Hostels, No

I decided today that I will no longer waste my time using BNA, Hostel World, Lonely Planet or any such booking resource to book a hostel!

The reason being that they only list hostels in major traffic centers, Khosan Rd, Mexico City & the like, where they can get a commission from the owners but out of the way places, even though they are major border crossings, they can't be bothered.

Posted a thread a few months about this subject in relation to Tapachula Mexico, when the lame excuses were removed from the response by the powers that be, it boiled down to what I just stated.

Same happened a couple days ago when looking for a cheap guest house/hotel in Koh Kong on the Thai Cambodia border, only listing was an $80+ resort, even posted a query on BNA forum, 2 views.

Arrived this afternoon, used a tout for the Cambodia E visa, as it appeared that was the way the flow was going, tout then recommended a hotel. Very nice place with pool, free wifi, restaurant/bar, fan room $10. Touts tip was no more than Hostel Bookers charge the hostel.

So in the future I will just stick to the tried & true touts & cab drivers, should I be arriving late in a major city where the booking services deem it profitable to list hostels, I shall just call the hostel myself & request a discount in th amount of the fee.

Footprints works well for smaller places in the Americas, and sometimes LP, though LP has a problem with updating their listings. I still like Hostel world when it works, because if there is a problem, they notify you. A hostel I had booked in NYC had gone under, or closed, but they alerted me in time to get a new booking BEFORE I arrived there, and they applied my fees to the new Hostel.

Yes, you can't use Online reservation systems all the time. Sometimes just googling a location gets you a separate kind of list.

Yes, when it comes down to it you can always use touts and other recommendations. One time I needed a place to stay, asked a street vendor, and he recommended a nice place in Mexico.

Also- There seem to be no decent hostels in Taxco Mexico. There were only departmentos one found by asking around, and mould filled places that called themselves a hostel in the smelliest and worst part of town.

Thats just the way it is sometimes.

Just did a test booking on Hostel World, checking for a response to a PM & see now they are charging a service charge in addition to the 10% booking fee. That's the straw that broke the camel's back, NO way am I paying some corporation 20% to book me a room!

Good thing you're in SEAsia busman - no shortage of touts even in the remotest places!

A nice tout found me a nice place just across the road from the beach in Siehanouk Ville Cambodia this afternoon $12 with wifi, A/C & HOT water shower, this was after I turned down 2 $6 cheapo backpacker ones. A tout was at the bus station in Tapachula Mexico with an ipad showing pics of one of the 4 hotels across the street.

If I'm not mistaken, it isn't a 10% booking fee, its a deposit that goes straight to the hostel. If the hostel refuses to give you a place, or closes for some odd reason, that deposit is applied to the next hostel you use with them.

There is a booking fee of 2 dollars, which you can 'avoid' if you pay 10 dollars for a Gold pass, if you think you will use the service more than five times. On a long trip through Europe, I would definitely use that Gold pass and save oodles.

Tortuga_traveller wrote:If I'm not mistaken, it isn't a 10% booking fee, its a deposit that goes straight to the hostel. If the hostel refuses to give you a place, or closes for some odd reason, that deposit is applied to the next hostel you use with them.

There is a booking fee of 2 dollars, which you can 'avoid' if you pay 10 dollars for a Gold pass, if you think you will use the service more than five times. On a long trip through Europe, I would definitely use that Gold pass and save oodles.

You are mistaken, for Hostel World now, that's what I thought from my RTW, maybe they have changed their policy?

Do a test booking & you will see that the 10% does not go to the hostel but in Hostel World's pocket + a service charge, blooming thieves they are!

perhaps- though I thought the 10% was a deposit and applied to the actual bill. I don't know how that 10% is shared out. I could, of course, find the place on hostelworld and make a direct reservation by phone or email. That works very often, and see if the price quoted is the Hostelwold price.

Busman,
Have you tried using Hostelbookers instead? While there is a deposit, it does seem to be taken off the price of room on arrival and they don't have a booking fee.
They seem to be waging a bit of the price war on Hostelworld at the moment.

There are a lot of overlaps with Hostelworld in terms of the hostels that come up on a search but there are also quite a few places that are olny on one or the other so I've always found it worth checking both sites and comparing.

Other than that, in SEA I often just check out the reviews on TravelFish or Tales of Asia and contact the hostel directly (they provide contact details for most places reviewed).

No doubt that calling the hostel directly is best but that is difficult when none of the, supposed resource providers list the reasonably priced hostels/guest houses/hotels, especially at international border crossings, where an overnight stay is the norm.

Nope, the 10% down payments on Hostelworld go to... Hostelworld. The hostels don't get a penny of it; it's the price they pay to have their place listed on there.

A good alternative is a guidebook like Get South (Argentina/Uruguay/Chile: http://www.getsouth.com) and Hike East (Turkey: http://www.hikeast.com). You can pick them up for free at train stations and various businesses around their respective countries- most of the time, the hostels listed in them offer a discount of about 10% if you book with them directly and show a copy of the guide. They wouldn't get that 10% if you booked on Hostelworld anyway, but this way the savings go to the travelers rather than a company.

If anyone knows about any guides like this in other countries or regions, I'd be interested in hearing about them

Correct hostelbookers.com has NO booking fee.

Hostelbookers charges a 10% deposit when you book through them, when you arrive at the hostel you only pay the balance, they are the only site to operate this way.

Hostel World etc charge an upfront fee but when you arrive at the hostel you must pay the full amount.

This I know as I just signed up with Hostelbookers.

I am appalled that anyone would charge for a service! This is truly an outrage, and should be banned.

Felix the Hat wrote:I am appalled that anyone would charge for a service! This is truly an outrage, and should be banned.

I whole-heartedly agree, which is why I refuse to accept my salary for teaching English.
In my free time, I clean people's houses for free as well.