One thing I would add is look for similarities across similar reviews. One hotel I was looking at on Tripadvisor a while ago had many single contribution reviews (members whose only review was that one), and it was amazing how those people all loved "the new big screen tvs and free hot breakfast" when everyone else gave the hotel very average reviews and said it was nothing spectacular.

Can't remember the chain, maybe Hawthorn Suites?

My least favorite reviews - and ones I wish Tripadvisor, especially, could screen for - are the ones where people had a terrible, terrible time - for reasons completely unrelated to the hotel. Okay, you missed your flight, the cab driver cursed you out, and you were mugged three blocks away; why are you taking it out on the poor Westin Marina Cabo del Lobo?

I think the biggest tipoffs are outliers, bad English (especially for overseas hotels - you can practically hear the staff writing some), and, as bendee notes, the suspicious recurrence of what, in the trade, they mantrically refer to "a unique selling point."

I haven't hit a bad hotel in years, and I travel extensively for business (and sometime for pleasure). I always stay at Hilton branded properties, sometimes at Hampton Inns, sometimes at Conrads, and a whole lot in between.

They seem to have the brand management down, that I can pick the hotel that's closest to what I want to do, and I'll know what I'm getting.

Do people even read hotel reviews?

better yet, do people even search for hotels online?

I tried that once and it only gave 1 hotel when there were actually about 10 in the city. I'm not sure if Expedia sucks or the internet is just not a good way to book online

@missdona: I see what you did there.

@dantsea: Huh? I don't work for them.. if that's what you're saying.

Instead, I work for a much-maligned financial services company.

@AppleAlex: Yes, and yes.

I find sites like Expedia useful for finding properties in the area and for reading reviews, though with a critical eye for the points made above. However, I book directly through the hotel's website because I tend to get a better price. In cases where the pricing isn't that different, booking directly with the property tends to eliminate a lot of buck-passing should something go wrong (everyone loves to blame the party that can't be contacted).

@missdona: Oh, no insult intended! I thought it was a bit of clever sarcasm. Sorry!

@dantsea: None taken, we're all good.

@AppleAlex: So what do you do, dial 0 for the operator or what?

"...the internet is just not a good way to book online"
Is there another way to book online that I don't know about?

Not all hotels participate in online booking services.

@AppleAlex: There are many hotel review sites and I've used many of them to get an idea of what hotels are available in an area I haven't been to before. Different sites will list different hotels at different prices. Doing a little comparative shopping can save you a bundle and help you from making a mistake.

@AppleAlex: I make my own hotels at home. Sadly, I have little use for them, what with being in my backyard and all.

@morganlh85:

"Not all hotels participate in online booking services."
and there's the flaw and there's why booking online fails

I just use directory assistance or whatever 1800GOOG411 is

@AppleAlex: I google them. Googling by location usually brings up all or most of them, or you can search for a particular chain. My husband doesn't do this and booked us a night in a real shithole on our last vacation. Luckily, he only reserved one night and I had fun writing a really scathing review (that I tried to be funny with.)

One technique I use is to actually call the hotel I am considering staying at and ask for the front desk. Ask whomever answers the phone if they have a couple of minutes and ask the person (after you say you are considering booking a room) if they know of a good eatery close by or any special event that is going on in the city. The way in which they chat with you and the to what level they give you informed answers can tell you a lot about the hotel. Granted you may not want to do this for that quick one night stay.

@dantsea: Absolutely agreed. In fact, with the exception of rental cars, I never book any travel through travel sites. I got tired of hotels large and small blaming any issues on the fact that I used Expedia or Orbitz.

The last time I booked through Expedia, it was for the Best Western Normandy in downtown Minneapolis. Both Expedia and the hotel's website said that their suites comfortably slept four people. When we arrived, there was a queen-sized bed and a twin-sized sofa bed - hardly enough room for four people. When I complained, I was told that because I booked through Expedia, that's what I got. I was told straight up that had I booked directly through the hotel website, for the same price, I'd get a king-sized bed and queen-sized sofa bed. I was pretty well p/o'd.

When I'm doing hotel research, I usually go to sites like Travel and Leisure or even sometimes Daily Candy. I then book directly through the hotel site.

On that note, the last time I booked air travel through Orbitz, it was for international travel to Germany. I booked a month before my flight, but for whatever reason was told to contact the airline (United) for seat assignments. United's website showed that there were several window and aisle seats available at the coach price, but United told me that because I booked through Orbitz, I wouldn't be given a seat until the morning of the flight. Needless to say, I was stuck sitting in a middle seat for 10 hours. Fun. Had I booked directly through United, for essentially the same price, I could have sat in an aisle seat in Economy Plus. And I'm United Premier Executive - I should've known that.

@blue_streak: that happened to us once in Vegas

how bad was yours?

While I agree with Laura's little addendum to #7 - Lingo, the article's reasoning is more than a bit weak and it's kind of gnawing at me.

7. Look for lingo.

If the posting is about an overseas hotel and the review is written in broken English and reads as if it might be written by a non-native English speaker, then you might also want to take a second look. This should be a red flag. You also should consider that those from different cultures may have different expectations for what's expected in a travel experience, so they should probably be disregarded even if the review is genuine.

It's understandable to expect "overseas hotel" management to want to attract foreigners, but the first half of this tip assumes alot.

First, it assumes that non-native English reviews come from the destination country in question, and that you can tell what kind of non-native English someone is using: Perhaps you see a poorly constructed English review for a hotel in Brasil, but it was actually a French-Canadian's Franglish, not management Portunglish.

Second, it assumes said hotel management wouldn't place astroturf reviews in perfect English, maybe generic ones copy-pasted from other review sites, or posted by their own native English speaking owners, management, or staff. Plenty of overseas hotels are run or staffed by expats.

Third, it assumes that non-native English speakers never read or post on predominantly English review sites.

Ultimately, AOL wants us to disregard anything not written from our own cultural perspective because "cultures" (a slippery term itself) are so wildly different we just can't trust foreigners to provide information that is of any use to us. I see what they were getting at, but their sweeping statement doesn't help their argument.

I just don't buy it, and I think it's unfortunate that following this tip would likely encourage a traveler to avoid perfectly valid, useful information.

@veg-o-matic:
I completely agree. Why should one be "wary of reviews obviously not written by native English speakers"?
After all, Tripadvisor is an international site, offering several languages for navigation. However the comments are primarily English, which means that for reviewers, it is customary to follow suit in said language.

The additional statement of disregarding other cultures is just adding to what is already a a fairly ignorant world-view.

I always use yelp for my review site, and I always only read the bad ones. Good ones no matter how good, thoughtful, funny, can always be faked. Even if there are 20 reviews, they could all be fake.

However, if a business has 20 good reviews and zero bad ones it's a good sign.

@AppleAlex:

We didn't get robbed and there were no bedbugs.

@AppleAlex: yes. i have to make a trip in november and have been trying to find an afforable place to stay for a night or two. but i don't want to pick up bedbugs or end up with a moldy shower so i've read several reviews on the hotels in that area.

@numike: sometimes this works. but i used to work at hotel X and one of my coworkers at that hotel won employee of the month for HOTEL Y across the street. every time the operator at hotel y got a question she couldn't answer, she transferred the caller to our operator, including from internal callers [like the internal secret shopper who submitted for the award.]

no one ever seemed to pick up on the fact that the transfer was answered as 'thank you for calling hotel x'

and hotel y wasn't a rinky dink hotel either, both were business class hotels in the same rate category and part of major brand name chains.

'look for reviewers with no track record'
maybe this can be a good idea but i have to disagree with it.
my parents travel a LOT, inside the US and internationally. it used to be that primarily my dad went on business trips and my mom went along for fun.
and now they travel for pleasure.
over 30 years of traveling two or three months a year and my mom writes a very informed, very accurate hotel review. and she's written a LOT of them.
and with that amount of travel experience behind her, she knows the difference between a staff member having an off day and just plain poor service.

I disagree about looking for reviewers with no track record as well.

Personally, it takes an exceptionally awful experience to get me to register for a website and expound upon why someone else shouldn't use a certain hotel. This is for a couple reasons. First of all, I don't travel that much nor do most people. Second, depending on your price range, singular bad experiences or just mediocre ones come with the territory. If you only ever stay in 3 star hotels, what is there to write home about?

A lot of times, really crappy businesses have a slew of people who ordinarily wouldn't bother reviewing but were so pissed off that they registered just to warn other people about this one business. That's a huge red flag. Anyway, it seems like shills are getting sloppy about reusing accounts.

AAA is useful. Their descriptions and price ranges are usually spot on. Aside from that, I pretty much stay at either a Hilton property or a Marriott property. I've had good luck with both. Overseas, if on business, I'll ask whoever I'm meeting with what they recommend.

I also look for cues in bad reviews that this person isn't being too demanding or has unrealistic expectations for their hotel. I've seen reviewers go nuts that they had to wait 5 minutes to check in on the Friday before the 4th of July, when they asked for a upgrade and didn't get one, or when something is wrong with the room (just having something minor wrong with the room isn't a big deal, not quickly fixing it is a big deal). Also you should compare their complaint to the class of hotel. Making a special request at the W is different then making a special request at a Comfort Inn.

@AppleAlex: Hotels.com to find places, Hotwire or Priceline to get a deal and Betterbidding.com to decypher what hotel your bidding on. Trip Advisor to find out if it sucks or not before bidding or buying. Trip advisor also helps with things like cheaper nearby parking and decent restaurants nearby.

I really don't use Expedia for much, I find them pretty useless.

@catastrophegirl:
Wouldn't your mother, then, be the antithesis of a reviewer with no track record?

I had a really odd experience with Trip Advisor. You can blind email someone who wrote a review. I gave one hotel we stayed at a less than glowing review due to a number of broken or sub standard features. The hot tub was broken, the breakfast was danishes in plastic bags like you get at a gas station and a few hot things in dirty crock pots. The hotel owner sent me a scathing and insulting email for the review. I should have reposted the email to the hotel review but I was massively busy when it came in.

@tbax929: yes, but my interpretation of the tip was that someone set up an account just to review a particular hotel, which could be something someone was looking for if they didn't want to read a review by someone who was employed by a hotel chain to make reviews. as in, if someone felt so passionately about a place that they signed up just to review it.
but i can see where the tip could be interpreted differently

@DrMurko: Agree. I actually think the reviews written in poor English are more likely to be the true ones.

In the other hand, I don't really mind others disregard my reviews. It is their loss, not mine.

@missdona: LOL- I thought the same thing.

@H3ion: I recently wrote a scathing letter to AAA about a hotel they recommended. My original reservation was lost due to their Post-It-notes reservation system (which led to other problems), the hotel room was full of crumbs, old cobwebs, and blackened dust around the air exhausts. There was a sticky residue on the nightstand, and the sheets on one of the queen beds had lots of someone's hair on it. The hotel owner was rude and unhelpful. AAA wrote back to tell me they were checking up on the hotel and apologized for my experience. I haven't heard a thing in the year since.

@Muscato: I've got to agree completely. There's a hotel in the Myrtle Beach area (Crown Reef Inn) which I had some great memories in growing up but hadn't been to in like, 10 years. Half the complaint reviews I read weren't about the hotel (one of them that sticks out in my head was this guy who was complaining about the greens on the county municipal golf course being "hard as concrete." He went in the middle of freakin' January. I mean, c'mon. 1: It's a municipal golf course. 2: It's the middle of winter. Stay on subject people!)

I never look at hotel reviews. I just go by price. That's my main concern.

@catastrophegirl: There's really no interpretation involved. The tip flat-out says that accounts with no track-records may be people employed by the hotel. You want people with a lot of reviews who have stayed at a lot of different places. It says it right there.

@italianscallion33: PS I'm not arguing that your interpretation of the tip would not, as well, make a good tip. Just pointing out what the article meant to say.

@bohemian: I wish I could do what he did to you, to some of my students when I get lameass comments from them on their teaching evaluations. Sometimes I know exactly who wrote a scathing comment and why.

However, he wasn't really accomplishing anything by emailing you. It's not like him complaining to you undid the bad review.

Here's a tip that I wish I had known because it recently cost me $57 due to a non-refundable reservation. DOUBLE CHECK to make sure the LOCATION on the Yahoo or Google Map "hotel locator" is accurate. I booked a room in a hotel that according to google map hotel locator was less than half a mile from a concert venue in an unfamiliar city. Wrong. It was three miles away in a very bad part of town. I only figured that out AFTER I booked the room and paid for it and was looking for directions via google map and I typed in the address directly (rather than looking at the hotel locator on google map). I ate the money and booked another room in a pricier hotel in a better part of town close to the venue.

@italianscallion33: i'm apparently not seeing the words 'may be people employed by the hotel' in the tip:
"4. Look for reviewers with no track record. - They might be accounts set up specifically to review that particular hotel...not world travelers."

@veg-o-matic: While you have a valid point overall, a couple of minor nitpicks:

-First, if you have any familiarity with speakers of a given language, you'll learn the nuances of that language in broken English. Most "broken English" is really "English forced into the grammar of language X", and is recognizable as such. This isn't perfect (Romance languages, in particular, are bad for overlap), but can be relied on in some cases to tell the locals from the overseas travellers.

-Second, in your example: The broken English is from the management, not the Quebecois traveler. The latter would never sully his fingers with filthy Anglais, of course.

@bohemian: Hotels.com and Expedia are the same thing. Both pull from the same inventory and the same price lists. They are billed on the same invoice and paid on the same check. They even share a support line for higher-level issues. As a matter of fact, if you booked on Hotels.com, chances are the front desk agent will never know it. Don't be surprised when they write "Expedia" on top of your registration card.

Something to look out for: Orbitz and Priceline are the lower-tier dot-com channels. They do not guarantee room type (or even smoking or non-smoking). If you want a specific room type, use Expedia or Travelocity. Chances are, though, that you're still better off booking by phone after checking the hotel's website.

Trip advisor actually will let hotel management respond to reviews (which I wish my hotel would do). There is a review out there right now complaining about a stay at the hotel where I work written by someone who clearly stayed at a different hotel and I've had more than one person call and specifically refer to that review. If there is one review that sounds totally out of the blue, it might be a confused reviewer.
That being said I once also worked at a resort where part of my job was to write fake reviews as a new "persona" every week. This is highly against the trip advisor rules.

@catastrophegirl: The implication appears to be that because an account was set up only to review one particular hotel, that it's a sock-puppet used by an employee or representative of the hotel. Who else would have the motive to set up a sock-puppet account to review one and only one hotel, especially if the review is glowingly positive?

@AppleAlex: I worry about crime, when it's a city I don't know well (Hartford, Connecticut, anyone?).

Actually, when we moved to Texas, the business suite we booked had some sketchy goings on... the drunk chick who pounded on our door thinking it was her boyfriend's room... the two prostitutes downstairs, the drug dealer who came by on Thursday evenings, the kid next to us was a multi-level marketer. The cat that lived on top of another business traveller's Hummer, glowering at everyone. Not to mention the strange lady in the laundry room who said she'd lived there for more than five years because "apartments do criminal record checks". Uh oh.

Ask a friend.
Wait, do we have friends anymore?

@AppleAlex: I have used Kayak in the past and it has worked out great. So far no bedbugs for me and the family. If anyone is looking for a lovely place to stay in Alameda, California (or near there) let me know I can recommend a lovely place we stayed at recently.

I stayed at a hotel in Kansas which looked like a trailer park. The shower had a rusty colored/textured floor and the bed looked... used. It had an amazing cable subscription though. I doubt you'd be able to find it on a hotel review site.