I was expecting yknow, space to store things, and security, and…space, and my own room, and that’s what I paid for. I’ve checked in English and Japanese on the main site, both are listed as apartment and アパート。
Sadly, this was for a Kyoto holiday I booked 3 months ago, and the last minute hotel prices have skyrocketed presumably due to Sakura, but it means I’m now here and it isn’t really affordable to book elsewhere.
As a result I’ve resigned myself to have to carry around all my valuables e.g. laptop with my during the day rather than leaving them where there’s no lock or anything, but all in all I’m a bit miffed.
Giving the listing *still* shows it’s an apartment, is there anything I can do given property and booking site both don’t really care, and ultimately I do still need to stay here now, or am I bang out of luck?
Edit:thanks for the help and information all. Booking service and accommodation played ping pong with each other before agreeing to a 2 night refund. Booked elsewhere.
11 comments
Coin lockers are your friend.
You can use lockers for your laptop at most major train stations.
Who knows? These details are so vague. How does one rent an apartment for a few days? Via Expedia? Complain to whoever you did the booking with.
Call Consumer Affairs in the morning.
https://www.kokusen.go.jp/e-hello/map/index.html
Well I’d screenshot the site you booked on it they are trying to make it look like it’s a private apartment. But I would bet you five bucks it does say somewhere it’s a dorm.
Whether it says apartment or not doesn’t matter. Does not mean automatically that’s it private.
I’m going to assume you don’t speak Japanese since you mentioned the English version.
Might be a high chance that the English version was just google translated and the translation just messed it up.
I would make sure it’s not a personal error before starting a fuzz.
However, if it is their fault make a complaint and make sure to get your money back.
Apartment and アパートare false cognates. The Japanese word merely refers to a 1 or 2 story building divided into several separate units. It does not imply or guarantee your own private space within one of those units. So the English site may be false advertising as a result of bad translation but the Japanese site would take legal priority. If you posted a link we could tell you for sure.
I was up in Tokyo recently and noticed a lot of cheap business hotels around my crappy place that showed up on no searches when I was booking. Maybe pop into one of those and ask if you see one.
Maybe get a net room on a budget
Maybe look around Osaka? We never managed to book accomodation in Kyoto but Osaka has so many options
The Kansai area is notorious for having packed hotels and crazy prices. One thing that I used to do in business trips to stay below company reimbursement limits is to book hotels in Nagoya, then take the Shinkansen to Kyoto/Osaka and back. It is generally cheaper than crazy Kansai prices.