Vietnam Airlines writes the sentence most carriers avoid — “Transit service is free.” It means it. The hard part is the three eligibility gates, and one of them rules out most European trips.
🏨 Hotel + meals included
🕗 From 6h in Saigon
🛂 Visa fee covered
Last verified: August 2026.
⚡ Quick reference
Transit Tour (tour codes HA1–HA4, SG1–SG4)
Hanoi (HAN) and Ho Chi Minh City (SGN)
8h at Hanoi · 6h at Ho Chi Minh City
“Transit service is free.”
Hotel, city tour, 1–3 meals, visa fee if applicable
8 days ahead (visa needed) · 72 working hours (visa-exempt)
Vietnam Airlines-operated, ticket number starts 738
Vietnam must be your TRANSIT point, not your destination
Most airline stopover schemes give you a discount code and call it a programme. Vietnam Airlines
does something rarer: it puts you in a car at the airport, drives you to a hotel, feeds you, takes you
round the city and brings you back — and the page describing it ends with four words most
carriers will not print. “Transit service is free.”
That is the good news, and it is genuinely good. The catch is that the eligibility rules are
stricter than anything else in this series, and they are spread across three separate gates that all
have to pass. Get through them and you have the most generous long-layover product of any airline I
have written up. Miss one and you get nothing at all.
The three gates, in the order they will trip you
Take these in order. The tour table is the part everyone reads and the part that matters least,
because if you fail any of the three below you never reach it.
- The flight must be operated by Vietnam Airlines and your ticket number must start with
738. That is the airline’s own numeric prefix. A codeshare sold to you by a partner but
flown by someone else will not do, and neither will a VN-marketed flight on another carrier’s stock. - Your ticket must have first departed on or after 26 June 2026 for the current
route rules. The tour programme itself was separately updated for itineraries departing on or after
13 June 2026 — two different dates on two different clauses, which is exactly the kind of detail
that gets flattened in summaries. - Your ticket’s country of issue must be paired with an approved destination region.
This is the one that catches European travellers.
Denmark, the Netherlands or Russia qualify only when travelling via Vietnam to or from
Australia, Japan, South Korea, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand,
the Philippines, Cambodia or Laos. A Paris–Hanoi return does not qualify, because Vietnam is
your destination rather than your transit point. If you are flying Europe to Vietnam and back, this
programme is not for you — no amount of layover length changes that.
What you actually get, by how long you are stuck
Vietnam Airlines bands the product by connection length and by which hub you are in. Hanoi starts
at eight hours, Ho Chi Minh City at six. Both scale up to a genuine overnight with multiple meals.
| Transit time | Code | What is included |
|---|---|---|
| Hanoi — Noi Bai (HAN) | ||
| 8 to under 10 hours | HA1 | Meet and assist at the airport, transfer to a hotel for day-use or overnight, 1 meal (lunch or dinner), transfer back and help with the onward flight |
| 10 to under 16 hours | HA2 | The above, plus a city tour: Bat Trang pottery village, a Vietnamese cooking class, or Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum with the One Pillar Pagoda, Temple of Literature, the Old Quarter and Hoan Kiem Lake |
| 16 to under 26 hours | HA3 | City tour, hotel for an overnight stay, and 2 meals (lunch and dinner) |
| 26 to 35 hours | HA4 | City tour, overnight hotel, and 3 meals |
| Ho Chi Minh City — Tan Son Nhat (SGN) | ||
| 6 to under 10 hours | SG1 | Meet and assist, transfer to a hotel to check in and rest, 1 meal, transfer back |
| 10 to under 16 hours | SG2 | The above, plus a city tour: the War Remnants Museum, Notre-Dame Cathedral Basilica, the Central Post Office, Saigon Opera House, City Hall and Ben Thanh Market — or a cyclo tour with a Saigon-style coffee. 2 meals |
| 16 to under 26 hours | SG3 | City tour, hotel day-use or overnight, 2 meals |
| 26 to 35 hours | SG4 | City tour, overnight hotel, 2 lunches and 1 dinner (or the reverse) |
Note what the six-hour Saigon band buys you: a hotel room to shower and sleep in, and a meal, on a
connection short enough that most airlines would leave you on a bench. That is the most useful line in
the whole table.
Airlines states the full service includes the tour, the hotel and the visa fee where one applies.
A transit visa you would otherwise arrange and pay for yourself is bundled in. That is unusual —
Gulf Air, by contrast, explicitly does not cover the visa.
The short-connection version
If your connection is too short for a tour there is still something. Tour codes HANVS
and SGNVS cover a minimum two-hour connection and are a visa-and-escort service rather
than an outing: a tour operator’s staff meet you at the international arrivals area, walk you through
immigration, move you to the domestic terminal for your onward flight, then bring you back through
departure immigration afterwards. Vietnam Airlines notes this covers transfers to Terminal T3.
One limit worth reading twice: those two codes are not applicable to overnight flight
connecting. They are a daytime service for people changing between international and domestic
flights, not a way to get help at three in the morning.
How to book it, and the deadline that actually binds
You cannot request this at the airport. Vietnam Airlines requires a form — the Request Form for
Free City Tour Service — emailed to a Vietnam Airlines branch office, which then approves it.
- At least 8 days before departure if your nationality needs a transit visa.
- At least 72 working hours before departure if you are visa-exempt.
- Saturdays, Sundays and Vietnamese public holidays do not count toward that. Build
in slack rather than counting calendar days.
visa formalities, and charges 5 USD per photo at the airport if you arrive without one.
Chinese passport holders need two photos per visa application. A pair of passport photos in your hand
luggage is the cheapest insurance in this guide.
What the airline does not publish
One gap, and I would rather name it than paper over it. Vietnam Airlines says the service “is
only available on certain routes, booking classes and tour code”, and that the ineligible classes
and route limits are in a separate document. That document is a scanned PDF — five pages that
contain no extractable text at all — so the booking-class exclusions cannot be checked online.
In practice that means a cheap fare may be excluded and you will not find out from the website.
Ask the branch office to confirm your specific booking class when you send the form. The airline also
notes that where outbound and inbound classes differ, the more restrictive rule applies.
There is also a time-limited extra: for itineraries from Taiwan to Europe or Australia, passengers
departing between 26 June and 31 October 2026 can apply for transit assistance regardless of cabin
class, with documents submitted at least 8 business days ahead. Vietnam Airlines states late or
incomplete applications will not be accepted.
Is it worth it?
If you clear the three gates, it is the best long-layover product in this series — better than
the discount-code schemes, because nothing is being sold to you. A sixteen-hour Hanoi connection turns
into a hotel bed, two meals, and a morning at the Temple of Literature, for the price of posting a form
eight days early.
If you are flying from Europe to Vietnam rather than through it, none of this applies and no
workaround exists. Check that first, before you plan a layover around it.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Vietnam Airlines transit tour really free?
Yes, within the programme. Vietnam Airlines states plainly: “Transit service is free.” For tour codes HA1–HA4 and SG1–SG4 it adds that “the full service includes tour/hotel and visa fee (if applicable)”. What is not covered is the 5 USD per photo you pay at the airport if you turn up without your own 4×6 photo.
Does a Paris or London to Hanoi trip qualify?
No. Vietnam has to be the place you change planes, not where you are going. The route table only lists European-issued tickets travelling via Vietnam to or from Australia, Japan, South Korea, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Cambodia and Laos. A return to Vietnam itself is not a transit.
How long does my layover need to be?
Eight hours at Hanoi Noi Bai and six hours at Ho Chi Minh City Tan Son Nhat for the city-tour products. The shorter HANVS and SGNVS codes are a transit-visa and escort service from two hours, and Vietnam Airlines states those two are “not applicable to overnight flight connecting”.
When do I have to book it by?
At least 8 days before departure if you need a transit visa, or at least 72 working hours if your nationality is visa-exempt. Vietnam Airlines excludes Saturdays, Sundays and Vietnamese public holidays from that count, so a Friday request is worth sending on the Wednesday.
Will any Vietnam Airlines fare do?
No, and this is the gap in the public information. The airline says the service “is only available on certain routes, booking classes and tour code” and publishes the ineligible classes in a separate document. That document is a scanned PDF, so the class list cannot be read online — ask the branch office to confirm your booking class before you count on the tour.
Related guides
- Singapore Airlines stopover — the other Southeast Asian hub worth stopping in, on very different terms
- SriLankan Colombo transit hotel — a fare-value gate instead of a route matrix
- All airline stopover hotel programmes compared — every carrier in this series side by side