Ben Thanh - Luxury Serviced Apartments

The rooftop bar was closed for construction while we were there, though the pool was great. We’d booked a six-bed dorm for six days, but overbooking meant three separate two-bed rooms on the first night, then another room move the next day. The place was clean and generally nice, with a few janky bits. It’s centrally located in District 1 and works as a decent budget hotel, but don’t expect high-class accommodation.

The location is the one thing in its favor. The apartment we got didn’t match the booking.com listing: it had one bathroom instead of the advertised two, and the second bedroom was just a partition between the kitchen and dining area. The supposed coffee machine was only an electric jug. The table was sticky, the walls had dirty marks, and the city view was across to a vacant block. The pool area badly needs renovation too.

After an early flight, we arrived at 7 a.m. with our family of five and waited until 3:30 p.m., 8.5 hours, before they finally said there was no room. We’d called the day before and been told the booking was confirmed. Four times, reception staff said the room was booked and being cleaned. There are several other reviews describing the same thing. Some people may have lost their booking money after cancelling within 24 hours. We had to fight to avoid losing ours when we cancelled, so couldn’t review through bookings.com. It feels like a scam. Other guests in the lobby said their bill at checkout was higher than the bookings.com price, and a man with a two-night booking was told he had to move to another building for night two.

We had booked an apartment through BOOKING.COM for two nights, but when we got to the building we were told to wait for the owner. He eventually arrived and said the apartment had been damaged, so there was no room, and nowhere else available either. They hadn’t contacted us to say the booking was cancelled. We ended up paying for two taxi rides and had nowhere to stay. Based on other comments, Booking.com seems to share some blame too. Not impressed at all, zero stars.