It’s a leap of faith booking a vacation house especially when you are traveling to a foreign country. So how can you help up the odds that your expectations will be met? Learn the art of reading reviews! If you are looking at lodging options like Airbnb, Booking.com, TripAdvisor and VRBO, learning how to evaluate lodging based on the reviews can be very helpful. An analyst, by nature and by job title, I’ve put together a list of guidelines to help you in your journey through the subjective and sometimes murky world of reviews. While these guidelines were made specifically for reading reviews about lodging, the general concepts can work for restaurants, attractions and other reviews as well.
When is a 5 star not a 5 star?
This section is an excerpt from Living Like a Local: Lodging. See the full article for lots of suggestions for finding interesting and unique places to stay.
When is a 5 star not a 5 star? When it is on Airbnb…just kidding…well, not really. Because Airbnb has a rating system that goes both ways, you will find that the ratings there are sometimes higher than justified. Really anything under 4 stars on Airbnb is questionable in my opinion. On other platforms, this may also be true although not many seem to have the same ratings inflation you find on Airbnb. There are also reports of scammers on some of these platforms (see this USA today article to inform yourself). So how to know when you really have a winner?
The secret is not just to look at star ratings, not just to read a couple reviews but rather read lots of reviews and read them with a discerning eye. Takes a little bit of logic, some time and quite a bit of intuition. But it is well worth the time to try to ensure your lodging is as ideal as it seems. While I won’t say every place we have ever stayed in is perfect, many have been amazing and a great value. And the ones that weren’t exactly what we wanted, we generally went into with the knowledge of what to expect. We knew that they would work for us but may have something that wasn’t ideal like a tiny bathroom or 5 floor walk-up. So we weren’t upset or disappointed with that “feature” when we got there.
Guidelines for the Murky World of Reviews
Before jumping into the guidelines, be aware that different sites have different rules for writing reviews. Sometimes there are even different requirements within a single site depending on what is being reviewed. As of the writing of this article, TripAdvisor required proof of stay for reviews on vacation rentals but not hotels or B&Bs. Airbnb and Booking currently require proof of stay as well. Proof of stay gives you a better likelihood that the reviews are legitimate. Make sure you know the rules for the site you are looking at to have a better idea of the authenticity of the reviews.
First Steps
- Look for Patterns: Do multiple people mention the same thing, either positively or negatively? If so, do they do so in a natural way and not always using the same language?
- Check Dates: Don’t just look at the reviews, check the review dates as well. Look for great reviews that are spread out over many months. If there are a bunch of great reviews in a single time period but no great ones recently, it could be the sign of someone stacking the deck with friends or false reviews. Or that the place has gone downhill.
- Review Owner: Do they own more than one place? If so, look at all of the reviews they have gotten. Do they seem like a real person? Are they local or have friends/family that are local? Connect with them before booking if you have questions. See how quickly and how well they respond.
- Inspect Images: What is the quality of the images? Are they shot in wide angle to make things look bigger? The picture shown above is my own of a lovely place on the Isle of Skye. But it does look a little bigger than it was as it was taken with a wide-angle.
- Validate Interior Pictures: Make sure they show a number of interior shots and not just a bunch of the great sites in that location. If they aren’t showing you the interior much, ask yourself why not? Are they showing you the same room in many pictures? Are there rooms they are not showing?
Warning Signs
- Robotic Language: If all the reviews sound like they came from a template rather than a real person, and it seems a little too good to be true, think twice. Think about the reviews you leave or the way you talk to determine how real a review feels.
- Review the Owner: Do they own more than one place? If so, look at all of the reviews they have gotten. Do they seem like a real person? Are they local or have friends/family that are local? Connect with them before booking if you have questions. See how quickly and how well they respond.
- Lukewarm Reviews: If the place is rated 4/5 star but the reviews are kind of lackluster or talk more about location than the place, the place is could be fine but probably not great. Check the interior pics carefully and do some more research.
- Safety Issues: If reviewers mention that they felt safe, that may be a signal that somewhere nearby did not feel as safe. Why are they even mentioning it? This isn’t a total no go for me, just a heads up to maybe look into the neighborhood more.
- Couple of Negative Nellies: If all the reviews are great on a place you really like except one or two, analyze those. Don’t dismiss the place based on one bad review but do investigate further. Check out the person (or people) involved. What was the response of the owner? If it was recent and seems legit and all positive reviews are old, this may be cause for concern. If not, it could be fine.
- Blurry Pics: Inferior quality pictures that are hard to see can be a sign of scamming or just bad picture taking. If you can’t really see what you are looking at, that can be a red flag.
Looking Good
- Recent Good Reviews: There are many positive reviews over an extended period of time, including recently.
- Consistency: Many reviews mention specific amenities or details that they liked and there are good patterns in those specifics.
- Picture Quality: The pictures are good quality, don’t seem to be trying to deceive, focus more on the immediate neighborhood and lodging interior and exterior shots than sites half way across the city. They back up the specifics of what the reviews say and the description given.
- Good Host: Lots of people comment on how welcoming a host was, how easy they were to communicate with or the great advice they gave.
The Place of Your Dreams
Hopefully, these guidelines help you book the place(s) of your dreams! But always remember that ideal for you doesn’t have to mean the place is perfect. Some of the best places we have stayed in have creaky floors, small bathrooms or a walk up several flights. But they were charming, spotless, in a great neighborhood and truly made us feel enveloped in the history or culture of the place we were staying. Remember to get those amazing views, sometimes you need to climb hundreds of steps!
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