I just noticed that hostels.com now waives the booking fee if you sign up for email offers:
I didn't see a similar offer to waive booking fees on Hostelworld.com. There was a booking fee of $2.00 / £1.00 / €1.50 when I went through a test booking on Hostelworld.com.
Are booking fees are on the way out?
16 years
you know what bugs me? the 'deposit' you pay online to HW, HB et al. its NOT a deposit, its a booking fee! a deposit would go to the hostel! and then you pay a booking fee on top of that?!?!?
im not sure what the irish equivalent of the ACCC is (aus. competition and consumer commission) that keeps an eye on misleading advertising etc but im pretty sure they couldnt get away with that.
WRI is increasingly feeling like the microsoft of the hostel world.
16 years
As I understand it, if the hostel's overnight charge is (say) $40, then the customer pays $4, which goes to Hostelworld (a proportion of this goes to their affiliate, if it was done on an affiliated site), plus $2 booking fee, which goes to Hostelworld. The customer then pays the hostel $36 on registration.
Hostelworld have run various 'offers', such as selling a 'membership' for (say) $10, and then you get free bookings for a year. And they have given away these 'memberships' as freebies at shows. But bookings through affiliates still had to pay the $2 charge.
It is assumed that the hostel charges the customer $40 if he books privately, and also $40 in total if he books through Hostelworld. I think hostels honour this arrangement, although of course they may decide to offer their beds on Hostelworld for $20 and offer them at the door for $18.
16 years
An interesting thing about booking fees is that it's a "million dollar business" on its own.
If a booking engine takes (for example) 5,000 bookings a day with a $2 booking fee, that is $10,000/day or $3.65 million per year.
I think booking fees will have to be cut back to stay competitive with Hostelbookers, but the booking engines that have them will try to hold onto them as long as possible.
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