Tried booking a hostel through a third-party site and it took 4 hours to fix the reservation

I booked a bed in Barcelona for 3 nights through a random booking site that showed the cheapest price. Got to the hostel at 10pm and they had no record of my reservation... turns out the site never sent them the confirmation. Spent 2 hours on hold with customer service and another 2 hours bouncing between emails before they finally sorted it out. Next time I'm just booking direct through the hostel's own site even if it costs a few bucks more. Anyone else run into this with those discount booking aggregators?

2 comments

2 Comments

thompson.reese3d ago

See it differently honestly. I actually use those aggregators all the time and usually get great deals, maybe you just had bad luck (it happens sometimes). The key is to always call or email the hostel a day before you arrive to confirm they got the booking, that saves me from any surprises at the front desk.

amy9742d ago

Totally agree with @thompson.reese on calling ahead. I had a similar mess last year where I booked through one of those sites and when I showed up they said they had no record of my reservation. I was pretty annoyed but after that I started calling or emailing the day before every single time. It takes like five minutes and saves so much stress. Now I only use the aggregators for price checking and then I usually book direct if the price is close. It's just not worth the headache of hoping everything goes right through a third party.