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, 2024Call 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, 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, 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 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, 2023I'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 booked my stay in Argentina for year 2024. All of a sudden I received an E-Mail from them telling me that my stay had been canceled due to NO SHOW. How it can be no show when we are still in a year of 2023? When I've sent an E-Mail requested for explanation I received a silent treatment from them. Will never do a business with them again Date of experience: July 18, 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, 2022I 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. Date of experience: December 14, 2021We 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, 2022These 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. Tip for consumers:Do not use this site. Products used:booking. Service Value Shipping Returns Quality Date of experience: December 21, 2022One 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. Products used:Booking Service Value Shipping Returns Quality Date of experience: December 23, 2021Hostelworld 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, 2022I 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, 2023Booked 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. Products used:Hostel reservation Date of experience: April 12, 2019The 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, 2022When 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. Service Value Shipping Returns Quality Date of experience: November 5, 2021A 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, 2023They replied within a few hours, very friendly and accurate service. I am very impressed and satisfied with it, will come back again :) Products used:Accommodations Date of experience: November 30, 2023