hostelworld will refund. Then they send an email (the hostel) after that conversation saying no refunds. Well they told me on the phone they couldn't find my reservation, I booked elsewhere.

Hostelworld has on their website that they will refund plus give you $50 toward your next hostel booking if the booking you made isn't found by by the hostel. Now both Hostelworld and the Hostel are acting like this is 100% my fault and expecting me to pay. How is it that it is a 'no refunds' reservation when the hostel says on the phone they don't even show a reservation? How is it I am paying for two nights and nobody seems capable of giving me a refund on this reservation they couldn't find but now insist is non-refundable?

Not only isn't Hostelworld honoring their own webpage promises, their booking turned out to be about 12 euros more than if I had booked through booking.com. I don't know if they have a price guarantee, but it pretty much sucks to come to find out you not only overpaid, you overpaid on a reservation the hostel couldn't find but now it's 'no refunds' and Hostelworld just keeps sending me the same cut and paste gooblygook, the last one with yellow highlighting everywhere as if that makes it more official or something. Now I will just have to contest these charges with my credit card company. This company is lousy and I won't use them again. I am sick of going round and round with them via email. They need to honor their own posted policies on their website, the sugar coated words that gets people to book through their website.

I had booked night at the Reykjavik Hostel Village. I have arrived at the middle at the night and I had picked my keys. My room wasn't located at the main building. When I finally got there I realised that I had been given wrong keys. I couldn't get into the building. I have tried to ring but there was no answer. When I finally got into the building via emergency door I had realised that keys to my room are wrong too. I had called emergency number but lady had ignored me completely.
I am very unhappy with this situation as I had not been offered any help and couldn't get into the room which I had paid for.
I am expecting recompensation as I don't feel I have received what I had paid for.

My booking reference: 66156-[protected]

On the website the hostel is advertised at AUD $19 per night. I booked 3 nights for 4 guests. I paid the deposit fee of US$36.33, which I was then advised I would be left with a balance of AUD $184.68, to pay on arrival -this didn't happen, the money was taken straight out.

I have had two transactions taken - one of AUD $264.70 from the hostel, and AUD $46.53 by Hostel World. In total I've paid AUD $311.23, when I should have only been charged $228.

Please get back to me ASAP and have this rectified.

Contact me on: +[protected]

My name is Ray

I made a flexible booking to stay in a hostel in London on 30/11/2017 using Hostelworld. I made a flexible booking which according to Hostelworld would guarantee me a full refund and/or another service if my booking was cancelled. My booking reference number was 14746-[protected].
However, when I got to the property I was denied entry because of allegedly I did not have a valid id with me (I had my bank card and my student card with my picture on, I also had my EU passport that was expired but according to the Law an EU passport is still useable for five years in EU countries). Hostelworld refused to refund me the flexible booking service, despite me paying the extra to make a flexible booking. They also made me wait two days until they replied to me. I had to make another flexible booking using their service because I thought that they would return the money from the first flexible booking. They never did. Instead they sent me a patronising email in which they apologise for the "inconvenience" of keeping my money from the service. Dreadful customer service, there are no words to describe when a company offers cancellation policy with an extra cost, and then makes a U-turn and does not return the money you have given them/ without offering the service they are meant to. My resolution to this is to return my 14.14 Stirling that I paid for this booking back asap. I have recorded the exchange on my bank account with BARCLAYS as such:
21/11/2017
HOSTEL WORLD
Card Purchase
IRELAND ON 20 NOV BCC
-£14.14

Your booking is confirmed. Your reference number is 91108-[protected]

booking information
No.8 Seven Sisters,
618 Seven Sisters Rd,
Seven Sisters,
London,
England

p. [protected]
email: [protected]@no8hostel.com

Booking Type: Standard Flexible Booking
Date Room Details Per Bed Pax Total
Thu 30th Nov 2017 Superior 4 Bed Mixed Dorm £8.95 1 Bed £8.95
Fri 1st Dec 2017 Superior 4 Bed Mixed Dorm £13.95 1 Bed £13.95
Sat 2nd Dec 2017 Superior 4 Bed Mixed Dorm £13.95 1 Bed £13.95
Sun 3rd Dec 2017 Superior 4 Bed Mixed Dorm £8.95 1 Bed £8.95
Mon 4th Dec 2017 Superior 4 Bed Mixed Dorm £8.95 1 Bed £8.95
Tue 5th Dec 2017 Superior 4 Bed Mixed Dorm £8.95 1 Bed £8.95
Wed 6th Dec 2017 Superior 4 Bed Mixed Dorm £8.95 1 Bed £8.95
Thu 7th Dec 2017 Superior 4 Bed Mixed Dorm £8.95 1 Bed £8.95
Fri 8th Dec 2017 Superior 4 Bed Mixed Dorm £13.95 1 Bed £13.95
Sat 9th Dec 2017 Superior 4 Bed Mixed Dorm £13.95 1 Bed £13.95
Total Cost: £109.50
Flexible Deposit Protection: £1.00
Total Paid: £14.14
Your Payment
The balance of £96.36 is payable on arrival at the property, in the property's currency, unless otherwise specified below.
Your price includes all taxes.
Important Information
Your booking is a Standard Flexible Booking, which means your deposit is protected so you can use it to make another booking within the next 6 months if you change your plans. Standard T&Cs apply

You are due to arrive here at 12:00. Get directions to this hostel."

For your convenience, we have stored your booking in your account. Please print and retain for your records.

Click here to make your next booking

I booked 7 nights of accommodation from the 5th-12th November. I arrived on the 5th and went out at around 10pm. I left my cash, some of it in pounds and some in Thai baht, along with my debit card and valuables in the safety deposit box at the hostel. This was an electronic one which could only be opened in two ways; with the code that I set and by the hostel staff as they had a key which could unlock the safes. The door of the room were I was staying did not lock nor shut properly but I was assured by the staff that it would not be a problem as there is someone at reception 24hours a day. So I left and stayed out until about 4am. I had used up all of the cash I had me and told the taxi driver that I would use the money at the hostel to pay him in cash, he then took me back to the hostel and when I opened my safety deposit box I found that all of my cash had been stollen. I assume it must have been the night staff as there was no one else who could have gotten into the safe. This then resulted in me being arrested and the british embassy getting involved. I'd like a full refund as well as some compensation for the absolute distress this has caused me and my family. I will be leaving bad reviews for the hostel online.

Stayed at Hans Brinker hostel for one night. Arrived at 7am, told beds would ready at 2pm, arrived at 3pm and they were not ready until 6pm. Booked an eight person room, instead placed in a double room used to house staff members, got absolutely ravished by bed bugs, refused a refund/room swap and were abused by male receptionist who made us (two female travellers) feel extremely scared for our safety.

I booked a hostel for a night in Rome at friendship palace, here is the reservation number: 263677-[protected]. When we got there, our room had been booked twice and there was no room available for us. The guy at the frontdesk was extremely rude, he treated us badly and did not assume their mistake until half on hour later. They ended up asking for us to try to book another place by ourselves (which was impossible at 23pm). Finally, they said they had found a place really near for us to go. They made us carry our luggage for many blocks, it was not near at all! We had been waiting for almost 2 hours for a solution and they sent us to a Hotel were we got a room that was nothing like we had booked and had to pay even more than we had to pay at the original destination. The only reason why i agreed to this was because it was almost midnight in a not very nice place in Rome and we had a plane to catch at 6am the following day.
It was a horrible experience. I do not understand how can these things happen and, more over, why should be mistreated for it when we had done nothing wrong.
I request an explanation and a way of compensating us for this expensive mistake from your end.

Kate Ealey
Booking reference number is 101724-[protected]

To whom it may concern,

We booked this accommodation and have just arrived and checked in.
I am completely mortified with the place and very unhappy and disappointed. Albeit I know it is a hostel, however it is far below the expected standards it should meet.
The accommodation is dirty, it smells, it is unclean, no soap to be found, no towel provided. The shower cubicle and toilet is very very small and no room to manoeuvre at all!
There are dirty sheets on the bed with stains over the blanket. In the room, you need to keep your shoes on its so filthy. As for the wardrobe it is unusable.

Also it was listed they provide bicycles here, well we have found out that they don't. This is false advertisement.

I would like someone to call me today to resolve this matter i.e move accommodation or at least be refunded back for the stay.

Yours sincerely

Kate Ealey
Mobile: [protected]

On 22 May, I've made reservation on Hostelworld.com for "Family Glavinic, Dubrovnik Croatia", to stay one night on 21July. The host emailed me in 6th June saying that he can't host me anymore. I contacted Hostelworld and the host of Family Glavinic immediately for the process of refund or transfer to another booking, however, 3 days has passed, none of them border to give me a reply!

Without confirmation and refund, I can't proceed for another reservation in case of duplicate bookings.

As days passes without any answers from both Hostelworld and the host, there will be lesser choice of hostel and the price of room will go up as well.

This bad service is totally unacceptable, this might lead us to no place to stay for our trip!

Beware of this service failure website!

I got charged by the hostel even after cancelation of booking well before the cancelation date given, and not received the refund even after 3 months of charging. Its hoteliris who charged for booking made from hostelworld. This hotel don't even pick the call or reply for emails. This is my email id in case i got resolution [protected]@gmail.com.
Thank you

When I tried to use my credit card at the supermarket yesterday, it wasn't approved. I got an email from Netflix that my payment was refused. I called my bank and they said Hostel World (located in Germany) had gotten hold of my credit card number and had tried to charge more than $300.00 twice on my account yesterday. My credit card was cancelled and I have to wait for a new number and notify organizations that charge my card monthly that I will have a new credit card number soon.

I booked the room through the website www.hostelworld.com. I got the confirmation info and everything was ok, but one week before the flight, this stupid company cancelled my room. They needed to return money back, but they haven’t done it. I still haven’t received anything from them and won’t advise to book through them. They are liars and scammers, so be careful and better avoid them. As well as post comments about your experience with them.

Hostelworld is showing facilities options for places to stay-- as being "wheelchair accessible". I recently traveled with a friend of mine who is in a wheelchair. I contacted hostelworld to let them know I would be making a booking using these search requirements. They told me that I needed to contact the hostel post booking to make sure that the hotel is accessible. I tried booking three facilities and via email the facilities telling me that they are not accessible:
Kuldeep Friends Hostel, New Delhi, India
booking ref: 60459-[protected]
10th Jul 2014, 5 nights
Fernloft City (Chinatown), Singapore, Singapore
booking ref: 28456-[protected]
15th Jul 2014, 3 nights
B88 Hostel, Singapore, Singapore
booking ref: 64002-[protected]
15th Jul 2014, 3 nights
I lost two dollars per booking trying to arrange a place for me and my friend to stay. 6 dollars total. I then booked a hostel at "hotel the spot"
Hotel The Spot, New Delhi, India
booking ref: 53910-[protected]
10th Jul 2014, 5 nights
They misrepresented their hotel as being accessible. It was not. We showed up at the appointed time and my friend couldn't even get to the door to the hotel because it was 15 yards down an unpaved alleyway strewn with concrete and trash. I lost $16.40 on my credit card for that transaction---even though it was the hotel that was not accessible and they misrepresented themselves to us, the clients. Hostelworld at my complaint said that I could use $14 out of the $22 I lost booking the hotels with them---as credit up to 6 months in the future. I demand a full refund. The company is misrepresenting that they are wheelchair friendly and instead, they've created nothing but problems when booking with a wheelchair user.

I used the website of Hostel World in order to find and book the hotel room for my vacation. After I booked the room and sent the payment, I didn’t receive any confirmation email or other documents. I contacted this company, and they told me that my card was declined and I needed to provide another, but they already took money from me. This company is scam, be aware of them. Post your comments, please.

I booked 3 rooms through Hostelworld in a hotel in Kastoria-Greece (Limneon Resort) for 4 nights, the charged immediately my credit card with 10% of the total ammount and when I called the property to confirm my booking I found out that there has never been any booking. I then contact Hostel world who diverted me to a company named Travelmed and they asked me to provide another credit card by e-mail or fax because as they claimed my card (which was already charged)was declined from their system! The did not bother to provide any other solution and at the end the cancelled my booking!

I had a horrible experience with hosteworld site. I did not get any confirmation page with booking reference numbers while booking rooms in balmers hotel (interlaken) through the site www.balmers.com and neither did i get an email of the two bookings (715-[protected] and 715-[protected]) done using my credit card .
The lady at the reception brought to my notice that multiple bookings were done in my name and told me that the credit card has also been charged 385CHF (around 350 Euros) without my notice by hostelworld.
The amount has been deducted from my thomas cook credit card [protected]-****-0130.

Without a confirmation email i was not made aware of the bookings done and was not able to cancel the booking also.

After countless calls and mails and everything still no refund has been done. It has been almost 1 months now and it seems to me now that these guyshave taken my money and run away.

Please do not book in hostelworld unless you want to lose your money

I have booked a hostel for 4 people for one night at the Dover Castle Hostel in Dover, England. The booking was confirmed a few days before we arrived. When checked in at 12, 1:30 and 6pm. Every time we showed up to get into our rooms, they said they have rooms but they don't have the key or the rooms weren't ready. They said hostelworld overbooked but they'll figure something out.. Well at 6pm, we still didn't have our rooms and as alternative, they showed us an attic bedroom which was a construction site, unsafe to stay in and extremely dirty. We had to leave and find somewhere else at 6pm. I reported this to Hostelworld and they said I can't get my deposit back. I don't care about their $50 booking guarantee, it would be sufficient enough to not to be taken advantage of in broad-day light. On top of it, the hostel lied to Hostelworld and said we didn't want to stay as we wanted to stay in the same room. If that was the case would we have waited until 6 pm to make that decision? This was a total lie. And as if this is not enough, the Dover castle hostel claimed that they didn't sell the 4 beds they didn't even have (as if they did we had a place to stay for the night) and charged me for 54 pounds. This is stealing. There is no other words for this conduct. And to add to hilarity of the problem, they replied back confirming that they indeed didn't have enough space for us. Go figure! I've been trying to get this resolved for the last 2.5 months. I get nowhere with the hostel and the hostelworld is just happy to get their 6 pounds back and walk away. They are great, until you have a problem. And when that happens, you are on your own with your money long gone. Guarantee, booking confirmation is all for nothing, just for show. As if it was something, they'd stay behind their word and wouldn't ignore customers when they had problems like this. All they care about is your few dollars. Never again.

I've sent over 6 emails to "Simona Casciato" from the "Customer Service Team". She hasn't replied to any after she asked for my bank statement, which got the heart of the issue about 3 weeks ago.

I was charged the full amount for a "no-show" and it is clearly written on HostelWorld's Terms and Agreement that only the first night's stay will be charged. I can never trust HostelWorld again.

- On the 6th of june 2012 I booked a twin room (shared bathroom) in the Ocean Inn Rio Leblon in Rio the Janeiro (Brasil) at www.hostelworld.com for the period of 11-02-2013 until 15-02-2013 (Carnival), with the following policy:

To confirm your reservations for Carnival, NYE or Rock in Rio you must contact the hostel to pay the remaining balance up to 2 weeks after your reservation. IF NOT YOUR RESERVATION CAN BE CANCELLED WITH NO REFUNDS!

- On the 10th of june 2012 (so within 2 weeks after reservation) I sent them an email to confirm my reservation and ask about how to pay for the room:

Dear Ocean Inn,

Last week I made a reservation at your hotel on www.hostelworld.com for the period of the 11th to the 15th of february 2013. (reservation number 48370-[protected]) Hereby I want to confirm my booking. If it is necessary to pay any remaining amount of money that I have to pay to stay with you, than I would like to receive some more information details about how I can transfer that remaining amount. Please contact me to let me know how I can pay the remaining amount of money to confirm my booking with you.

- On the 21th of june 2012 I sent them this message again, because I didn't get an answer the first time.

- On the 25th of june 2012 I got an email from the hostel with confirmation of my stay:

Your reservation is confirmed. Soon the department of reservations will contact you.

Thank you

Best Regards,
Ocean Inn Rio Leblon

To be clear: Until the 27th of november 2012 I never received any other email than the confirmation email.

- On the 28th of november 2012 I got the following message from the hostel:

Hello Sander
Since we are under new managment all reservations that not follow our
policies were canceled. Unfortunately your resevation 48370-[protected] was
cancelled acording to our policy:

If you have to cancel your booking, you must do it at least 48hours before
arrival except New Year’s Eve* and Carnival. We do not refund reservations
for New Year’s Eve* or Carnival for these dates; if you don't cancel
within at least 4 weeks in advance the full amount is going to be charged
on your card. To confirm your reservations for Carnival and New Year’s
Eve* you must contact the hostel to pay the remaining balance up to 7 days
after your reservation. If not, your reservation can be cancelled with no
refund!

Because we are under new managment we are refunding all the cancelled
reservations. Please let us know how would you like us to refund the 60, 00
reais that you paid.

Best Regards,
Ocean Inn Rio Leblon

So my confirmed booking got cancelled now. I did whatever I possibly could to fulfil their policy, but since I didn't get any detail from the hostel where to send the money, it was not possible for me to follow the policy more than I did. I booked the room in the hostel many months before my stay, because the availability and prices during the carnival in Rio can rise very quickly, so it would be very hard for me to find a good hostel later on. I assume that when a booking is confirmed by email, that it should overwrite a policy for sure. The hostel however, answers me that they already booked other people in my room and that my reservation just got cancelled.

When I contact hostelworld.com about this they take at least one week to answer me everytime I write an email to them. First they tell me that sometimes there is a problem with a booking coming trough and that is why things went wrong here (not true!). They don't offer me an alternative and point with their finger to the hostel. They contact the hostel and afterwards they tell me that the hostel should contact me to pay me back my deposit! (the deposit I paid to hostelworld.com!) But the hostel doesn' t answer my many emails and from that moment also hostelworld.com stopped answering my emails. So they just got my deposit and don' t care about what I do or don' t get for the money I paid them. It is just ordinairy robbery, but then in the modern way. I even made a second complain about my first complain, but they simply don't answer me. And now I want to delete my account at hostelworld.com there is no way to do that... AARRRGHHHH!

I hope people will stop using hostelworld.com for booking. They have great low-budget hostels and the reviews come in very handy, but when there is a problem with a booking they simply won't help you for sure. They just want to make easy money, money that is supposed to go to the hostel or hotel you book. As far as I know Hostelworld.com has got the worst costumer service I ever experienced.

My final conclusion: PLEASE DON' T USE HOSTELWORLD.COM! booking.com or hostelbookers.com are perfect alternatives and their costumer service is great.

Booking made on 27th december 2012. Stay at vic bay surf lodge in dormitory for 29 and 30 deposit paid

Confirmation received. E-mail send to vic bay surf lodge. Arried - fully booked and according to vb they received no confirmation from hostelworld

Double booking and just collection 10 % commission is fraud!

Thank you

Servaas de kock