Hostelworld

I booked a stay in Venice through Hostelworld, but due to a mistake on my part, the dates were entered incorrectly. When attempting to correct this error, Hostelworld's customer service proved to be ineffective and neglectful, resulting in an extremely frustrating experience. Despite multiple attempts to contact Hostelworld for assistance, I received no response from their team. This lack of communication and disregard for my situation has compounded the frustration and inconvenience caused by the initial booking error.

Super easy to use, fast way to plan trips and accomodations, friendly and efficient customer service!

I booked a hostel that said "free cancellation up to 5 days in advance" in the header field or in the confirmation section of the reservation.
I then cancelled within the free cancellation period and was charged a non-refundable deposit.
At the end of the "PROPERTY DESCRIPTION" section, there was an additional booking condition (a non-refundable €20 deposit is required for reservations over €120) in small print.
Usually, the booking terms are clearly and prominently stated in the header or on the confirmation page of the reservation.
Not once did any other booking site say "free cancellation" in the header and then put an additional booking condition in the "facility description" section.
I protested and asked for a refund from the hostel and Hostelworld, but when I finally received a response, the hostel replied, "It's written in the description section, so we can't give you a refund".
Terrible customer service with incomprehensible site description, I will never use this site again.

Even stranger, when I mentioned this to Trustpilot, they removed my review within 24 hours, saying there was "no evidence".
They are slow to reply to customer service, yet monitors the review site and deletes unsavory reviews immediately!

I booked a one night stay through hostelworld for a trip to New Orleans. The hostel required payment before staying so I entered my usual credit card that has never had any issues being processed. After getting off my flight in the city that evening I received an email saying my booking had been cancelled as the payment could not be processed and that I should try again with a different card. After a couple of calls with the hostel, they said it was too late for them to make another booking with them for that night so I had to find someplace else to stay. Thankfully there was one other hostel nearby that still had availability for that night so I booked that through hostelworld. After arriving at that hostel they too said that they couldn't process payment on my card, so I paid in cash. I have no idea why that card was declined through hostelworld it has worked everywhere I've been before and after booking through them. But as it turns out when I checked my statement hostelworld were able to process payment through my credit card and were happy to take their booking fee for both reservations I made through the site! Even though both hostels were unable to receive payment from my card via hostelworld. I'm lucky I was able to get into the 2nd hostel or would have paid hostelworld booking fees for the luxury of sleeping on a park bench in the rain. It would have saved me a lot of hassle just to book directly with the original hostel in the first place. Save yourself some stress and $'s and don't ever book through this useless website.

This review is regarding the hostel policy and refunds for cancellation. My visa was rejected 2 days before my travel date and as a result I had to cancel the hostel booking after the free cancellation period. Since this was unforeseen, I raised the matter of full/partial refund to HostelWorld and Hostel Bedgasm representatives. But both parties denied to even consider a partial refund and hence charged me ¥37,791.00 (USD 255) for 4 nights in Tokyo (For a trip I didn't get to take).

They provide a low quote just to lure you in, then raise prices. Then there are unauthorized charges and you can never get an answer from customer service. Cancellation is 14 days before the reservation, so they wait to answer, just to charge you full price.

I'm honestly quite surprised to see so many other people have bad reviews on hostelworld, it's quite unfortunate :( I'm a solo traveler on a budget so I love to stay at hostels. I've booked on their website about 5+ times now in both Korea and Japan and I've thankfully had no issues with it.

They have so many options to choose from around the whole country and their prices are usually the lowest too.

Another cool thing they have is the option to pay a bit beforehand and pay the rest up front. It's a nice option to have :) -- I've attached an example from my receipt

Never more! Hostelworld has cancelled my booking of a hostel, 20 hours before my arrival, apparently with a good reason but without any support finding, for the same period, another accomodation or offering to paying the difference of the price of another structure. I had a lot of problems looking for another place is so few hours, loosing time and money. It has happened other times that a reservation was cancelled less than 24 hours, but i've always got support from Booking and Airbnb to find another place.

I didn't realize I booked a flop house. No sheets. Homeless people that smelled like pee and smoke in the bathroom and used the sink as an ashtray. Hard to sleep with the screaming. Customer service is a joke.

We made a booking to stay at Gram's Place in Tampa on Hostelworld, but when we showed up the evening of our reservation, we were told that there were no available rooms for us. We received no help at all in trying to find an alternate place to stay. We had no choice but to drive 4+ hours back home that same night. I would strongly caution anyone against booking through Hostelworld or attempting to stay at this location.

These folks left me stranded & Out hundred of dollars on a botched booking. The Hostel said it was their fault and Hostel World said it was the hostel's fault.

In both cases, both vendors refused repayment, were impossible to reason with.

Both have been reported to fraud agencies.

Stay away.

One of the worst experience that you can have with booking website.

I have booked my accomodation in Granada for two nights and paid for my booking. However, I did not receive the booking confirmation. I have sent an email to both hostel and hostelworld. Hostel has replied very fast and said that I need to contact with hostelworld since they are the agency.

However, hostelworld did not solve my problem and left me without an accomodation in Granada. I had to book my stay with other website and I am still trying to get my money back from hostelworld. It has been 3 days and I had no luck yet. They basically don't reply their e-mails. DO NOT USE THIS WEBSITE. It can be cheaper than others but customer service is way important than cheapest price.

Hostelworld helped me through the challenge of having a refund from the hotel, that we paid too much for. They were, as the title indicates, polite and professional. It almost felt familiar to communicate with them.

I confidently booked a room without being sure of my dates given the multiple large assurances of free cancellation. Turns out on tiny fine print which I only saw after I received a confirmation, the deposit is non refundable. And to actually cancel, your booking needs to show up in the app. Mine didn't. I spent five days cancelling it and only managed to do so because the hostel manager helped me. I sent 6 emails to Hostelworld with no result. 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.

Call the hostels directly rather than book through this site. Don't be fooled by this corrupt company. I purchased a refundable overnight stay for my daughter as we knew her plans might change. Yet when I cancelled, I was never offered a refund. The hostile said it has nothing to do with Hostelworld.com and cannot refund the monies and Hostelworld.com did not send me a receipt of my cancellation so would be too hard to collect. $24 to learn a lesson I guess. Moral of the story, don't ever use this site again.

Booked 4 hotels in Japan through this website. They all worked out fine so have nothing to complain about. The benefit of this website is you only put down a deposit for the rooms via the website then pay the remainder when you arrive at the hotel, rather than all up front.

If you file a public complaint, HostelWorld makes a smiling public response asking you to send them an email. In truth, that email is blocked, and you have to download an app if you want to talk. Of course if you download, there's just another layer waiting for you.

Hostel world making honest attempts to rectify upgrade 27 Aug

Search engine is awful, website is buggy.

Free cancelation but you've to pay them a fee that you never get back.

Site doesn't work as expected at all and sometimes hostels dont even get the booking.

Disappointed please avoid

From a hotelier perspective i requested to find out about their pms backpacker online, nobody never got back to me about that. Then i created a mega micro site with them it was buggy (with i. E. chrome, mozilla) and it took ages to get published and still not right. Not a lot of bookings either.

Clean and looks good, but you can tell that these guys don't care about improving their system anymore -- that they've put in the work and are willing to take their paychecks without any further input. What you get is a virtually self-sustained site that has no problem taking your money but has absolutely no customer service. I emailed these guys about a problem for over two weeks without any response whatsoever. I've given up on the money that I've inadvertently given them, but will never use their service again.

The lady from "HostelWorld' was very helpful in her email reply re, my question re, ID needed to check-in, that is, is a Debit Card sufficient or would a scan of a Passport photo page suffice, in an email I meant. She said to check the individual Hostel and that I could verify things with her if necessary, which was very reassuring as this is very important so that you can Check in without problems.

When needed hostelworld customer service are there to assist/help promptly unlike others.
Great Prices with amazing choices with acuracte reviews to help.
Booking made easy. Will only use hostelworld who will not let you down.