our first adventure in saigon was being totally scammed with regard to the “luxury hotel” we had booked on the normally very reputable hotel booking site hotels.com. it had multiple great – in retrospect scammed – reviews. we showed up in the middle of the night, and after much confusion began to realize that it really wasn’t a hotel as advertised; rather a random private apartment in a huge apartment complex, operated by who-knows-who, but definitely someone who was difficult to get in touch with and did not speak english. after being turned away by the lobby staff we ultimately did find the key to the apartment in an abandoned mailbox after obtaining help to translate some text messages from vietnamese. the promised “buffet breakfast” ended up being cold take-out pho left outside the apartment door. it would have been fine if it were advertised as an airbnb and were half the price, but kind of disappointing when one is anticipating a nice hotel for a vacation. apparently these scams are really common. as soon as the booking site shuts down the account for fraud there are new “hotels” popping up with the same pictures. so beware!