I didn’t have a problem booking on hostelworld. Check to make sure what currency everything is in. That may be why they are different. When I made a reservation with them I selected it to be in Canadian. It appears in CAD on "MyHostelworld" but, on the email, everything is coverted to USD. Also, when I got my credit card bill, the amounts were off slightly (I’m talking 5 or 10 cents). I guess this justs means that my credit card company and hostelworld had different currency exchange rates at the time.
When you cancel a booking, nothing should happen anyway. You will not get the 10% deposit back, so there is nothing more for you to do. You probably should have recieved some sort of cancellation confirmation on MyHostelworld or by email.
I actually emailed all of the hostels just to confirm the reservation the first time that I used hostelworld. Some got back right away and others took a while. Eventually, all of them got back to me and they all had the correct reservation.
Hope some of this helps.

I can add the following points:

When you book on Hostelworld, you pay 10% of the hostel overnight fee, plus a charge of 2 US$. All that money goes to Hostelworld (except that a proportion such as 20% goes to the website that is hosting Hostelworld). You cannot get any of that back.

Hostelworld immediately sends an email to the hostel giving details of your booking. I dont know if they pass your credit card details to the hostel; if they do, the hostel COULD charge you for a night if you do not turn up.

If you definitely cannot go, it is good to tell the hostel, as at least it means the hostel doesnt lose out, and can give someone else your bed.

quote:
Hostelworld immediately sends an email to the hostel giving details of your booking. I dont know if they pass your credit card details to the hostel; if they do, the hostel COULD charge you for a night if you do not turn up.

The hostel DOES get your credit card details (I work in a hostel!) and WILL charge you if you don´t show up.

So – if you aren´t going to use the bed you booked, please cancel it, or you´ll pay it anyway.

i wouldnt mess with hostelworld if i were you. they have a tendency of trying to book you into a single room when shared rooms arent available. their website actually does it by default. and good luck getting your money back if anything goes wrong. they dont list a customer service phone number for a reason. you will never see your money again.

quote:i wouldnt mess with hostelworld if i were you. they have a tendency of trying to book you into a single room when shared rooms arent available. their website actually does it by default. and good luck getting your money back if anything goes wrong. they dont list a customer service phone number for a reason. you will never see your money again.

I think you just need to learn how to use the website properly. I’ve never heard of anyone having problems with them, and I’ve use the several times, and never had a problem. I’ve always got the rooms that i’ve wanted.

How does it work when you use hostelworld.com to book a room when the hostel doesn’t accept credit cards. I mean hostelworld takes that 10% and gives it to the hostel and they say the remaining balance at check in is whatever$$. Does the hostel you booked get this 10% deposit because how do they get it if they don’t accept credit.

I don’t know, but it works somehow??

I’ve stayed at hostels that I booked on Hostelworld, and you just have to pay the balance in cash on arrival.

The hostel would likely get their share of the 10% deposti via a simple electronic transaction – you don’t need credit card facilities to get hostelworld to use internet banking or wire money their account.

Hostelworld was fine for us – we got everything we "ordered" and paid the 90% remainder, sometimes in cash, somtimes with credit card (some hostels try to sting you 5 Euro to use a card, tell them to get stuffed if you can). The only place we had anything other than what we ordered was Vamhaz in Budapest, who "upgraded" to the worst apartment and facilities we had all trip (yet oddly almost the most expensive, just behind Venice – 4.50 Euro less). Not Hostelworld’s fault at all.

I have also had similar problems with hostelworld. It’s a scam. They try to book you into the more expensive rooms by default and hope that you don’t notice. Their website is designed in such a way to book you in for multiple nights when all you need is 1. They hope that you don’t notice, because sometimes people are not paying such close attention to details, and that is when they make their money. Their website doesn’t list a number to make it difficult for you to contact them. Even if you do get a hold of them, they won’t give you your money back. Since you’re dealing with a lot of world travelers, its hard for people to go accross borders to hold them responsible for any fraud.

They most definitely are not a scam. And before you book (for me at least), I had to choose which nights I wanted booked, and then I just had to select how many people and I was done. I have booked 3 so far and everything has been perfect. I paid the $10 for the “Gold Card” or w/e so I don’t have to pay their service charge again this year, which is great because I will be booking around 20+ hostels, so I save over $40, with them at least, but I have found them to have a good interface, and their profile where I see my hostels I have upcoming and stayed at, to be a quite excellent touch.

I recomend staying as far away from hostel world as possible. They are extremely dodgy. I had a bad experience with them, and won’t use them again. There are lots of other sites out there to use such as hostels.com, hostelz.com, hostel bookers. Anyone but hostel world! Anyone that says otherwise probably works for them.

I’ve used hostelworld before, but I don’t remember any problems with them…

Um, I definitely don’t work for hostelworld.com, but I’ve never really had any problems using them. I’ve only booked three places on it, one of which I had to cancel later, and I went directly through the hostel to do that. All I had to give up was the 10% deposit (and the $2 hostelworld fee). They never charged me for a night or anything. I have heard really good things about hostelbooker (incl. that they don’t have a booking fee!) so I may try them out. Hostelworld was just the main one that I heard about last year when I was planning a trip so that’s the one I’ve been using.

I booked a room in a B&B in Verona (and paid the deposit and booking fee) through hostelworld, and when I contacted them (the B&B) a few days before arriving, they did not receive the booking and were fully booked. Fortunately they arranged that we could stay in another B&B close by for the same price. I’ve used hostelword.com and booking.com often, and never had problems with these bookings.

Hehe, you do realize 2 of those 3 sites you recommend actually use hostelworld to power their bookings right? In fact, 90% of all hostel booking sites online are powered by good old hostelworld…

I’ve used hostelworld at least a dozen times, some times through one of their partners, and never had a problem. I’ve also used hostelbookers and no problem there either (although the hostel owner did try to up the price whilst standing in front of him at the check in, but that worked out). The downside of hostelbookers being that they have way less properties. The upside that they don’t have a booking fee (which to be honest is not a deal breaker for me, but hey, it helps ).