The ‘unethical’ travel-hack trend hotels hate

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.

Room upgrades, champagne and cake are among the freebies some travellers are receiving by lying about honeymoons and birthdays.Credit: iStock

“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 April 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!”

The trend comes alongside a sharp rise in “friendly fraud”, a tactic whereby a consumer makes an online shopping purchase with their own credit card, including for services such as hotels, and then requests a chargeback from the issuing bank after receiving the purchased goods or services.

Londoners Ricky Liu and his partner Tom, both in their 20s, deployed the honeymoon upgrade hack in December, also on an Asian cruise. On the first night of their stay in an upgraded cabin, a waitress arrived at Ricky and Tom’s dinner table with rainbow cocktails as other staff members waved their lit camera torches and Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love You blasted out over the ship’s speakers. Ricky – who admits he “felt the full weight of guilt” for lying – says there was another couple at dinner who were genuinely on their honeymoon and were cheering them on.

“We were asked about our wedding rings and we said they had gone for a fitting,” Liu admits. A video of the couple’s romantic moment has received 3.8 million likes.

Katrina Rohman is a marketing manager for hotel group Future Inns. She says the family-owned UK hotel group has “definitely seen a rise” in guests mentioning birthdays, anniversaries, or honeymoons at the time of booking in the hope of receiving an upgrade or a complimentary treat.

“Most requests are fairly tactful and say something along the lines of, ‘We are celebrating our anniversary during this stay and would love anything you might be able to offer to make it extra special’,” she says. Some guests, however, have more cheek: “They will outright ask for a suite upgrade, a bottle of champagne, or free dinners, even when they’ve booked a standard room.”

Vicky Saynor, owner of Bethnal & Bec Luxury Stays, says the improbable numbers of supposed event celebrants booking her luxury self-catering properties led the property owner to institute a formal policy of paid-for birthday/just married/ anniversary/babymoon upgrades in 2019.

“We simply couldn’t afford to do something special for everybody who asked for it,” she said. “Refusal often caused offence.” The property’s £20 ($A41.50) event add-on offering includes brownies, eco balloons and a banner, with organic prosecco or champagne available for an additional supplement. “Though when we know guests personally or are aware they are celebrating and don’t ask for something for free, we pop a small welcome gift into the room for them,” Saynor adds.

Some hoteliers are now asking for proof of birthday dates and wedding certificates before they wheel out the free fizz, with reports that reception staff at sunshine resorts in the US are performing “ring checks” (checking wedding bands for signs of long wear and tan lines). Rohman thinks hoteliers “develop a bit of a sixth sense” for spotting when guests are on the take.

Dr Charlotte Russell, a clinical psychologist and founder of The Travel Psychologist, understands why travel blagging tactics are on the rise. Russell says that the cost of living, soaring hotel rates and unrealistic expectations of the hotel-going experience that are broadcast via social media create a “perfect storm” to encourage guests to go after freebies.

As with any dishonest or morally questionable behaviour, she says, there are ways that guests justify this blagging to themselves: “By reconstruing their conduct (‘it’s not that bad’); minimising the negative consequences (‘it didn’t hurt anyone’); or blaming the recipients (‘they make the prices too high anyway’).”

Gemma Davies has no regrets and says that she will “definitely” try the travel hack again, albeit judiciously: “It would be tricky on a week-long all-inclusive where we would bump into people again and again and would maybe need to fake a proposal story,” she laughs.

“Would I do this again? Absolutely, yes,” Liu concludes.

*not her real name

The Telegraph, London