Just to start another discussion about questionable booking portal policies: We had a no-show hostelbookers booking. When we tried to charge the customer the first night, we had to realize that it is no Visa or Mastercard but a Switch card (debit card like Maestro). That means it wasn´t possible to charge that card.
We checked our hostelbookers inbox: There were only the fields marked for Visa and Master. So, no failure from our site. We never authorized customers to book with debit cards.
After our first mail to the hb customer service, we received some advice like this:
“HostelBookers allows customer to book in few cases using a Switch card.”
“If you do not accept reservation processed with Switch card I suggest you to insert a clear note into your profile infirming the customer and they have to contact you providing an alternative card.I am sorry but there is no way to avoid reservations made by Switch card to go through.”
For me that means, the whole advantage to use a booking portal is nonsense in case that certain portal allows customers to book beds without any guarantee for the hostel.
If more customers realize that they can make back-up bookings with debit cards through hostelbookers and can´t be charged in case of no-show there will be more and more do so...
In a second mail we twice ask to explain the "few cases" and why hostelbookers is not in the position to block bookings like this, but there was no reply at all anymore….it seems that they will basically allow customers to book by debit cards, no matter what the hostel says....
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