Booking Hostels
Booking Hostels
Hey guys
Has anybody ever booked their hostels through booking.com or hotels.com? I have been comparing prices and it seems booking.com has been coming out cheaper for booking double rooms rather than dorm beds.
Sites like hostelworld and hostelbookers charge a non-refundable booking fee whereas both booking.com and hotels.com don’t charge this fee.
One thing that puts me off tho is that when booking through booking.com and hotels.com it says you will pay the hotel in the locally currency at the exchange rate at the time you check in. So if the currency exchange rate is worse than when you make the reservation, you will end up paying more than you were quoted.
I’ve heard stories about people who book their rooms with hostelworld and hostelbookers have paid their deposits, and then when they check in, the hostels say they don’t have the reservation an make them pay the full price on arrival. I know it might only be a few quid deposit but over the course of a yea these fees could add up to paying other costs on your trip.
What have been your experiences, advantages, disadvantages of booking through either the hostel websites or booking.com etc.
I’d love to hear people thoughts on this. I’m planning my trip and hope to depart by next June. I’ll be going South America for 6 months, Oz, NZ 1month, Fiji, South East Aisa, China and Hong Kong for 4 months. 1 year of travel in total and am booking flights very soon- EXCITED or what!
I’ve only heard good things about hostelbookers.com but can’t offer any advice about the rest.
My advice is don’t book everything through the same site, give one a go and if it works then stick to it. If not, don’t touch it again.
I have used hostelworld loads (say 30-50 times) - never had a problem with any bookings(although if place you wanna stay at is full on website always worth contacting the hostel directly as they may have space).
When I was travelling and using hostelworld a lot I brough the gold card thing - £5 for the year and saves ypu having to pay the £1 booking fee.
For SE Asia I used travelfish.org website - gives links direct to websites of the hostel/hotel so you can book directly and has good reviews.
Hope that helps!
Thanks guys- it’s good to know people have had good experiences with both hostel world and bookers, I know they are the main websites for booking hostels. I’ll certainly try and book through a few sites at first and see how we get on.
Thanks for the info on that card though hostelworld, not heard of that before so may just as well get one, will save some money perhaps. And also not heard of travel fish.org so will take a look at this too.
If anyone books through booking and hotels.com, can the share experiences also please. I think they are becoming more popular to book hostels through now where before they only used to sell hotels. Thanks
I’ve used all four (especially hostelbookers and hostelworld) and not had a bad experience to date.
However, there was one time in Kuching where the hostel made us pay the whole amount as they didn’t see any of the deposit from hostelbookers. I couldn’t get any sense to why and just paid it to save the hassle. But yeah, those will add up if that becomes a regular thing…
I’ve had some amazing ‘off-peak’ deals on hotels.com, staying in some beautiful places on the cheap.
I’d go for the previous advice; have a go at them all and see which one you prefer.
Personally - when booking a hostel/hotel - I keep multiple tabs open and have a proper good scan through them all. Then i narrow it down to three/four places and go from there. Booking fees don’t really bother me. I’d rather pay it for a decent place.
Happy travels!
I have used hostelworld loads (say 30-50 times) - never had a problem with any bookings(although if place you wanna stay at is full on website always worth contacting the hostel directly as they may have space).
When I was travelling and using hostelworld a lot I brough the gold card thing - £5 for the year and saves ypu having to pay the £1 booking fee.
For SE Asia I used travelfish.org website - gives links direct to websites of the hostel/hotel so you can book directly and has good reviews.
Hope that helps!
This… totally.
Nothing to add except I can also vouch for Hostelworld. It’s awesome, and I use it quite regularly myself.
I’ve also used hostelworld and hostelbookers, only in Europe, and never had a problem either. Sometimes I’ve found hostels and then looked on the hostels main website as well to get a feel for the place.
Thank you all, very good advice . Yes I’m going to look at all sites, see who’s got a good deal on at the time and read all the reviews.
I’m not too fussed about booking fees either really, as long as I can check in and the place looks like it’s pictures on the website and is clean enough I’ll be happy!
Thanks for everyone’s input.
I’ve also used the hostel sites and I’ve used booking.com and hotels.com when travelling with my wife. We’ve found them very good and never had a problem, although we were charged a ‘local tax’ when in Hungary which hadn’t been included in the Hotels.com price.
I agree that double rooms (or some triple/quads) through the hostel websites can be considerably more expensive than what’s available through the hotel sites. I find travelsupermarket.com pretty reliable at comparing all of the hotel sites (I don’t think it includes the hostel sites) although you do always need to check as there can be inaccuracies. There’s also this trivago.com, which has been marketing heavily but I’ve not really used it.
Wherever possible I like to change the website currency into local currency before booking to avoid any confusion over the price I pay on arrival. I’ve also taken to emailing hostels/hotels directly (phoning them if I’m already in the country) as you often get a better price. Some have their own website which give prices/booking details at a cheaper rate as they’re not paying any commission.
Does no-one use http://www.hostels.com?
Or did my skim-reading completely miss that in the convo?
It’s the same company and HostelWorld but by giving them my email address I never pay a booking fee…..I used them all the time. Used HostelBookers couple times but had issues so I gave up on them.
Actually also we used Agoda a handful of times couple months back while in Asia and found that to be good. We also neeeded double rooms and tended to find that cheap hotels & guesthouses are better value in Asia than hostel privates (from when we bothered comparing they were anyway!)
We had a couple of half decent hotel rooms for about £5-8 for the night, which isn’t bad and we enjoy staying in a variety of accommodation!
Thanks m.garrett - good advice there, I’m going to convert the currency to the local ones so hopefully I won’t pay more. I’ve noticed a lot of the hostels in South America impose an extra tax which is payable locally on top of the quoted price if you book through booking.com. I’ll certainly bear in mind contacting hostels directly too. Trip advisor are also good for comparing prices of rooms too.
Nikki- not heard of hostels.com before so will start researching their site too. Yes I’ve noticed that hotels and guest houses are much cheaper in south east Aisa, so will take advantage of some of them while there. Will also check out agoda.
What I hate about the hostel websites is that they charge you per person even for booking a double room, whereas booking and hotels.com only charge per room. Although by the time you compare the prices they might not be much different.
The likes of Hostelworld and Hostelbookers only have a certain amount of beds/rooms. When I travelled I used these websites but also if I found a hostel I wanted to stay in I went on their own website and found there were more beds available (in terms of numbers like of bed dorms). Try doing that as it worked for me.
Does no-one use http://www.hostels.com?
Or did my skim-reading completely miss that in the convo?
It’s the same company and HostelWorld but by giving them my email address I never pay a booking fee…..I used them all the time. Used HostelBookers couple times but had issues so I gave up on them.
Thanks for the tip! Will add them to my list of hostel booking sites.
I always look up the hostel’s website individually to see if it’s cheaper booking direct. I must be out of luck because it never has been, in fact when I booked for NYC and Italy I saved money by using hostelworld.
Thanks m.garrett - good advice there, I’m going to convert the currency to the local ones so hopefully I won’t pay more. I’ve noticed a lot of the hostels in South America impose an extra tax which is payable locally on top of the quoted price if you book through booking.com. I’ll certainly bear in mind contacting hostels directly too. Trip advisor are also good for comparing prices of rooms too.
Nikki- not heard of hostels.com before so will start researching their site too. Yes I’ve noticed that hotels and guest houses are much cheaper in south east Aisa, so will take advantage of some of them while there. Will also check out agoda.
What I hate about the hostel websites is that they charge you per person even for booking a double room, whereas booking and hotels.com only charge per room. Although by the time you compare the prices they might not be much different.
hostels.com doesn’t charge you, aslong as you enter your email address when you reserve something, there isn’t any fees.
I’ll second that sometimes we’ve arrived at places and they ask us for the full amount listed online even though we’ve paid a deposit already- the deposit you pay on websites, all goes to that website normally.
We spoke to a few hostel owners and they said they never put all their beds online, some are always left for walk-ins or whatever, so always try and contact somewhere if you really want a bed there and can’t see it online.
Some of the nicest place we stayed at were random finds and walk-ins!
