Avenues Hostel

These people intentionally mislead, stole my money, and have no place running a business! I made a nonrefundable booking and then was told by the hostel that showing up after 10:30pm meant I wouldn't get a bed that I paid for. I didn't see anything about this on the Agoda booking. And for that matter, I've stayed at hostels all over the world and never once heard of a policy like this. In fact, most hostels will make sure you are accommodated, even if there's nobody there to greet you after hours. This was the opposite - 24 hour front desk (per their website) but no bed for you if you show up after 10:30pm!? Couldn't existing guests can come and go at any hour of the night anyway? Couldn't the hostel simply ask for guests to keep quiet if we arrived late? To top it off, the guy was a complete ****, unsympathetic, refused to give me a bed and then refused to give me a refund. He repeated defense was, "it's on the website." Since I swear I never saw anything about this during the booking, I looked again - it isn't on their website and I didn't see it on the booking site either. In the confirmation email (that I got after I already paid) it was, quite literally, all the way at the bottom of the fine print. The only place I eventually found it (after some deliberate searching, I must add) was all the way at the bottom of the details (that you have to scroll through, though the booking is all at the top of the page) showing a check in time ending at 22:30. And who would think to look there? What place with a 24-hour front desk has ever had an "end time" for check-in? To me, this absurd rule combined with lack of adequate notification serves little more than to screw people out of their money. Refusing a paid reservation is kind of a big deal and needs to be noted prominently. From this guy's I-really-don't-care attitude I'm guessing that I'm not the only one who fell for this.

The front office staff are exceptionally rude. They are working with the mayor Mendahall and her husband LaMalfa, who also happens to be a council person. To bring into Salt Lake City as many immigrants and people of color as possible. They made this very clear to me when they had an african harass me at their front desk and had city trucks and workers flanking the building as I left the building. It is absolutely true that the staff is unbelievable rude, the furniture in their rooms and throughout their OLD FILTHY BUILDING are old, dirty and uncomfortable, the rooms are not secure because I found my door had been opened and left that way in the middle of the night, they do not refund your $20 cash deposit and promise you a two night stay but when you arrive they give you a one night stay even though the dorm I stayed in was always empty. The washboard laundry mat that is around the corner that they refer you to work with these people at the avenues hostel to make your stay awful by having dryers that do not dry your cloths despite inserting $2 worth of quarters to dry one pair of jeans and by causing all kinds of disturbing noises while you try to do your laundry. Stay away from these places if you care about your sanity and safety!