Asia - Vietnam Travel Agent - Any experience of Footprint

Have been using a Vietnamese travel agency called Footprint to plan a trip. Recommended in Rough Guide and/or Lonley Planet I think. In planning they have been very responsive and very helpful but before booking wanted to know if anyone has used them or has any feedback positive or negative?

http://www.footprintsvietnam.com/

Thanks

Waggy

I usually do my own thing in VN, but Footprints are well known and I did meet one couple who'd booked with them and were happy. Another one is www.threeland.com (based in Hanoi). Actually my friend had requested a Chinese speaking guide - and he turned out to be rubbish. Well, its not so easy for agencies to find Chinese speaking guides as English ones. When she complained they quickly swapped him. So you could ask them for a quote too just to compare prices...

In the end, it often just comes down to the guide on the day and guides move between companies alot and are typically freelance... Better to get a good one in the first place, but I was pretty impressed by Threeland's responsiveness in fixing the problem as soon as they were aware of it. Also the deal included "all meals" - and they by no means skimped here, they were always taken somewhere decent.

Make sure you're clear about which hotels you are getting and any extras - eg surcharges if paying by credit card - which is normal in VN. Travelling from the UK it can be more efficient to take GBP and pay directly with that, or change to dong on arrival and pay in dong. Getting USD cash in the UK is expensive, as you know.

Finally, if you've got the time and scheduling isn't an issue there's nothing to stop you just booking a hotel and arranging stuff when you arrive. In the case of my friend's Threeland's quote, it was pretty competitive and she would have saved little if anything by doing it herself on arrival.

Have a great time!

Thanks Jimbo.

I usually do my own thing to but we only have 10 nights in Vietnam and don't want to wait until we arrive to arrange things. Footprint have put together a good tour concentrating on south and coast (Saigon, Meekong, Nah Trang and Hoi Ann) in the time available and still built in some relaxation time which we want. I costed something similar with UK operators like Scott Dunn and they were substantially cheaper. I'm sure I could do it cheaper myself but the hassle factor is worth a little and its nice to be met at airports off long flights and have all internal flights and tansfers sorted in advance.

I will check out threeland to compare cost. Thansk for tip on GBP, I was going to take USD but if you think its pointless and GBP and Credit cards are the way to go then I will take your advice.

I costed something similar with UK operators like Scott Dunn and they were substantially cheaper
....
Thansk for tip on GBP, I was going to take USD but if you think its pointless and GBP and Credit cards are the way to go then I will take your advice.

Yep, I think the UK operators must find life tough these days as people book directly with agents and cut the middle man out. Often they do little more than subcontract to local providers.

For cash, I would just take some GBP20s and GBP50s (untorn, better without writing on). Maybe change GBP20 at the airport on arrival - just to the right immediately after you pass the customs x-ray and before you walk into the main throng. That will give you enough dong to keep you going. The rate is not the best but its not a rip-off.

You can change more in central Saigon - my usual place is on Le Loi near the theatre. The Givalry cafe is on the corner - its the souvenir shop with the Eximbank booth a few doors in. Its open early 'til late - certainly I've been there 10pm before now. For changing cash there's generally no minimum, no commission. They just display the rate and that's what you get. The buy/sell rate is tight. I can't think of any normal situation in VN where you must pay in USD and they won't accept the VND equivalent. VND is the usual currency on the street - and in hotels and "posh" tourist places (where prices might be shown in USD) they will generally take the VND equivalent at a fair rate.

I use Nationwide Visa when travelling because they don't charge a commission. Cash machines in VN generally charge a fixed fee per transaction - usually VND20,000 or VND30,000 (65p to quid). Vietnamese places often insist adding up to 4% if you want to pay by credit card - though supermarket, airline offices, top hotels usually don't.

Its not so easy to change money/find cash machines outside of the main cities (ie up the Mekong). I wouldn't worry about changing too much into Dong in advance. If you have too much left over, you can change it back before you leave and you lose little as the spreads are tight. Or what I sometimes do is change to another currency (eg Euros/Yen/USD) if I have another trip coming up to somewhere else.

You probably won't need much cash if everything's built in to the package.

Thanks Jimbo.

I usually do my own thing to but we only have 10 nights in Vietnam and don't want to wait until we arrive to arrange things. Footprint have put together a good tour concentrating on south and coast (Saigon, Meekong, Nah Trang and Hoi Ann) in the time available and still built in some relaxation time which we want. I costed something similar with UK operators like Scott Dunn and they were substantially cheaper. I'm sure I could do it cheaper myself but the hassle factor is worth a little and its nice to be met at airports off long flights and have all internal flights and tansfers sorted in advance.

I will check out threeland to compare cost. Thansk for tip on GBP, I was going to take USD but if you think its pointless and GBP and Credit cards are the way to go then I will take your advice.


Just to further the cash thing... You will likely start out in good size cities, and cash machines are widely available (especially district 1 in HCMC). Many smaller towns (Hue, Nha Trang, Hoi An,etc... have ATM's as well). I always bring some west money (USD for me) in case you need to exchange, but always get most of my spending money from ATM's in big enough increments to offset the small transaction fee charged by some of the banks ATM's (not all charge). Many machines limit your single transaction to 2Mil dong -- so if you are there to shop... you may need to take cash out multiple times per day.~90 GBP

Many machines limit your single transaction to 2Mil dong -- so if you are there to shop... you may need to take cash out multiple times per day.~90 GBP

I've only come across one ATM in VN that let you take out more than 2mil--it was a Citibank machine in Saigon (I think it was about 4 or 5 blocks from Ben Thanh market) that had a limit of 3mil. BTW, 2mil dong is about 65 GBP.

Many machines limit your single transaction to 2Mil dong -- so if you are there to shop... you may need to take cash out multiple times per day.~90 GBP

Yep though I noticed on my last trip about a month ago the limit had been raised on some of them. In particular, the HSBC machines in central Saigon (eg at their branch in the Metropolitan building by the cathedral and the ATM in Nguyen Hue near the corner of Le Loi opposite the side entrance to the Rex) were both giving VND5M in one go. I think the charge was VND30,000..., so a quid on GBP150. That's some serious souvenir buying, even by Dong Khoi boutique standards! Another one I used was giving 4M in one go - might have been the Vietcombank machine in Diamond Plaza, but I forget now.

I've only come across one ATM in VN that let you take out more than 2mil--it was a Citibank machine in Saigon (I think it was about 4 or 5 blocks from Ben Thanh market) that had a limit of 3mil. BTW, 2mil dong is about 65 GBP.

Hopefully things will improve now that:

1) VN people have more money themselves and are using cash machines

2) A VND200,000 note has just been introduced. (About GBP6.5/USD13).

Although there has been a VND500,000 around for some time now, it seems they don't want to put them in cash machines. When my company asked about limits on cash machines (because we wanted to pay our staff via the bank, but the Vietcombank ATM in our office building would only dispense VND2M), they said it was simply related to the number of banknotes that could be physically dispensed in one transaction. The VND2M limit was based on older machines that could only dispense 40 banknotes at a time - and there wasn't a guaranteed supply of the VND100,000 notes - so the limit was 40 x VND50,000. Having said that, the Vietcombank machine in Quang Trung in Hanoi would always happily give me up to VND3.5M (35x VND100,000) about 5 years ago.