The ‘unethical' travel-hack trend hotels hate

The Age

19-05-2025

Gemma Davies*, 33 and from Manchester in the UK, caught the honeymoon upgrade bug on a trip to Vietnam in 2024. Davies had been sent an advance questionnaire from a cruise she had booked with her girlfriend in Hạ Long Bay, a Unesco World Heritage Site famed for its limestone islands and emerald waters.
Davies had noticed Tripadvisor reviewers who were on their honeymoon had been given generous upgrades on the two-night riverboat cruise.
'The questionnaire asked me if we were celebrating anything and I thought: why not say we're on honeymoon too? Although to be honest we have zero intention of getting married!'
When the couple arrived, their cabin had been upgraded and their bed was adorned with towels folded into swan shapes and scattered rose petals. 'That was lovely,' Davies recalls. The trouble came when the pair arrived for their seating at dinner and found staff had flanked their table with a 'ginormous' illuminated heart and a banner reading 'happy honeymoon'.
'Everyone started cheering and clapping, which I found hilarious,' Davies recalls. 'My girlfriend, who is an introvert, said: 'Oh my God, what have you done?''
Despite the 'challenge' of spending two days posing as honeymooners, Davies reprised the freebie-hunting tactic at two further hotels in Vietnam, where the couple enjoyed room upgrades, free cakes and champagne and more towel swans and petals – and left glowing reviews after their stays. 'I don't see it as taking the p--- at all,' Davies argues. 'It's more a way of amplifying your experience as a hotel guest.'
Advice pieces on how to blag perks such as hotel and flight upgrades have been a staple of travel magazines since the 1990s. What's new these days is a subculture of unabashed social media 'travel hacks'. When, on Apr 20, TikTokker @rod.davis35 wrote the post: 'Unethical travel hack: fake a honeymoon at check-in!', superimposed on a picture of the sea-view balcony of his upgraded suite in Greece, it received half a million views and tens of thousands of likes.
But not everyone celebrated Rod's 'win'. Italian hotel receptionist Leila Al Azawi responded: 'If you are on a REAL honeymoon and don't get special attention you can say thank you to all these liars who try every other day!', while Greek hotelier Panos weighed in: 'As a hotel worker, we know your tricks; don't be so sure!'.