elliot_patel•22d agoMost Upvoted

Finally got a good deal on a hostel in Lisbon for 15 euros a night

I booked a 6 bed dorm at this place near Alfama for a week in June. Got it for 15 euros a night because I booked 3 months out and paid with a Revolut card that had no foreign fees. The place had free breakfast and a real kitchen, so I saved another 30 euros just making sandwiches for lunch. Has anyone else found a hostel that beat the big booking sites by going direct?

3 comments

3 Comments

drew_reed6222d ago

Did you check if the hostel was on Hostelworld at all? I once booked a place in Prague directly through their own site because it was 20% off, but when I showed up they had my reservation under a different name. Took an hour to sort out because the guy at the front desk kept asking for a booking confirmation number I never got. Now I always screenshot everything just in case.

adamthompson22d ago

Jumping in here with a small correction - Hostelworld actually does handle third party bookings through other sites, but the real issue is always how the hostel's own system logs the reservation. I've booked through Hostelworld before and still had the front desk ask me for some random internal confirmation number that the site never gave me. They use a third party booking engine called WeTravel or something similar, and the hostel's own PMS system sometimes doesn't pull the reservation details correctly. Screenshots are a lifesaver though, I always take a pic of the final booking page and the email confirmation together.

the_linda22d ago

drew_reed62 you mentioned they had your reservation under a different name when you booked direct. Did the hostel ever explain why that happened? I've always wondered if it's their booking system glitching or if someone just typed it in wrong. That Prague situation sounds like a nightmare, especially after you thought you saved money going direct. I'm curious if you ever figured out if it was the hostel's fault or if the direct booking site they used messed up the data transfer between systems.