Bedway Athens Hostel

I have family in Greece and routinely spend a night in Athens every year on my way to visit them, so I have stayed quite a few places in Athens over the years. Unfortunately, the properties I normally stay at were fully booked, and I made a reservation here instead. And unfortunately, I need to give a mininum star review — I would give 0 stars if I could. I had a flight arriving late at night in Athens, and contacted the hostel 2 days ahead of my arrival asking for confirmation that late check-in would be possible, since online it stated that check-in was only until 11pm. I received no response to my email, nor to my numerous phone calls. A day before my arrival, I received a separate email (from a different email address than the one listed as the contact) asking for my arrival time, which would not have been necessary if they had checked the other email. I responded to this with my arrival time, my phone numbers, and again requesting that they confirm that a late check-in would be possible. Again, no response to either my email or to the phone numbers I provided. When my flight was delayed further, I became very worried about arriving at the hostel past 1am and being stranded since I had NO confirmation that I would be able to get inside. I decided to book a different property last-minute with a 24-hour reception, so that I could be sure to have a place to stay and not be stranded on the streets of Athens at 1 in the morning. It was only AFTER I had already arrived (late!) in Athens that the hostel texted me via WhatsApp with the relevant check-in information. I consider this to be completely unacceptable, not only because some guests may not have phones that work in Greece, but also for guests’ peace of mind and planning. The check-in would have been self-service — this is not new to me, but everywhere else I have stayed with self check-in sends the information minimum one day in advance to ensure that travelers have all the information they need in time. I was charged for my stay and my booking through HostelWorld was retroactively canceled as I was a no-show (I went to the other property instead, since I did have confirmation there), meaning that I could not leave a review there. I don’t care about the 25€ I lost, which isn’t a big deal, but I do care about the amount of stress that this ordeal caused me unnecessarily and would strongly warn against staying here.