I am getting some aggravation from Vietnamstay, which is so highly regarded in this forum. Several hotels I have asked them about are "fully booked" and they are trying to substitute the Hang Ngoc chain, which I am not convinced about. Has anyone used Hotels-in-Vietnam? Are they reliable and responsive?

If you would like to try ours her email is [email protected], or the owner is [email protected]

lots of these discount site get special commissions for certain properties so that may be the problem...

have you tried contacting the hotel yourself directly??

I am sure different hotels and different companies have different arrangements. But, for the hotels we stayed in - they got a better rate than we could find on any discount site. Verify it yourself for your particular situation I guess would be the best advice.

All: Thanks. I did try to contact the hotels directly and from several got no answer. I tried the Galaxy hotel in Hanoi directly and got back a message that their mailbox was full and could accommodate no more messages. So I'm thinking maybe all their business comes from booking agents, not from individuals, and that the commission each hotel pays determines whether they get the recommendations. Or maybe they actually are booked up; we are going in December, which may be busy.

I don't know if this would help but Asiaoz / Hotelclub have quite a few places ( Australia based ) in Vietnam, try this for Hanoi, do put in dates as it shows by dates what is available for those particular nights, and see what's available, a lot around Asia they have Instant confirmations and rates ( well when we have used for Singapore etc ) quite ok.

http://b2b.hotelclub.net/Enter.asp?i...sp%3Fid%3D2477

If you are going within 20 days a lot of last minute discounts but only good for within 20 days.

http://b2b.ratestogo.com/enter.asp?id=5604

That might help