MonasteryStays

You are complaining about rooms costing $100 in Rome?

Price Changes
Prices are current daily to the best of our continuing research and assurance procedures.
If the Price changes (increases) at all from that which you authorise during the Travel Plan Authorisation and before we confirm the Travel Plan we contact you for your instruction as advised in the Customer Terms and Conditions.
If a Price change occurs at the guest houses' discretion, after we have confirmed your Travel Plan, such changes are normally only marginal and you will be required to pay the Pay Later - balance payable at the accommodation as adjusted by the guest house.
https://www.monasterystays.com/?a=faq&b=10#q24

Agree that a $34 per night per room increase is not 'marginal'.

Had I been booking I think I would have contacted them to determine what amount fit 'marginal' and what the options would be if there was a significant increase.

Amazing that this type of bait and switch pricing is allowed

I'm a little confused. Did they raise the price $100 per night? So a total of $400 for the 4 nights? That seems unusually high as a last minute rate change. Did they give a reason they changed the rooms? We would need more information to determine if this is actually a 'scam' or just some kind of misunderstanding on the part of you or the booking agent.

I am also a little confused. Are you saying that $400 was the extra amount charged for the 3 rooms for 4 nights? So that $34 that Joe mentions is the extra cost per room per night?

What was the expected price?

Thanks Lola for the clarification. I missed the part about 3 rooms. I better read the posts more carefully in the future. I had wondered where that $34 came from.😏

Thank you for the warning. Monastery Stays is good for research. But this year in Salzburg and next year in Florence and Rome I booked directly with the monastery. When booking direct I did not need to make a deposit and the room is cancellable. Monastery Stays appears to charge one night if you cancel but their cancellation policy is vague. I verify the reservation a few months before traveling. I had no problems in Salzburg, rate and facility were as promised.
FYI The Florence monastery gave a 15% discount for my 4 night stay. That was not part of Monastery Stays pricing.

You paid using PayPal? Had you paid with a credit card, you would’ve had recourse. You could’ve filed fraudulent charges and let the credit card bank take care of it if you had the original rate per night in writing.

I personally appreciate the warning. I have looked at making a booking through Monastery Stays, never actually completed it for various reasons.

Booking somewhere that can raise the room cost after I have booked and paid, with no option to cancel if that happens, isn’t acceptable for me (doesn’t really matter if the increase is $34/night or $100/night) - but I might not have noticed the terms Joe posted. Thanks to horsewoofie for the advice to book directly with the monastery.

I noticed a couple of years ago that the cancellation fee was the nightly rate for one night, and that stopped me from further considering that booking platform. I overlooked the business about MonasteryStays being able to arbitrarily change the rate. Thank you for the warning, Sandy.

This is why I never book through booking sites (including booking.com). There are so many more disadvantages to using them rather than booking directly. As horsewoofie and others pointed out, they're good for research but I just think it makes so much more sense to book directly with the provider.

I use booking.com a lot (as in over 100 reservations since 2015) and have had no issues with the company. It might be different if I booked hotels way ahead of time, but I usually do not. Room reservations through booking.com are usually about the same price as a direct reservation when I don't use a chain hotel (which I try to avoid), sometimes cheaper; it depends on where and when a hotel updates its rates on the various platforms.

The cancellation policy for each hotel and reservation type is laid out very clearly on the booking.com website. It can be tricky to find that information on a lot of hotel websites.

There's also the issue that independent-hotel websites often don't allow immediate bookings; you have to submit a request and wait for a response. I hate that when (as usual) I'm only booking a few days ahead. I need to know quickly whether the type of room I want is available. And why should I have to submit a request and wait for a response before knowing the room rate?

I also use booking.com a lot, for various reasons. Sometimes for ease of booking; often for the easy immediate cancellation if I need to; and sometimes small places don’t have their own booking site or it doesn’t work; or as acraven said, you have to email to ask. I ran into a strange (I thought) situation last year when I needed to book a lot of rooms at a large hotel chain in Dresden - I emailed to ask and they said they had no rooms available. So I got on booking.com and reserved all the rooms I needed. In Heidelberg I used it for a small hotel and while I was there, they told me that although they have to pay the booking.com fee, as a result they don’t have to do much of their own advertising and don’t have to pay to maintain their own booking site.

But I have never booked somewhere (or seen such) that changed the rate without my permission or without me having the option for free cancellation.

Sandy, thank you for the warning!

I also use Booking.com a lot for my domestic & international trips. After 2020, I pay a little more, if needed, to book refundable lodging and skip over those that are only non-refundable. Since I move hotels often during a trip, having all of my reservations on one website helps so much. And I like to stay in the small hotels that often don’t have their own reservation system, plus I appreciate that I was able to find them through Booking.

I booked my pre-tour hotel with the tour used in Ljubljana through Booking, and that hotel sent me a message to cancel that reservation and book through their own website - Hotel Mrak.

Re: Monastery Stays
First of all, we agreed to Monastery Stay's price for eight people and the number of rooms.
It is Rome and Monastery Stays was not cheap. But, our family could stay together.

Two weeks later, we got notice from Monastery Stays that an additional 400 Euros was added to
the first agreed-upon bill.

There is no choice, but to pay the added charge. One cannot get out of their contract. I trusted
that their word would be kept on the price. Both the price and the rental rooms were changed.

We did use a credit card. But, we did not know that your credit-card charge automatically goes through PayPal,
You have no choice, it goes through PayPal.

I hope that this clears up confusion.

If you have not already done so, I would leave feedback here... https://www.ricksteves.com/forms/guidebook-feedback-form

The Monastery Stays site shows RS book as being a source that recommends them.

RS hopefully would like to know what is happening

I guess the lesson here is to use Monastery Stays to find places, then book directly with the monastery.
I have several friends who do this and have really enjoyed every monastery they’ve stayed in.
Been booking through Booking.com for many years with no issues ever.