A&O am Zoo Hostel - Berlin - Reviews & Contact Details

We had several very frustrating problems with the A & O Zoo Hostel in Berlin, Germany. To start, we found out that we had to do a bank transfer to place our reservation. We had to make a downpayment of about $175. I had to email them several times before they emailed me back to confirm that they received my bank transfer. In the email, they told me that I did not transfer enough money. I sent a few emails asking about the problem until they finally responded stating that A & O also charged about $30 for the bank transfer, which they did not tell me before I sent the bank transfer. This caused us to lose about $55 dollars just to reserve our hostel room because my bank in the USA and A & O charged for the bank transfer. Then, about a month after our reservation I received an email stating that our reservation was cancelled. We never asked for our reservation to be cancelled so I emailed the manager several times and I got no response. I emailed other employees and still got no response. So, about a week before our trip we called them in Germany to find out that our reservation was cancelled with no explanation. So, we had to reserve our room again. When we got to the hostel around midnight we had to stand in a long line for about 30 minutes before we could check in. Almost every time you wanted to ask someone at the front desk a question you had to stand in line for a long time. They need more receptionists. When we finally checked in, we were told that we had to pay the entire payment for our 3 night stay on our credit card because they had no record of our bank transfer. I showed them the email that confirmed our bank transfer and I was told that anyone could have written the email; therefore, it was unacceptable and I had to pay the entire amount right then if we wanted our room. I asked to speak with the manager who received our bank transfer and I was told that we could not until two days later on Monday morning after 9:00 am. (We were leaving that morning at 10:00 am to go back to the USA.) So, we finally got it straightened out five minutes before we had to leave for the airport. They gave me our downpayment in euros!!! I asked them to credit my credit card and I was told that they could not. I was extremely angry because that meant we had to take the money home to change to USA dollars, which meant we lost about $30 because of the exchange and commission charge. We had planned all of our trip to not have to exchange money after visiting various countries because of the loss each time money is exchanged. However, the incompetent people at the hostel could not credit our credit card and said that our only option was getting our downpayment in cash, which should have been taken off the total room bill in the first place! In addition, we reserved our room to make it to the Love Parade so we were required to stay at the hostel for 3 nights and pay higher rates. Even though the Love Parade was cancelled, they still required us to pay the higher Love Parade rates! This was quite a scam! Because of all of the problems reserving our room, checking in, getting our questions answered, and poor customer service, I definitely recommend finding a different hostel. I have been told that the Circus hostel in Berlin is very nice.

The motto „Central, international, clean and friendly in our A&O HOSTEL am ZOO“ is supported by the following services:
24 hour reception Check out until noon, Check-in from 2 pm
multilingual and friendly staff
No curfew
No enforced membership
No age-limit
Non smoking rooms
Daily roomcleaning
Credit cards accepted (VISA, EC, Eurocard)
Internet access (1 Euro/20min)
Ticket sales (walking tours…)
2 Bars
roof terrace with Cityview
Billard, Kicker, Videogames
Rent a bike (10 Euro/day)
cable TV, daily newspapers
free luggage room
free house safe