Lost $85 on a sketchy hostel booking site last month

Found a deal on 'BudgetRooms' dot com for a hostel in Barcelona. $85 for four nights. Seemed too good. Paid with my card and got a confirmation number. Showed up at 11pm and the place had no record of me. Site disappeared the next week. Anyone else get burned by random booking aggregators?

2 comments

2 Comments

evan_wilson189d agoMost Upvoted

I lost $120 on a site called "StayCheapEU" back in 2019 for a room in Madrid, so I understand the frustration. But honestly, $85 for four nights in Barcelona should have been a red flag from the start, the real hostels there run $30-40 a night minimum. The bank reversed my charge after about three weeks, so I would call them today and see if you can get your money back.

felixlee9d agoMost Upvoted

Man that really sucks, I heard about this exact kind of scam from a travel blogger I follow. They did a whole deep dive into fake booking sites and how they pop up for a few weeks then vanish. I think people get burned all the time by those aggregators because they look real enough with fake reviews and everything. Its scary how easy it is to lose that much money on a place that doesn't even exist. I hope you can get your bank to reverse the charge since the site is gone, that might be your only shot. Definitely stick to Hostelworld or the actual hostel's own site from now on.