It looks like you cannot book flights on the Vietnam airlines website. Has anyone found another way to book?

Is there a reliable agent in the U.S. to use that allows you to use a credit card?

If you call Vietnam air in Vietnam, will they speak english?

Any other suggestions?

Thanks
Paul

You cannot book on their site--never could.

You can either use a good agent in Asia (I, and others here, would suggest Eddie @ SEA Travel in Bangkok: [email protected])

Or if you'd prefer, last I checked, you could book Vietnam Air tickets through Expedia...but when I had looked into that last year, Expedia was nominally more expensive than going through Eddie.

For our up coming trip, I used our American Express travel agent for our flight to Hanoi on VN Air. There was a fee, but there usually is with any TA bought tickets.

We booked several different tickets at one time so the fee wasn't to bad per ticket. Plus, I now have an agent who speaks English to go back to if there is a problem. Having an agent to work thingd out has been helpful in the past when problems happened,

Thanks. I had just remembered Eddie and sent him an email a few minutes ago.

Filmwill..must be in LA. I am too. Did you have any favorite things you did in Hanoi?

Hi Paulo
We were in Vietnam in June and we booked our flights through local travel agents (in Vietnam) or via the hotel tour desk. We had no issues and two of them we booked before we left Australia. Both of those were with the hotel direct and there seemed to be only a couple of dollars difference. I used my credit card each time and again had no issues.

thanks Karen

I bought my roundtrip SGN-HAN-SGN ticket thru the tour desk at the Sheraton on the day of departure. The price was very reasonable/inexpensive.

hi paulo,
are you trying to book from the us to vietnam? we did this trip from vancouver with cathay pacific to hong kong and transfer hong kong to hanoi(with air asia, one way)...we visited the city and took a over night trip to cat bau(ladies island) there we visited caves, boat rides around the island, and you can either sleep on the junket or on land...here if you want can buy the most nicest black pearls...for a very reasonable price...if this is your first visit...it really is an eye opener...the people are friendly but very poor...they only see green buck in your eyes...the food is very inexpensive and so tasty...foot massages everyday for 5.00 - we did not stay in hanoi too long...some of the people who we had met along the way also went to ankor, cambodia...we went along the coast and stopped in hoi an - if you need clothing made? this is the place...unbelievable pricing...my daughter had 2 wool coats with lining made for her...2 tops...for about 75.00 this was done by a small tailor ...the address is 50 le loi - cloth shop. contact person is tho
pick your things, please bring your own pictures. and all is ready either in the late afternoon or early next day...the suits are made to measure...110.00 jacket, shirt, trousers, tie, vest...after a few days along the coast we started down to the south. we booked everything through our hotel concierge person and just basically bought the tickets that morning for the afternoon or next day travel. da lat is where the waterfalls are and then to ho chi minh city. have a pleasant stay and a safe journey!

Thanks everyone. I am only trying to book flight tickets into Hanoi from Shanghai and then out from Hanoi to Hong Kong. We are not traveling to other sites within Vietnam on this trip.

I figured out that if you use the Cathay Pacific website but choose the option that says your home base is Hong Kong, you can book codeshared Vietnam Airlines flights using this site. It requires having a "verified by Visa" card but otherwise was much like booking any other flight on any site. The last step they ask for your VISA verification info and it takes a bit but it did indeed issue me an e-ticket. And best of all, it turned out to be far cheaper than any of the agents listed here by other Fodorites or by anyplace I found online. The next best choice was to use CITS (USA). There prices were quite good and would allow me to use a credit card. They also had an LA area office that made it a bit easier.
Tel: (626) 568-8993
Fax: (801) 681 2652(efax)
E-mail: [email protected]
http:// www.citsusa.com