Reply #20: Also, the reviews on hotels.com [View All]

[theredpen]

The reviews on hotels.com are made by people who actually booked on hotels.com. A few days after you stay at a hotels.com booking, you get an email soliciting feedback on the hotel. I think that generates a more even-handed (and honest) review base.

TripAdvisor is great, but there are some reviews planted either by the hotel staff or the competition. You need to learn to read TripAdvisor (and other) reviews to look for reviews that seem too positive or too negative. Remember, that for unsolicited reviews, you are going to get a lot of people who had a one-off bad experience. You'll also get a few that only stay in a hotel every 10 years and are amazed that they get free shampoo and donuts in the morning. On, TripAdvisor it can be helpful to check the reviewers review history. This tells you what kind of traveler they are and whether they rate hotels consistently and with a broad range of experience, or only when they had something to complain about.

In general on Internet reviews, I find that anyone who is trying to convince the reader to adopt their opinion is "trying to hard," whether negative (the typical case) or positive. If someone says, "I had an awful stay," they are probably being candid, but if someone says, "If you stay here, you will be treated badly," they are trying to be vindictive, which suggests that maybe they aren't telling you the whole story — what's it to them if you choose that hotel anyway?

Another red flag for NYC hotel reviews is anyone who complains that the room was small. Rooms are small in NYC, so anyone who complains about it probably doesn't know enough about hotels to write a valuable review.

I hope this helps.