Normally when I visit Japan, I don't spend much on accommodations, because with my extensive network of friends I'm usually imposing myself on them for a few days at a time (and sometimes longer, as the case may be). This is one of the reasons why I like to say that it's cheaper for me to travel in Japan than it is to live in America.
This year I probably spent the highest percentage of days paying for hotels and hostels in Japan, since I spent quite a bit of time in places where I don't yet have local friends, or I didn't want to impose too much, or I was just on the move a lot and needed a quiet place to rest where I didn't have to be social. Age-wise, I feel like I'm in the grey zone between wanting to travel cheaply, and have a nice private room to myself, so my accommodations varied from business hotels and private pensions to bunk beds in dorm rooms. I'm not a fancy man.
On my Tour de Okinawa, I wasn't too sure how far I would get each day so I either waited till the last minute to find accommodations (which didn't work out so well on day 1 of my ride, as you might recall), or I had to book in advance and trust that I could make it to that spot by the end of the day. Not wanting to be desperate for a room on day 2, I opted to book my room by lunch time, and set a goal to get to as close to Cape Hedo as possible.
I checked on Hostelworld and there were very few options, but I found the Yanbaru Hostel in Kunigami, which looked like a really cool spot. It was advertising dorm rooms, but the room price was clearly a glitch, displaying what looked like a yen price with a dollar sign. Feeling a bit pressed to make a decision lest I end up with no options at all, I pulled the trigger and figured it would be fine.
When I got to the hostel and checked in, they asked for 3,500 yen, which I gladly paid with a sigh of relief. As he was showing me around, the desk staff mentioned that I was their first booking through Hostelworld. He said something about the price being weird, and I just nodded and was like "yeah, it WAS weird!"
Later on when I thought to check, I looked at my credit card statement and saw a charge from Hostelworld, for a kingly sum of $1,077.86 USD!
I nearly did a spit take. This must be a joke! Was this the Ritz Carlton??
I called up the credit card company and they said it was still a pending charge so they couldn't dispute it yet, and I should reach out to Hostelworld to get it adjusted. The customer service agent was sympathetic "No way! That's an outrageous fee for a youth hostel!" I know, I said, it was so ridiculous I wasn't really worried about getting it resolved with them. Surely they would see the mistake and possibly even the humor in the situation.
There was no phone number listed to call Hostelworld, but I found a contact form and sent off an e-mail, fully expecting the issue to be resolved by the time I woke up. Here's what I wrote:
What followed was one of the most unbelievable exchanges I've ever been party to. The names have been change to protect the innocent (i.e. me, and me alone)
The first message was automated:
Oof, that's not gonna cut it. I fired off a response to keep the thread alive and talk to a human being:
I got a nothing-burger follow up a few days later, while I was still riding around Okinawa:
Wouldn't you trade your car in for a night in this honeymoon suite?
I thought I was being helpful. Clearly the either something was wrong on the website or the hostel made a mistake in setting up their account. To my surprise, Doug digs in his heels a little bit here
Well, that did clarify one thing: that this wasn't going to be as simple as I expected! A little perturbed. I pushed back at the notion that I had agreed to be fleeced:
Doug was feeling generous, but wasn't going to give my money back:
No, that really didn't help, Doug!
Fortunately, I had lost my passport at this same hostel (now that's not a string of worlds I ever thought I would put together), and that very day was on my way to look for it with my friend as detailed in my last journal entry. I returned empty-handed, except for a copy of the receipt of my room fee, as Doug originally had requested
But Doug must've had a quota of customers to screw over, or maybe he didn't like me using the casual version of his name:
To recap, Hostelworld only collects a booking fee, which is about 15-20% of the cost of the room. To put it mildly, it was a little far-fetched to think I was going to book another $5000-6000 worth of hostels in the next year and a half, and even more unlikely that I would be using Hostelworld to book anything moving forward. This was unacceptable
Doug didn't need to be reminded about my passport; there was no need to pretend I went back to Kunigami for any reason other than to get this little slip of paper at his request.
But 'ol Dougie has one more trick up his sleeve:
WOW, what a coincidence that as soon as he tells me I'm SOL, the entire company's customer service inbox is completely full! I didn't even know that was a thing anymore.
When Doug first offered me the rotten olive branch of store credit, I decided I wasn't going to wait around for him to do the right thing, and reached back out to my credit card company and initiated a dispute on the charge, explaining the entire situation to them. They immediately credited me the full amount temporarily, pending review of the incident. After a couple days, right around the time the credit card company said they had ruled in my favor and I'd be keeping the full amount, I heard back from an old friend:
His response was just perfect:
On the bright side, I just checked the Hostelworld listing for Yanbaru Hostel, and saw that the price of a dorm room bed has been steeply discounted, down to about $27. So hopefully they'll start getting more bookings, and no one else will go through the same trouble I had. We'll call that a silver lining to a dark orange cloud.
But if you're going to stay there, I recommend booking directly at their website. I wish I had!
yanbaru-hostel.jp
My final grades are as follows:
This year I probably spent the highest percentage of days paying for hotels and hostels in Japan, since I spent quite a bit of time in places where I don't yet have local friends, or I didn't want to impose too much, or I was just on the move a lot and needed a quiet place to rest where I didn't have to be social. Age-wise, I feel like I'm in the grey zone between wanting to travel cheaply, and have a nice private room to myself, so my accommodations varied from business hotels and private pensions to bunk beds in dorm rooms. I'm not a fancy man.
On my Tour de Okinawa, I wasn't too sure how far I would get each day so I either waited till the last minute to find accommodations (which didn't work out so well on day 1 of my ride, as you might recall), or I had to book in advance and trust that I could make it to that spot by the end of the day. Not wanting to be desperate for a room on day 2, I opted to book my room by lunch time, and set a goal to get to as close to Cape Hedo as possible.
I checked on Hostelworld and there were very few options, but I found the Yanbaru Hostel in Kunigami, which looked like a really cool spot. It was advertising dorm rooms, but the room price was clearly a glitch, displaying what looked like a yen price with a dollar sign. Feeling a bit pressed to make a decision lest I end up with no options at all, I pulled the trigger and figured it would be fine.
When I got to the hostel and checked in, they asked for 3,500 yen, which I gladly paid with a sigh of relief. As he was showing me around, the desk staff mentioned that I was their first booking through Hostelworld. He said something about the price being weird, and I just nodded and was like "yeah, it WAS weird!"
Later on when I thought to check, I looked at my credit card statement and saw a charge from Hostelworld, for a kingly sum of $1,077.86 USD!
I nearly did a spit take. This must be a joke! Was this the Ritz Carlton??
I called up the credit card company and they said it was still a pending charge so they couldn't dispute it yet, and I should reach out to Hostelworld to get it adjusted. The customer service agent was sympathetic "No way! That's an outrageous fee for a youth hostel!" I know, I said, it was so ridiculous I wasn't really worried about getting it resolved with them. Surely they would see the mistake and possibly even the humor in the situation.
There was no phone number listed to call Hostelworld, but I found a contact form and sent off an e-mail, fully expecting the issue to be resolved by the time I woke up. Here's what I wrote:
me said:
What followed was one of the most unbelievable exchanges I've ever been party to. The names have been change to protect the innocent (i.e. me, and me alone)
The first message was automated:
Hostelworld said:
Oof, that's not gonna cut it. I fired off a response to keep the thread alive and talk to a human being:
me said:
I got a nothing-burger follow up a few days later, while I was still riding around Okinawa:
By now the charge had cleared through on my credit card. I was surprised it wasn't just an "oops, sorry about that, we've reversed the charge" message.Hostelworld said:
The next day, I finally heard from a person with a name. Doug. This was starting to get bizarre:me said:
Huh. Ok so I just need to prove that this hostel doesn't charge a hundred thousand yen for a dorm bed? To be fair, it's a really nice bed made out of the finest plywood and 2x4"s!Doug at Hostelworld said:
Wouldn't you trade your car in for a night in this honeymoon suite?
me said:
I thought I was being helpful. Clearly the either something was wrong on the website or the hostel made a mistake in setting up their account. To my surprise, Doug digs in his heels a little bit here
Doug said:
Well, that did clarify one thing: that this wasn't going to be as simple as I expected! A little perturbed. I pushed back at the notion that I had agreed to be fleeced:
me said:
Doug was feeling generous, but wasn't going to give my money back:
Doug said:
No, that really didn't help, Doug!
Fortunately, I had lost my passport at this same hostel (now that's not a string of worlds I ever thought I would put together), and that very day was on my way to look for it with my friend as detailed in my last journal entry. I returned empty-handed, except for a copy of the receipt of my room fee, as Doug originally had requested
I folded my arms in satisfaction, having relatively maintained composure through such a difficult exchange and emerged triumphant, having proven my case, and even given a helpful suggestion that their customer service actually do their job and help their customers not step on a rake.me said:Hello,
I was able to return to the hostel and they had a copy of the receipt from my payment, attached below. As you can see, the 男女共用 (co-ed mixed dorm) room was 3,500 yen. I paid with a 10,000 yen note.
Ive also informed the hostel of the issue with their listing, they should be emailing you shortly about this. It would be a great help to them if you could guide them to set up their fees correctly so this doesn't happen to anyone else.
I am not interested in hostelworld credits, I would like the money refunded to my credit card please.
Thank you,
-NG
But Doug must've had a quota of customers to screw over, or maybe he didn't like me using the casual version of his name:
Doug said:
To recap, Hostelworld only collects a booking fee, which is about 15-20% of the cost of the room. To put it mildly, it was a little far-fetched to think I was going to book another $5000-6000 worth of hostels in the next year and a half, and even more unlikely that I would be using Hostelworld to book anything moving forward. This was unacceptable
me said:
Doug didn't need to be reminded about my passport; there was no need to pretend I went back to Kunigami for any reason other than to get this little slip of paper at his request.
But 'ol Dougie has one more trick up his sleeve:
[email protected] said:
WOW, what a coincidence that as soon as he tells me I'm SOL, the entire company's customer service inbox is completely full! I didn't even know that was a thing anymore.
When Doug first offered me the rotten olive branch of store credit, I decided I wasn't going to wait around for him to do the right thing, and reached back out to my credit card company and initiated a dispute on the charge, explaining the entire situation to them. They immediately credited me the full amount temporarily, pending review of the incident. After a couple days, right around the time the credit card company said they had ruled in my favor and I'd be keeping the full amount, I heard back from an old friend:
Gracious as ever, I thanked him for his bedside mannerDoug at Hostelword said:
me said:
His response was just perfect:
[email protected] said:
On the bright side, I just checked the Hostelworld listing for Yanbaru Hostel, and saw that the price of a dorm room bed has been steeply discounted, down to about $27. So hopefully they'll start getting more bookings, and no one else will go through the same trouble I had. We'll call that a silver lining to a dark orange cloud.
But if you're going to stay there, I recommend booking directly at their website. I wish I had!
YANBARU HOSTEL
YANBARU HOSTEL located in Kunigami Village located at the northernmost tip of Okinawa.
My final grades are as follows:
- Yanbaru Hostel: C- for not setting up their Hostelworld account properly and for somehow being the venue for TWO Okinawan misadventures, but they get bonus points for keeping a paper trail for me. Would stay there again, but I'd keep my passport close and maybe book another way.
- Hostelworld: F+ for having absolute trash customer service, thinking that a voucher was anything more than a kiss-off, and actually trying to keep all my money. They only get bonus points for the tireless hustle, and for that little inbox-full move. But 0.2/10 would not recommend.
- Chase Credit: Solid A. They took as good care of me as they could, and even preemptively credited me to prevent undue hardship during the dispute resolution.
- Myself: B+ for keeping my cool, more or less, through an absolutely ridiculous exchange. But I could've saved myself a lot of grief by sleeping on the beach.
