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Best website for reviews of hotels, B&Bs and vacation rentals?

Pauline

Forums Admin
Two questions:
1. Do you use reviews of accommodations for planning a trip? Which ones do you use?
2. Do you write reviews of your accommodations after a trip? Where do you submit them?

I usually book hotels through Booking.com (Slow Europe is an affiliate) and write a review of the hotel after the trip. I use their reviews when planning a trip. Sometimes I look at TripAdvisor, but it always seems like there are too many reviews to read.

For vacation rentals, if booked through Homeaway.com, I submit a review to them. Otherwise I post a review on Slow Europe (we have a system for taking reviews, but it is not used that much and you can only review places that I have listed on the site) or mention it in a blog post.

For selecting vacation rentals, I use the SlowTrav.com reviews (they are still the best IMO) and the Homeaway reviews. If I am renting through an agency that I know has a good reputation, and the photos and description look good, I don't really care about reviews.

When I started SlowTrav there was nowhere else to find vacation rental reviews! Now it feels like there are too many places to read reviews. And I don't trust reviews as I once did. When you have booked directly with an owner, it is hard to write a bad review because many have put so much effort into creating their vacation rental. It is hard to complain about something, especially when it did not ruin your trip and was just a small annoyance.
 
If booking hotels for just my sister and I for a night or two, I tend to use the bidding process on priceline and in a few instances have followed up with reviews. I use betterbidding to get an idea of the possible 4 stars in area I want to stay and read reviews. If happy on the whole with what I'm seeing then I'll put in a bid and have generally got 4 stars at around $100-$130.
If I'm looking to book a specific hotel, I would generally google reviews for the hotel and read reviews from a variety of sites then book directly with hotel if cheaper than what I'm seeing on hotel sites.

For vacation rentals I've used VRBO mostly and filter by reviews. In all instances the properties have lived up to their reviews.
 
I think I'm familiar with most of the vacation rental sites and have used many. What I've discovered is that calling these sites owner rental is misleading. Many companies advertise in Airbnb, VRBO etc. They may look like they are advertising their own homes but they are that is not the case. These sites are often owned by a larger site. EX, TA owns Homeletting and Flipkey. I believe VRBO owns HomeAway. Airbnb is the new fave. But do not be decieved, while many of the advertisers do are indeed the homeowner or tenant, many are companies just using the site to promote their property. They advertise on multiple sites.

Frankly, I don't really care. I just think it's misleading. I've rented from VRBO/HomeAway, Airbnb and now Sabatical Homes. And I was going to rent from Flipkey until something better came up. I've used owner's own sites as well. I've also used property management companies such as Nice Pebbles.

For hotels, I have found the hotel's official site has offers as good as anything I can find on the aggregates. But don't stay in hotels much. Mostly for practicalities such as airports. Although staying at Beacon Hotel in NYC in Feb for 5 nights. But it is an apt hotel. I didn't find anything better than what was on their site. Probably b/c it's not a chain

I look at TA and ST for reviews. ST always has the best and most trustworthy reviews. But they are very limited and many are outdated. I weed through some TA reviews and judge them with a grain of salt. I also go on TA forums for places like NYC b/c it is in those venues one gets the best advice.

I submit reviews to ST and TA although not for every place.

I'VE NEVER HAD A BAD EXPERIENCE. I think doing your homework, communicating with the owners/managers, is essential.
 
Even though VRBO was the original rent from owner website, HomeAway owns them. HomeAway started up in the mid 2000's with venture capital money and bought the top 10 rent from owner sites, including the biggest, VRBO.

I was thinking the same as you Lisa - many properties listed on these rent from owner sites are managed by agencies and listed by the agency. In many ways that is good because we can do our searching on website which has most vacation rentals listed.

I used Nice Pebbles/Riviera Pebbles too and would rent from them again.
 
Mostly I use VRBO and TripAdvisor for reviews. VRBO is a good example of a site that's keeping up to date and regularly adding helpful features.

I have a pretty good mental "filter" for reviews, and read as many as I can from the entire spectrum to see if the good/bad comments fit in my scale of importance. Do I care if a place has a fully outfitted kitchen? Not usually - I can make do or bring my own. I do care if a place is non-smoking.

I haven't written a review for VRBO for a while because I haven't stayed in a vacation rental in the US lately, but I try to remember to write hotel reviews for TA if a hotel or staff is especially good or bad. If I can't add anything useful to previous comments I don't review a place.
 

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