海角乱伦

What dates are you trying to book in V农ng T脿u?

If it's on the weekend or the upcoming Reunification Day-International Labor Day holiday (April 30-May 01), then many hotels will have increased rates because they anticipate being fully booked or nearly so, and they want to make money while the sun shines. Weekdays in V农ng T脿u are normally quite quiet because there are almost zero international tourists coming there.

But, to answer your question about scammers, I would say yes, there are probably many using bait and switch tactics as you describe or fake photos.

It's the reason I never book ahead, not only in Vi锚t Nam but also the neighboring countries. I use tripadvisor and google maps to choose what looks like the best option based on the reviews, location and photos, which usually works out well.

Have you checked Ibis Styles VT? As an international chain, they may be an exception in terms of raising their rates during busy periods?

Yes unfortunately this is a thing and just something to watch out for. This is not only just a thing on booking but all sites. Its quite often they will show photos of rooms that are unavailable or flat out dont exist and put you in a completely different room. I think the worse situation was my wife and I booked a private cabin with beachfront and Mui Ne and when we got to the hotel they claimed all they had left was a small room on the 3rd floor with no AC.

The other issue we have run into multiple times is that some places just dont HOLD your booking and they will claim its because you didnt deposit. Nowhere did they ever ask for a deposit and booking litterally never ask you for a deposit but they say the room isnt secured unless you send them 50% or whatever. We were told multiple times they had no rooms even with a reseveration because of no deposit.

I dont think its a scam its just a completely different culture and how they view these sites. It also happens on AirBNB and any other site.

I have used BOOKING for many years and in several countries with a 95% satisfaction.
IN VN I have used it with pretty good results as well, though I did take a room in Siagon where they gave me a much lesser room that not only didn't match the room pix, but the room was not in any pix on the main hotel page.
Not a big deal. Well I was trying to take a room in Vung Tau for a few days and every listing I booked, resulted in them sending me a rather long form message telling me to call in the next 15 minutes. When the call is made they claim the price is one third higher than the quoted price.
This happened with 5 different places.
Also I noticed a number of listings that are temptingly low. They require it to be paid in advance and it would be very easy to overlook the faint notice of the additional cost for "fees and taxes," which were $1000 US on up. I can imagine people thinking the room is $95.00 and getting charged ten times that.

To make things even more frustrating, it seems in VN, any attempt to contact BOOKING will just recycle you back to contact the Hotel your complaint would be about.

I should mention that I stayed in Vung Tau some months back with no problem and stayed at one of the same the same places with no problem.

Has anyone had such an experience, and are there other online sites that I might consider using here? - @Dannyroc3

Agree with many of the things the other guys have said, especially what Jay has written, since he was previously a long-term resident there in VT & I know him personally.

I no longer have any sort of problems as you've mentioned, but I also have the highest customer rating with BookingDOTcom and Agoda (my personal 1st choice now). I like Agoda because they updated their app to allow me to choose to show just the price for the booking or total price for my entire booking including taxes and any fees. That's the option I always choose and now I never get surprised with even 1 VN膼 overcharge.聽

I especially agree with Jay that a search in any location within Vietnam always starts with Google maps. Haters really love Google maps, so you're never going to get inflated reviews, as long as you are careful to only book at a place that has a significant number of views, say 50 or 100 or more.

I always open up the reviews on Google maps and I toggle to the lowest rated reviews. That's where a lot of the sneaky little habits of some properties are exposed. I also never ever book a place rated less than 4 stars out of 5 on Google maps.

Sometimes that means that I book a place that is much more expensive than most of the other options that my wife would be willing to accept, but when I'm traveling I simply won't accept anything other than an enjoyable experience in my lodging.聽

All of the booking apps have begun to go downhill because Airbnb is more strictly controlled, and the landlords really don't want to be restricted to their rules or their system of dealing with customer complaints.

There are some trustworthy properties in VT, but unfortunately there are many that are, at best, deceptive in their profiles. That's another reason to check out Google maps first because people will often include photos in their little reviews when they encounter something unpleasant or untruthful.

If someone asked me to quickly recommend a place that's absolutely no risk in VT I would probably tell them to stay at the M瓢峄漬g Thanh hotel near Front Beach or the nearby Fusion Hotel or The Ibis Styles which Jay mentioned at Back Beach (Superior sunrise views in the morning from almost all windows but cool in the afternoon because they are mostly Western exposure), or the more Vietnamese traditional Green Hotel a few steps away, or The Pullman further along Back Beach.

Notice I didn't recommend anything along Phan Chu Trinh street for a short stay...

Good luck

P.S. This please is probably an option in a pinch... 馃槈

@jayrozzetti23

So I certainly expect prices to flow with demand, but once a stay is booked at their listed price and they immediately send an email telling you to call in the next 15 minutes (where they then raise the price) that's an aggravating waste of time. I would rather take another higher-priced place than go along with that.

I guess they do it by phone to avoid a record on Booking messages.

My subject line used the term VN, when Vung Tau is the only place that has had this dramatic of a -bait and-switch- on the price going.聽 I got that lesser room in Saigon once, but that's a lower level of scam.

I have never heard of using Google maps to do anything other than find a location so I will have to explore that.

My default maps is APPLE,聽 which, as I mentioned in another post, can be unreliable. it will send you to a place and nothing is there.... and then the marker disappears.聽

I gave up and my GF found a place on TikTok or some such site. Its turned out ok.

@OceanBeach92107

Thanks as always. You mentioned Agoda: I had forgot all about that, I had the app but never used it because it mostly seemed to have what Booking has, but I will try that one more often.

@OceanBeach92107
Thanks as always. You mentioned Agoda: I had forgot all about that, I had the app but never used it because it mostly seemed to have what Booking has, but I will try that one more often. - @Dannyroc3

Always set it to give you pricing in Vietnam Dong.

I used to do All of my online bookings with bookingDOTcom. Also HotelsDOTcom (largely because they accept PayPal for payment). I hated Agoda, because every time I would get sucked into one of their low price deals, the added taxes and fees would only appear at checkout when I was ready to pay. no real warning ahead of time, so no way of seeing if it was truly a good deal. by the time I would get to final checkout the price was higher than what was being offered on other services.

but as I mentioned, they changed their app to allow a person to search for the total price of the entire stay, including all fees and taxes. and since they've done that I have found that their prices are very competitive and often the best I can do. I'm really happy with their system for contacting the property. it's all done through messages that are routed through Agoda, so if I have any problems I can simply report the issue and they have access to the entire conversation back and forth. so I personally would never respond by calling someone who said that I needed to call them apart from the message system. I would tell them to communicate with me there or I'm on to something else. hopefully you're going to start to have good results with booking

GF absolutely refuses to phone the vendor for online-orders/bookings. She says they not only try to up the price, they also sell your name and # to telephone scammers.

@OceanBeach92107

Yes I agree, The reason they prompted me to call them is so their new price is not on the messages. IN one case, I messaged them back (rather than call) to ask if the price would change, and they never replied.

The few problems I have had with places found on booking were mostly one-off things like a place I reserved in dist 1 where the room was on the 3rd or 5th floor and there was no elevator. Normally, I might have accepted the opportunity for a little exercise but it is too hot in Saigon for that.聽

So here is an example of a listing with 1K in tax and fees.聽

I have used BOOKING for many years and in several countries with a 95% satisfaction.
IN VN I have used it with pretty good results as well, though I did take a room in Siagon where they gave me a much lesser room that not only didn't match the room pix, but the room was not in any pix on the main hotel page.
Not a big deal. Well I was trying to take a room in Vung Tau for a few days and every listing I booked, resulted in them sending me a rather long form message telling me to call in the next 15 minutes. When the call is made they claim the price is one third higher than the quoted price.
This happened with 5 different places.
Also I noticed a number of listings that are temptingly low. They require it to be paid in advance and it would be very easy to overlook the faint notice of the additional cost for "fees and taxes," which were $1000 US on up. I can imagine people thinking the room is $95.00 and getting charged ten times that.

To make things even more frustrating, it seems in VN, any attempt to contact BOOKING will just recycle you back to contact the Hotel your complaint would be about.

I should mention that I stayed in Vung Tau some months back with no problem and stayed at one of the same the same places with no problem.

Has anyone had such an experience, and are there other online sites that I might consider using here? - @Dannyroc3

Regarding Vung Tau I can not praise enough Annata Beach hotel, we stayed there 4 times already and will be back there in September... they have nice rooms with ocean views that are very affordable and when you book long term the price stay the same (28 nights) but of course like any other hotel in VT their rates are different during the week than they are on Friday and Saturday nights

I am now booking straight with them, by passing completely booking dot com (where I reached level 3 Genius many years ago)

...I am now booking straight with them, by passing completely booking dot com (where I reached level 3 Genius many years ago) - @rogergarinmichaud

I've tried that in the past, even going down to the front desk to extend stays at hotels. Every time I did, I found the price higher than posted on agoda. On a couple of occasions the front clerk(s) would tell me (in a hushed tone) that it's cheaper to book online. I'd go back up to my room, log on to agoda, book my extension, then walk back downstairs to pay.

It appears to me to be counter-intuitive that booking at the hotel's front desk would be more expensive, seeing as how the hotel doesn't have to pay a commission to the booking site.

@Aidan in HCMC

I had this same experience. I thought I was cutting out the middle man which would be good for them.....

@Dannyroc3

Good to know...聽 Have you tried Agoda?聽 I know it's obvious but... maybe different standards?聽 聽

@wealthychef

I had forgotten about Agoda and when I tried to use it a few weeks ago, it lacked one feature I often use. I forget what that feature was now, maybe the filter was not so good, or maybe the option to enter your search and click on the map to see where available places are located.聽

@wealthychef
I had forgotten about Agoda and when I tried to use it a few weeks ago, it lacked one feature I often use. I forget what that feature was now, maybe the filter was not so good, or maybe the option to enter your search and click on the map to see where available places are located. - @Dannyroc3

Agoda's maps SUCK! Absolutely useless.

When I've used Agoda, I've used it in tandem with Google maps to determine the actual location of the hotel.