St Christopher's Inns Hostels

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A dorm bed at St Christopher’s cheapest London property is £13.90 a night, the same price in a mixed or a female-only room. A private en suite at the same hostel is £48, and a capsule at London Bridge is £30. In Berlin the entry price is €13.90 for a dorm and €58 for a private room.

What makes St Christopher’s different from a hostel you find on a booking site is the thing immediately below it: a Belushi’s bar, in the same building, at most of the properties. Both brands belong to Beds & Bars Ltd, company 05500765, whose registered activities at Companies House are listed as “youth hostels” and “public houses and bars” — which is the business model stated in two SIC codes.

That shapes who it suits. Book direct and you get a free welcome drink and 25% off every meal at that bar for your whole stay. If you want somewhere quiet, the bars in Paris are open until 5am on Friday and Saturday.

Where it is, and a property count that does not add up

St Christopher’s says “across 16 properties and nine cities”. Count the live property pages on its own site and you get 18, across ten cities.

The gap is partly explained: Flying Pig Downtown and Uptown in Amsterdam are partner hostels, not St Christopher’s own, and the site says so — “the 25% off food doesn’t apply there”. 16 own properties plus 2 partners is 18. The tenth city is Copenhagen, which has a live page but is missing from the nine-city list in the footer.

The cities, as listed: Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Bruges, Edinburgh, London, Newquay, Paris and Vienna, plus Copenhagen. London has four properties, Amsterdam three, Edinburgh, Berlin and Paris two each.

One oddity worth knowing before you book: six of the eighteen properties publish no prices at all — Barcelona Las Ramblas, Berlin Alexanderplatz, Bruges The Bauhaus, Copenhagen Downtown, Paris Canal and Paris Gare du Nord. They list room types and facilities and leave the rate blank. The Copenhagen page also appears to be serving review content belonging to London Bridge, which suggests it is unfinished.

What booking direct actually gets you

St Christopher’s makes four specific claims for booking on its own site rather than through an agent, and they are unusually concrete:

• At least 5% lower — “the rate is at least 5% lower for the same bed on the same dates”.
• A free welcome drink, at all 16 St Christopher’s properties.
• 25% off every meal at your hostel bar, for the whole stay.
• Pay on arrival — “no separate deposit” if you choose the free cancellation rate.

The perks arrive as an Adventurer Pass for Apple or Google Wallet in your check-in email, so there is nothing to print or remember.

The 25% food discount is the one with real money in it. The bar offers vary by property and are published per hostel — £3.80 for a pint of Fosters and 2-for-1 house spirits at London Bridge, 2 for €9 on Coronas at Amsterdam Winston. On a four-night stay eating in twice a day, 25% off is worth more than the 5% rate saving.

Two exclusions: the discount does not apply at the two Flying Pig partner hostels in Amsterdam, and at Berlin Alexanderplatz the on-site bar is not a Belushi’s at all — the nearest is a separate venue about ten minutes’ walk away, where direct bookers get a discount instead.

The cancellation window is published two different ways

This is the detail most likely to cost you a night’s money, and St Christopher’s states it inconsistently.

The terms and conditions say you can cancel “free of charge up to 24 hours prior to the check-in date”.

The book-direct page says: “Cancel at no charge until 23:59 two days before your check in date. For a Friday arrival, that means by the end of Wednesday.”

Those are not the same deadline. For a Friday check-in, the terms allow cancellation up to Thursday; the marketing page says Wednesday. Work to the earlier one — Wednesday — because that is the one that leaves you safe under either reading. Cancel late and the fee is the first night.

Separately, the non-refundable rate is unusually strict: it “may only be cancelled or modified free of charge within one hour from the time of booking”. One hour. Anything booked at the desk is non-refundable from the outset. And you cannot reserve without a card — the site answers its own question, “Can I make a reservation without a credit or debit card? No.”

Who can stay, which is stricter than most hostels

The age rules are detailed and they catch families out.

• Under-18s may not stay “unless accompanied by an adult aged at least 21”.
• The Amsterdam properties are strictly 18+ and take no under-18s at all.
• A minor must be in a private room or a privatised dorm. “Capsules and Pods are not valid options for minors.”
• No cots at any property, and children aged 2 and over need their own bed.
• There is no upper age limit.

Groups are handled in three tiers. Up to 9 books normally. 10 to 19 is a “Small Group Reservation”, must be fully prepaid, and gets free cancellation up to 7 days before arrival rather than the usual window. 20 or more goes through the Groups Sales Team. Amsterdam will not take groups of 10 or more unless booked through a separate group-booking site.

Stag and hen groups “must take entire rooms, cannot share”, and are not allowed at the Amsterdam properties at all.

What is included, and what is not

Included everywhere: linen and cleaning, stated plainly — “linen and cleaning are included in every reservation” — and free wifi.

Varies by property: towels. At London Shepherd’s Bush the facility list shows a charge for a towel; at Amsterdam Winston it is listed as included. Check the property page rather than assuming.

Not included: breakfast. It is sold as an extra, and the travel-agent programme offers it “at a discounted rate”, which confirms it is a chargeable add-on rather than part of the bed.

Lockers appear in dorm facility lists, but the terms describe them as “coin or card operated… where applicable and available” — so budget for a deposit and do not count on one being free.

On accessibility, most properties publish a short list: lift, step-free access, accessible rooms, accessible bathrooms. Bruges has no lift, Edinburgh Original lists no accessible bathrooms, Flying Pig Downtown lists only a lift, Newquay lists only beach access, and London Shepherd’s Bush has an accessibility heading with nothing under it. There is no narrative detail, no door widths and no contact route for access queries anywhere on the site, so anyone with a specific requirement will have to ring.

Where it falls short

No price on the site tells you when it applies. Every rate is a “from” figure with no date, no season and no stay length attached. The booking widget simply defaults to tonight. A hostel in Amsterdam in April and the same hostel in August are not the same price, and the published figure tells you nothing about which you are being quoted.

Nor whether a private room rate is per person or per room. Everything is published as “per night”. For a dorm that is unambiguous because you buy a bed. For a £48 private room it is the difference between £48 and £96 for two people, and the site does not say.

Six of eighteen properties publish no rates at all.

The cancellation deadline is stated two different ways on the operator’s own pages, 24 hours in one place and two full days in another.

The bar is the point, and the drawback. If you are there for a quiet night before an early train, a Belushi’s open until 5am in the same building is a problem, and the Paris properties say so explicitly.

And the corporate relationship is never stated in words. The site mentions Belushi’s on nearly every property page without once explaining that both brands are the same company. We established it from Companies House, not from the site.

How it compares, and when to use an agent instead

St Christopher’s publishes a travel-agent programme paying “a flat 10 percent off our public rates on every eligible booking”, valid for parties of up to 9. That is a bigger discount than the 5% it claims for booking direct — but the agent terms are harsher: full payment at the time of booking, free cancellation only up to 72 hours before arrival, and “later cancellations and no-shows charged at 100% of the booking value”.

So the choice is a real one. Direct gives you a lower-risk booking with pay-on-arrival and a 24-hour-ish cancellation window, plus the drink and the food discount. An agent may get you a larger headline discount with no flexibility at all.

There is also an INNsiders creator programme, which promises “a cut of every booking” and publishes no rate, no fixed amount and no cookie window — so nobody can judge whether it is worth joining.

Figures were taken from each provider's own published terms on 8 October 2026. Variable rates can change at any time — confirm the current rate with the provider before applying.