Jugendherberge Passau - Hostel in Passau

Beautiful castle tainted by hostile front desk

When I arrived in the evening of April 12th, I checked in with a helpful woman at the front desk. She confirmed with me that I already paid online through Expedia, and let me know that there was an issue with the payment transfer. She said she wasn’t sure what to do, and that I should speak with her colleague in the morning. After breakfast the next morning, I went to the front desk expecting to show her my receipt of payment again or something of the like, but instead, after I said, “Good morning, your colleague last night asked me to check with you about my payment?” She responded, “Yes, cash or credit?” I was taken aback, and responded that I already paid online. “Yes well, I don’t have it, it’s not open” was her response. I was confused, and trying to understand the problem, asked what wasn’t working. She began angrily punching in the numbers of the virtual credit card that Expedia provides hotels when you book through them. When it didn’t work again, she looked at me and just said, ”Cash or credit?” Still confused, I said, “Yes but I’ve already paid” and she said, “Well I like to have my money.” I asked if this had ever happened before and if there was a way to contact Expedia, and she did not respond. I asked again if we could call Expedia, and she said, I quote, “YOU can call Expedia. I’m not calling anybody.” I stepped to the side and called the Expedia helpline. I explained the situation and the representative put me on hold while he called the hostel. I sat in the lobby as the office phone rang and the woman answered. They were on the phone for about a minute and when she hung up, the representative came back to my line. He explained that it was a problem with their virtual credit card, and that he would forward the issue on, but I could get off the line. He would call the hostel back and work with them directly. As I hung up and went to go talk with the front desk again, she put up a sign in the office window and walked away. The phone immediately began ringing, from I suspect the Expedia representative calling, and she was nowhere to be found. I stood there in disbelief as the phone rang three separate times. I tried to walk around to find her (?) so they could resolve the issue— an issue that without resolution would result in her continuing to demand that I pay for the entire stay twice— but she had been gone for a while now and the phone wasn’t ringing anymore. It felt like she was actively, blatantly refusing to be helpful. When she finally did come back, I explained that Expedia would get into contact with her, and that they had been trying for the past ~10 minutes. I explained that the issue was with their virtual credit card, and if she would speak with them the issue could be resolved. Her response was, “Ok, well maybe it will be fine, but I’ll see you in the morning.” Admittedly I felt rather uneasy about this conclusion, so after leaving the hostel to go to the city center, I decided to call Expedia again to see if they had been able to contact the hostel. It was a different representative so I explained the entire situation, including the fact that the hostel refused to call Expedia directly and was simply demanding that I pay the full amount to them. He put me on hold to call the hostel, then came back and said they were not answering the phone. I asked if he could instead email them with the correct virtual card information and he said he would. When I got back to the hostel that afternoon, it was a 3rd person at the front desk. I asked about my payment and she just said, “oh it’s all ok now!” I asked for a receipt, which they printed out and was time stamped to 20 minutes after I called Expedia the 2nd time. Apparently the email worked, but I would’ve appreciated not being actively thwarted by the angry front desk lady in the process. Really cool medieval architecture and clean bedrooms. Unfortunately would not stay here again.

Awful experience. The cancelled my reservation without notice. Totally unkind and inexperienced personnel. They can't even speak english!