NYC Hostel Problem

[jamiedavid86]

Five friends and myself, all American citizens from Pennsylvania, booked three nights at the Financial District Hostel at 139 Fulton Street in New York City for an upcoming personal visit. This was done through hostelbookers.com - a UK based booking agency. The hostel states that all bookings are to be done through this third party. As part of the booking process, I paid a 10% deposit of 43.20 USD via debit card.

After receiving confirmation online, I received an Email from the Financial District hostel stating that there was water damage in the room, and that we were being moved to the 14 St Marks Place hostel along with the number for the front desk of the 14 St Marks Place hostel to call to work out details. The booking web-page for 14 St Marks Place states: "This facility is designed for overseas visitors. You must have a return airplane ticket and passport in order to be considered as a guest." Thus I was obviously concerned and called and asked the man at the front desk if we would still be allowed to stay there anyway since they moved us there, without consulting us, as an overflow. The man then told me that the first hostel we were booked at, the Financial District Hostel, didn't accept Americans either - although this is noted nowhere on the only web page through which they accept reservations.

As it took several days to get this information about being moved and so forth, we had to book a (more expensive) traditional hotel. We didn't have time to find an alternative hostel, and couldn't change the dates of our trip as we had already purchased our round-trip bus tickets from Pittsburgh to New York.

Since I'm a new member on this forum it isn't letting me post links to the description pages on hostelbookers.com but I do have links showing clearly that the first hostel says nothing about Americans not being welcome, while the second hostel (that we were moved to without consultation) does state this.

The booking confirmation I initially received states nothing about Americans not being welcome, or needing a passport. I retained a digital copy of the confirmation that was received.

My questions are:
1) Do I have a case to at least get back my $43.20 as it seems that the Financial District Hostel, which we originally booked, was practicing faulty advertising by failing to mention Americans were not welcome. If so, what is the best way to pursue this?

2) Is it even legal to discriminate against guests on the basis of their nationality across the board? I can understand if some hostels were perhaps designed for tourists only, but we are tourists from Pennsylvania visiting New York city.

 

[FlaRiptide]

1) Do I have a case to at least get back my $43.20 as it seems that the Financial District Hostel, which we originally booked, was practicing faulty advertising by failing to mention Americans were not welcome. If so, what is the best way to pursue this?

Would you seriously consider legal action for $43.20?! I assume you have already spoken with the Financial District hostel? Are you already past the cancellation period? If so, then tell them that the move is unacceptable to you and you wish to cancel due to that fact. If they still refuse, then you may be out the $43.20. In the future use a credit card for deposits and/or Internet purchases. Then you can always dispute the charge through your credit card company.

2) Is it even legal to discriminate against guests on the basis of their nationality across the board? I can understand if some hostels were perhaps designed for tourists only, but we are tourists from Pennsylvania visiting New York city.

Interesting, I'll leave this one for a "real" attorney to answer you. You normally think of the housing discrimination to protect home buyers and renters. Yet, I know you cannot discriminate for race in vacation rentals, hotels, etc.. Thus, I myself would be interested to know how these hostels operate without illegally discriminating due to nationality.

 

[tpajet]

I would call your bank. You don't have the same protection with a debit card as you do with a credit card, but it couldn't hurt to check anyway. Other than that your not going to be able to take legal action against them and come out ahead. You would have to file this in small claims court and just the filing fees alone would be more than your $43. So you would actually loose even more money trying to sue. You could try filing a complaint with the NY attorney general's office or the state's department of consumer affairs (not sure how that all works in NY). I'm not sure how far you would get with that either but it's also worth looking into.