Do not book through this scam company. They allow you to book and pay for accommodation, then email you before arrival to cancel and send a refund minus their fee, keeping some of your deposit. Just rip off merchants. I'm left out of pocket. Date of experience: June 27, 2024I 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. Service Value Shipping Returns Quality Date of experience: March 28, 2024I'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 Service Value Quality Date of experience: March 8, 2023I 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! Products used:None Service Value Date of experience: March 14, 2023Call 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. Service Value Shipping Returns Date of experience: August 20, 2023I booked a hostel through hostelworld, and then had to cancel it almost immediately after making it as hostelworld's info was incorrect. The confirmation email from the hostel had a different number of beds than what hostelworld said ("beds" and "people" are not synonyms). I cancelled it online, and yet was surprised during my trip weeks later when I was charged in full. I know I cancelled it, I remember filling out the form online and seeing it removed from the upcoming trips section. The response I got from them was "our team don't cancel bookings". Their site and support just aren't worth the risks, contact hostels directly yourselves if at all possible. A simple issue with the number of beds turned into several hundreds of dollars being charged while I was overseas. Service Returns Quality Date of experience: June 18, 2023They 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. Service Value Returns Date of experience: December 21, 2023This 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). Service Date of experience: January 17, 2024If you change number of nights stays you lose a substantial sum of money - the hostel we stayed in confirmed we would only be chsrged one night ( reduced from 4) - hostel of the sun in Naples - but we were then charged 67 euro on top of 35 euro deposit paid - so 103 euro for a sub standard / basic room stay. Terrible service a very deceitful. We strongly recommend not using Hostelworld or hostel of the sun in Naples. Tip for consumers:Just don’t use hostelworld service or go to hostel of the sun in naples! Products used:35 euro deposit Date of experience: May 3, 2023I had to cancel a booking immediately after making it since HostelWorld DID NOT show me the hostel's full guest rules/policies until AFTER I paid. Once I was able to read the full policy list, I realized that I would not be able to stay at the hostel and had to look for different accomodations asap. I asked HostelWorld for a refund and they were completely unhelpful and tried to guilt me instead. Said I "should have selected the flexible booking option." Oh really? How come I never saw this option at all or any type of additional insurance while I was booking my stay? So many important details are hidden from their website until you're already stuck with a reservation. This company is a joke that will just steal your money. Please don't waste your time with them and just book with the hostels directly. Tip for consumers:They wouldn't refund me even though it was THEIR mistake. Service Value Returns Quality Date of experience: October 6, 2023If 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 Products used:One private room hostel Wednesday night Service Value Shipping Returns Quality Date of experience: August 18, 2023Hostelworld is an absolute nightmare! The fees you see when booking are not the ones they actually charge you. When you notice this and try and ask their customer support for help they simply deny it and do nothing about it. Also the utter lack of transparency of the company and how they manage your data is concerning. You can't even delete your account on your own. Don't use it. Service Value Shipping Returns Quality Date of experience: October 27, 2023I was cheated by mistepresenting prices for a hostel which was £11 cheaper on all other sites, even after explaining and providing proof of this to customer care they were adamant that it was shown correctly by them. Never again booking from them for their lack of ownership and responsibility! Products used:Hostel booking Service Value Shipping Returns Quality Date of experience: July 3, 2023Hostelworld steals peoples money, I've paid 26euro as a pre-payment to book a hostel and I couldn't see the reservation confirmed on their app so I've sent an email. Days later they've come up with the money didn't come through but my bank says other way. I have the provision number and receipt but hostel world claims they didn't get the money and still doesn't confirm booking. Very good scam. Don't ever trust this agency. Service Value Shipping Returns Quality Date of experience: January 10, 2023A brilliant online business (hostel world) is a great way to find the cheapest and most luxurious hotels around the world. With the most competitive prices beating the majority of any other business by far on price matching and service. Next time booking a hotel I suggest and highly recommend hostel world 10 out of 10 for cheapest prices any where in the by far!. Tip for consumers:Give good honest feedback. Products used:Multiple hotel bookings Service Value Shipping Returns Quality Date of experience: February 10, 2023My daughter booked with them …Had a issue with the credit card she tried to pay …I called the credit card n was told no one ever tried to send a charge thru …They canceled her booking n gave it to someone else without letting her know.She tried calling and spoke to someone very rude and refused to help her …I emailed them numerous times and the response I got was …we are looking into the issue n get back to you and was never … I will never book anything with these people ever again …lesson learned …my first experience will def be my last …*******@aol.com…-Awful customer service …rate them below zero Service Value Shipping Returns Quality Date of experience: February 23, 2023I used Hostelworld to book a hotel for early January 2023. The quoted rate was $100/night. I booked it. I paid Hostelworld $254.60 and $1455.39 for thirteen nights to the hotel upon arrival. My hostelworld account only showed the amount charged, not the amount quoted at time of booking. The amount charged came out to $131/night, not the $100/night I was quoted. When I pointed out the discrepancy and asked them to show me the quoted rate at time of booking they said they couldn't do that but if I had screenshotted the quote, they'd take a look at it. Of course, I didn't screenshot. Who does that? I won't ever use them again but if you use them SCREENSHOT EVERYTHING! Tip for consumers:If you use Hostelworld SCREENSHOT EVERYTHING because they’ll quote one price but charge another. Products used:Hotel stay using Hostelworld platform to book Service Value Quality Date of experience: February 6, 2023Refused to offer refund after paid extra to be able to cancel reservation. They also take a huge cut for themselves. Always book directly with the hostel. Tip for consumers:Do not use this site. Book directly with the hostel Products used:Free cancellation hostel reservation ***not actually refundable or free cancelation!!*** Service Value Shipping Returns Quality Date of experience: January 9, 2023Never 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. Service Quality Date of experience: August 24, 2022We 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. Service Value Quality Date of experience: February 20, 2022Hostelworld 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. Date of experience: October 6, 2022The 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. Tip for consumers:I was given good support when asked about what ID was needed to Check-in in at a Hostel, a Debit Card or would a scan from a email of a Passport Photo page suffice I was offered support from Hostelworld in addition to the support Online from the individual Hostel. Products used:Advice about booking a Hostel and what ID is required to Check-in Date of experience: January 22, 2024Search 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 Service Value Shipping Returns Quality Date of experience: August 16, 2022From 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. Date of experience: September 6, 2013Clean 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. Date of experience: November 13, 2012