Our first day in Hanoi got off to a bit of a rocky start. We read in our books to be mindful of taxi scams from the airport as taxi drivers will oftentimes tell passengers their intended hotel is closed or burned down to shuttle them to a buddy’s hotel & split any profits. To avoid that drama, we booked a private car w our hotel, reserved on hotels.com for $30 a night (prepaid). Smart right? Lonely Planet needs to update their warning to also include another scam.
Upon arrival at the hotel, we were informed by the manager our room was unavailable bc there was an issue w the bathroom & they are otherwise sold out so they would like to take us to another hotel a block away where we will get an equivalent or better room for same charge or they would pay the difference. My BS antenna went up. After several questions & confirmations including the name of the new hotel so I could quickly check TripAdvisor rating & address, we left following the bell boy who spoke no English. He took us to a hotel a block away. Problem was, it was a different hotel than the one the manager told us. I called BS, the front desk speed dialed our old hotel, reprimanded the bell boy & then we were off to the actual hotel, arriving a block later. Hotel 3 looks fine, maybe even nicer than the first. The front desk staff agree to show us to proposed room & prior to heading upstairs, I made it clear to the bell boy that he needed to wait for us until we accept the room (even though we’d walked maybe 4 blocks, the Hanoi winding Old Quarter streets makes it quite difficult). Room 1 was fine but for only one King bed & a window facing a brick wall so we declined it bc we specifically booked a room w 2 double beds & a window w a city view. Room 2 met those requests & even had a tiny balcony & so we accepted the room. Here it comes… “I’m sorry madam but to book this room, you’ll need to pay a $15 per night upcharge.” Boom. It may seem like peanuts to most people, & that’s exactly why I bet this bait-&-switch scam works bc travelers want rid of the hassle & just want a room. Not a chance was this flying with me out of sheer principal. I insisted our original hotel pay the difference & we headed downstairs to call them. Unsurprisingly, these guys had the hotel on speed dial too & spoke directly w the manager & sales manager & refused to give me the phone when I demanded to talk to both. So off we went back to our original hotel, w the bell boy & front desk dude from hotel 3 carrying our backpacks. I talked to the sales manager, expressed my frustration & she threw the hotel manager under the bus. The hotel manager apologized profusely & surprise, surprise, the original room we booked was indeed available. What a run-around but a totally awesome Hanoi experience!!! Not a chance were we getting taken. But it left a real sour taste in our mouth for the hotel, where we had only booked 2 nights to ensure we liked it & the area. We grabbed some street food, drank some bia hoi & went to a travel agency to help us book a couple side trips. Turns out, due to availability & timing, it made more sense to abandon prepaid night 2 at the scam hotel & head to the mountains, later returning to Hanoi. The next morning, upon checkout, we refused to pay the $18 taxi charge from airport bc of the hotel scam, they accepted so we were out a whole $12 & had a phenomenal story.