Options for booking hostels

[lauren313]

I was wondering, if you call a hostel a couple of days in advance, are you able to reserve a bed without having a credit card?

I'm going to be travelling with a credit card, but have no intention of using it other than for emergencies. So this means I'm unable to book anywhere online. I really don't want to not reserve anywhere then find that I have nowhere to stay!

I figure that even if you call up to book, they're likely to want to take card details as a sort of insurance for if you don't turn up. That's cool, cos so long as they don't actually charge anything to it, I could pay in cash once I get there.

Anyone else encountered this sort of a problem?

[florencia9699]

Well, when we stayed in Mar del Plata (and that was the first time I had ever slept in a hostel) what we did was look up the hostel on a search engine, but we didnt have any credit cards so then we Googled the hostel and found it's own web site. And that's how we contacted them. The thing was that we had to make a money deposit to their bank account... i guess they don't want you reserving beds when they dont have a guaranty that you'll actually show up.

[foofiter]

I think hostelbookers.com is free as well. If I remember correctly I booked the Generator in London from them because they aren't even on hostelworld. Give that a look as well.

Foo

[MeTurk]

Originally posted by florencia9699@Jul 18 2006, 06:15 AM
what we did was look up the hostel on a search engine, but we didnt have any credit cards so then we Googled the hostel and found it's own web site. And that's how we contacted them.

[snapback]131429[/snapback]

That's what I did all over Europe as well, I don't have a credit card as there the devil and I'm going to avoid them for as long as possible. I used to ring them while I was on the train there and they'd usually say that there's enough space and they'll hold onto a space for me (I told them the time I'd be there, usually 3-4 hours) it worked 99% of the time.