HostelWorld.com
Complaint 10111 Details

hostelworld.com has a $50 guarantee that if you book a room and get there and there is no booking at the hotel, you get your deposit back and $50 credit to use. When we arrived the owner told us that there was no booking under my name or booking number and that there were no rooms available for what we had booked. He offered us a smaller room (admitting that it was smaller and not what we paid for), but due to the fact that it was after 10pm, the last room he had at all and my friend and I were exhausted, we took it instead of trying to find another place to stay that late at night!
I was then asked to personally reenter my details into his computer and pay over $125, which cost more than the original booking (of $115) and didn't take out the downpayment that I had already paid (we only owed $103 after the deposit) despite the fact that the reservation sheet that I had printed with the details was in front of him! He also showed me the screen with all the available rooms and the only one left was the smaller one we were given. And I was told that if we had ‘not been polite about the situation’ we would have not even gotten that! When we got back I tried to approach Hostelworld.com through their 'make a claim' option on the website. They took 2 weeks to get back to me the first time, I emailed them straight back. This continued with them taking another 2 weeks to email me back. After the second one I heard nothing from them. I have sent them 2 more emails which seem to have been ignored! I don't care about the $50 credit but I would like the deposit I paid to be returned and also the difference between the prices! It's not much but it did make our weekend away miserable and I am out of pocket for something I didn't get!