Elate Plaza Hotel in Sofia

I had a terrible experience with Elate Plaza Hotel.

I made my reservation through Booking.com (Confirmation number: 5913670639, PIN: 7649) for August 16–22, 2025 in Sofia, with the clear condition of free cancellation and no prepayment. Despite canceling on time, the hotel illegally charged 85.56 USD to my credit card.

It has now been over 20 days, and I have still not received my refund. I have contacted them multiple times, but the hotel ignores my requests and refuses to return my money. This is not just unprofessional – it feels like a scam.

Be warned: this hotel does not respect its own booking terms and takes money from guests even after cancellation. If you value honesty and professionalism, stay away from this place.

Until my refund is processed, I will continue to share my experience both here and with Booking.com, so other travelers are aware of this unacceptable behavior.

Do not stay here, the room was dirty, the staff unfriendly, hard to get in and find parking.

Absolutely terrible! Stayed here with our children, (one of them being a baby that needed bottles and cleaning facilities to clean the bottles)
we booked a 1 bedroom suite that was supposed to come with a kettle, but no kettle.
The room, sinks, toilet, shower, towels, beds, bedsheets (blankets) pillows, everything was extremely dirty, was not hygienic to stay there, let alone for children, electric sockets hanging out of the walls aswel!

The nightshift man was rude, not helpful, and miserable!
We booked this on booking website, with our credit card, which payment was pending before we even checked into the hotel, only to find out after checking out, they canceled that pending payment and wanted either cash or to pay for it again. Which is very odd!!
Also to charge us extra for a travel cot which was dirty, and to charge us 5lev for a 0.19bgn bottle of water.

They also stated where we parked along the road was ok and not a problem, to find out in the morning there was tow away signs!

The area the hotel is in, is also not a very nice area.
There is no parking at the hotel apart from 4 cars, which is parked with abandoned vehicles.

Air con does not work.
No fridge,
No kettle
Electric sockets hanging out of wall
Dirty towels
Dirty toilet
Dirty shower
No curtains
No city view
No Tv
No table/chairs
No mirror

And the breakfast was absolutely disastrous!
See the pictures!

It was supposed to be a “very good breakfast”

I’ve stayed in numerous hotels in different regions in Bulgaria as we got a house here, and this one is by far the worse!

My kids could not eat anything as there was nothing eatable, there was also not any juice!!

Unreasonable pricing for the quality. Cleanliness was average at best. Saff was however helpful.