Contact Us

1. Email us

To get a useful answer on the first reply, include whichever of these apply to you:

• your booking ID or refund ID, if the message is about a booking
• the hostel or PG name, and the city
• the email address or phone number your Hostelova account uses
• a screenshot, if something looked wrong on screen

Please do not email identity documents such as Aadhaar unless we have specifically asked for them. Verification documents are uploaded inside the owner app, where they are stored privately and are never publicly accessible.

2. Students — bookings, payments and refunds

Most booking questions are answered faster inside the app than by email, because your booking is already in front of you there:

• Booking status, receipts and invoices: open My Bookings in the Hostelova app.
• Refund progress: My Bookings shows the live stage — Pending, Under Review, Initiated, Processing or Completed — with a Refund ID and an estimated date.
• Cancelling: cancel within 3 days of booking and before your move-in date to be eligible for a refund of the booking amount; the service fee is not refundable.

If a payment left your account but the booking did not appear, email us with the payment reference and we will trace it. Money that was captured without a confirmed booking is refunded in full.

The full rules are set out in the refund and cancellation policy, and the FAQ covers the questions students ask us most often.

3. Hostel owners — listings, verification and payouts

Listing a hostel, PG or flat on Hostelova is free. There is no brokerage and no subscription.

• Listing or claiming a property: start from the List your hostel page, or claim an existing listing from the claim page.
• Verification: identity and ownership documents are reviewed by our team, usually within 48 hours. If something is missing we email you rather than silently rejecting it.
• Payouts: each paid booking creates a settlement entry in the owner app. Once we transfer it, the bank UTR or UPI reference and the date are recorded on that entry, so a payout can always be checked rather than argued about.
• Changing bank details: payout details are locked once saved. Request a change from the owner app and an admin unlocks it after checking.

If a payout looks wrong or late, email us with the booking ID and the hostel name and we will send you the settlement record for it.

4. Report a listing, a safety concern or a bug

Tell us and we will act on it. Reports about misleading listings, hidden charges, harassment or anything unsafe are treated as urgent and are looked at the same working day wherever we can.

• A listing that is inaccurate, misleading or no longer exists
• A hostel asking for money outside Hostelova, or adding charges that were not shown at checkout
• Conduct that breaks our community guidelines
• A bug, a broken page, or a security issue in the website or apps

For a suspected security vulnerability, email us before disclosing it publicly and give us a reasonable window to fix it. We will confirm receipt and keep you updated.

If you feel unsafe at a property, contact local emergency services first. Then tell us, so we can take the listing down.

5. Privacy, data and account deletion

To ask what personal data we hold about you, to correct it, or to have your account and its data deleted, email us from the address registered on your account so we can confirm it is you.

The account deletion policy explains what is removed, what we are required to retain — booking and payment records, for the periods Indian tax and accounting rules require — and how long it takes. The privacy policy explains what we collect and why.

6. Press, partnerships and everything else

For press enquiries, campus partnerships, or working with us on student housing in a new city, use the same email address and put the subject in the first line. We are expanding across Uttar Pradesh and are glad to hear from colleges and student bodies.

Hostelova operates from Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India, and currently serves Lucknow while expanding across the state.