Hotels, Review Sites & Bookings

[Guest]

A few observations:

 

1 Booking.com v Trip Advisor

Whilst (as has been pointed out here) booking.com reviews have the advantage that each reviewer has really booked the hotel, the need of the website to promote their customers hotels skews their review system.

(a) Booking.com review scores are calculated.

I give one desperate hotel minimum marks on everything except location and it calculates a score of 4.2. 42% for a desperately poor hotel ! Too much grade inflation there!

(b) Once my unfavourable review is accepted, it's not top of the list, but way down on the second page.

Yet when I post favourable reviews on other hotels, these are first on the list!

Having the most recent review first is logical. However hiding unfavourable reviews on later pages means customers may not read about the disadvantages. It is also prejudiced. Beware !

To see the disadvantages, be ready to scroll down ! If you have the slightest doubt, make sure you read more than the first page.

 

Or also check Trp Advisor, where they do not seem to play the same dirty trick.

 

 

2 Guest Friendly Hotels

My preferred way is just to e-mail the hotel and ask if it is OK to bring visitors back to my room at night.

However with all the booking sites, it's increasingly difficult to find hotel e-mail addresses.

So I sometimes use google & find one of those lists of "girl friendly hotels" that seems to exist for various towns & cities on the straight sites. If they accept girls joining, they are going to accept my male guests (in SE Asia at least)

[forky123]

Given that I look for specific things in a hotel, reviews simply give me an opportunity to scan the details for the things I want. Review scores are always skewed but the text itself will often give you a much better idea of whether you personally will like the hotel. Once I have an idea of where I want to stay I deliberately look at all the 1* and 2* reviews. This will often give you a good impression of whether the person genuinely hated the hotel or had the usual inclination of fixating on one issue and making it the hotel killer it really isn't.

[Moses]

Having the most recent review first is logical. However hiding unfavourable reviews on later pages means customers may not read about the disadvantages. It is also prejudiced. Beware !

 

one click to 2 or 1 star in statistic widget will filter reviews - so you will be able to read only 2-star or 1-star reviews and will get weak points of this hotel

 

 

Or also check Trp Advisor, where they do not seem to play the same dirty trick.

 

Anyone can order 5-stars reviews for TA at odesk.com, there are a lot of ready to work professional copywrites, prices are as low as $1 per review...

 

At TA I mostly watching photos of hotels - they are without Photoshop tricks and special beautifying filters...

[Guest]

Well at Trip Advisor I filter reviews.

Ignore: Any review written by someone who has done just 1 or 2 reviews. Any review by someone supposedly from an English speaking country who clearly does not speak the language. All 5* or 0* scores.

Read: Anything where the person has multiple reviews, a plausible itinerary and plausible scoring.

 

At least it is clear which Trip Advisor reviews have been written recently, which can be of use. For example Trip Advisor accurately reflected the deterioration that I saw at the Om YIM before it's closure. Sometimes it us useful to see recent reviews.

 

Both review sources have their uses & both need careful interpretation. Just remember instead of 1 to 10, the booking.com store range is more like 4 to 10 & the negative reviews will not be first.

[spoon]

I always like the room tip in trip advisor, tells u which room has the best view, bigger room etc. i also like to read the bad reviews as well as the hotel management reply. Admittedly, i always used the score in agoda/booking/tripadvisor to narrow down the hotel choices. Usually 7 and above is acceptable to me. Location, bathroom and comfortable and clean bed are my priority, space, decor and services are my least concerns, so reading detail reviews help me making my choices

[TotallyOz]

I use Trip Advisor and have for years.  Like others, I discount anyone with few posts.  I value long time contributors. I rely on them and have rarely been disappointed.

[ggobkk]

I use Trip Advisor and always make sure I read the negative reviews (3 stars and less).  I look at the photos from travelers and I look at the location map.

[firecat69]

I have posted many reviews on Trip Advisor all over  the world.  Mainly Hotels, Vacation Rentals, Restaurants.

 

I would guess 90% of them have been positive because of the work I did reading reviews on Booking, Trip Advisor etc.

 

No matter how careful you are you will select some failures . It goes with the territory!

[steveboy]

Trip Advisor is my first choice for information about hotels, the same as travelgayasia is my first choice for information about gay scenes.  I have been doing my contribution to these sites with my reviews after every trip. 

 

And tripadvisor is not only about hotels.  I did recently a search of "gay hotels in Bangkok".   The Babylon Bangkok was listed, with nearly 300 reviews, and most of them were... about the sauna!  More reviews than in the gay sites...  and LOL! I got a chance to see how subjective these reviews are, since I know the place in-and-out.

 

Also interesting is the search "gay hotels in Singapore",  which gives a wealth of information I don't find anywhere else. Just comparing the hotel prices between SIN and BKK one realizes what a good value BKK is  

[paulfort]

I work in the hotel industry and would agree the points below are correct in that Booking.com and a lot of other strict booking sites with feedback reviews are fairer in that a client has to have booked via them to place feedback V Trip Advisor where anyone can log in and post a review

 

I would encourage anyone to book direct with their chosen hotel (so simply google hotel name and you will find their site) in order to sometimes get the best deal, often more flexibility on room types and packages. However with hotels in Thailand, whilst they migh claim "best rate guarantee"  I sometimes find they simply admit that you will get a better deal via an online agent (crazy as they then have a huge commision cost!) If you do end up looking at this option consider the likes of topcashback.co.uk or .com,  first before logging in and searching the individual TPIs, whislt I hate their TV adverts they often offer up to about 10% cash back if you transfer via them to one of the booking TPIs such as hotels.com so in addition to a better rate than the hotel will offer you direct you get a fair ammount of "cash back" so effectivly discount in addition!

 

They also offer a fair incentive to any registered user  if anyone refers a customer to them, so please let me know with your email address if you want me to refer you - (happy to split any reward  !)

 

[Guest]

I would encourage anyone to book direct with their chosen hotel (so simply google hotel name and you will find their site) in order to sometimes get the best deal, often more flexibility on room types and packages.

I agree & prefer to book direct with the hotels. The hotel I am in currently has a long stay discount that is not offered on booking.com.

Also, a high proportion of booking.com hotels require advance payment got the whole stay, so it is necessary to search out the ones with more reasonable terms.

 

However, it is increasingly difficult to find direct hotel contact details via Google, even on the second or third page. Then to view some businesses, I would need to send my ID to the great Satan (Facebook). That particular disease will only be cured if people refuse to join in.

 

Hence some of my bookings are with booking.com or Hotels.com (which had a dignificantly better rate for one hotel on this trip).

[firecat69]

​Well I get the Genius discount on Booking which can be quite good.  Irarely get asked for any deposit or at most 25% and always have been fully refundable.

[stijntje]

Almost always using booking.com, with the genius discount.

 

However this time, for my next trip to Bangkok I had to use Agoda as the special offer for Raya was not available on booking.com 

[dellboy]

genius discount ??

 

please explain what it is and how to obtain !

 

 

thanks 

[firecat69]

Once you have ade a certain number of completed bookings, you get elevated to Genius. I honestly do not know what the number is.

[Guest]

I seem to have "Genius" status on booking.com. I don't know when that happened, but in 2015 it must have been 9 nights booked via them & perhaps as many as 17 nights in 2016.

 

I still prefer to book direct with hotels, when I can find their e-mail address. My current hotel has a long stay discount which was not available on booking.com.

Despite the Genius nonsense, hotels.com still offered a significantly lower rate on my first hotel of this trip.

[firecat69]

The fact remains there is no way to book Hotels individually unless you already know where you want to stay. You have to use one of a hundred sites on which you can look for the best price. some have useless reviews but those like Booking can be quite informative.

 

When you are traveling and you plans change it can be a hassle to change your reservations , trying to actually communicate with a Hotel . They may or may not reply to an email in a timely fashion. 

 

Yet a mobile app like Booking all can e taken care if in seconds including refunds, date changes etc.  Of course in rare cases you may get a lower rate from a Hotel but my experience has been unless you are a known customer, you will rarely get the best rate from the Hotel.