4 ms·

I once booked the worst hotel room on earth via booking.com - I spare you the details, but when I picked the lowest rating on every single scale on the booking.

by nkmnz 5y ago

I once booked the worst hotel room on earth via booking.com - I spare you the details, but when I picked the lowest rating on every single scale on the booking.com feedback form, the resulting score was something like ~3.5 out of 10 – instead of 0 points! So, whenever you're looking for a a place on booking.com, keep in mind that the places are rated on a scale from 3.5 to 10, not 0 to 10.

stewx 5y ago
What's important to know about Booking.com review scores is that customers do not choose the scores, per se. They ask you a series of questions like "was the bed comfortable?" and if you say "yes" to all of them, that's scored as a 10/10.
thriftwy 5y ago
I think any Booking user knows that 8+ - awesome, 7+ - okay, less than 7 - handle with care. At least it's more consistent than "star ratings"
- listenallyall 5y ago
  Seems every online star system is heavily weighted to the upside. Your assigned Uber driver has a 4.6? Likely going to be a nightmare. An Amazon product at 4.2? Probably garbage.
- Jenk 5y ago
  That's known as the Net Promoter Score. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_promoter_score https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_promoter_score In summary: 1-6 are demoters (will talk negatively of their experience to others), 7-8 passive (probably won't talk about their experience), 9-10 promoters (will talk positively about their experience).
  - vdqtp3 5y ago
    Real world summary for anyone graded by NPS: if you got a 10, you're meeting expectations. Anything else and you're getting a write-up.
  - thriftwy 5y ago
    Point being, Booking is translating their users' input into NPS
madaxe_again 5y ago
Unless you had to drive over broken car windshields to get there, unless you were greeted at the barbed wire festooned gate by a man in a string vest with a hole in it from where he perpetually picked his bellybutton, unless the room had a bucket of decomposing semen and condom soup in the corner, unless you got up in the morning to find two pimps taking turns to beat a girl on the hood of your car, I promise you you have not stayed in the worst hotel room on earth. Mind, it was only 500 tenge for the night, which wasn’t bad for the only hotel in a 200km radius.
- aaaaaaaaata 5y ago
  Good read, but don't stay in a shantytown and call it a hotel, lol
- nkmnz 5y ago
  I'd say some parts of your story cannot be attributed to the hotel room or even to the hotel as a whole, but rather to the place that hotel's been located, but let me ask the much more important question: what's that hotel's score on booking.com? To me, that sounds like a 3.6!
  - madaxe_again 5y ago
    Amazingly, it’s now on booking - at 7.6. Honestly, every aspect of it was comically bad - just four or five rooms (with padded leather doors) around a barren concrete courtyard with several wrecked cars and a bonfire in it. Oh, and they tried to distract us with a song and dance about passports, but I watched them evict the girls from the rooms before ushering us in - same sheets, of course, but we had sleeping bags. Still both got a skin infection. The air con was great though, which was why we were there, and arriving at 5am - it hits 56C in the steppe at that time of year, within a few hours of sunrise. Sleeping in the car out of the question. Man, another Kazakh hotel story - stayed at a “premium” hotel in Shymkent, which they advertised as having a pool, which sounded just amazing having spent the previous night in said amusing hotel. Got our room, my god, it’s great, let’s put the AC on and crash for an hour before hitting the pool. Wake up 20 minutes later, REALLY hot. Decide to see if the heat exchanger for the AC is obstructed, as it’s blowing lukewarm rather than cold air. I open the curtains. It’s dark. Which is weird because it’s 3pm. I go to open the balcony door - and the handle is almost burning hot. As is the glass of the door and windows. And then I realise they’ve bricked up the balcony, because that’s of course where they’ve built the pool - and is where the heat exchanger lives, doing its damndest to pump even more heat into what had already become the inside of an oven. So, we get a new room, after noting that the lobby is full of dozens of huge freestanding AC units and their heat exchangers, and having some trouble explaining the problem to the staff. New room is fine, and has a nice view of the … still under construction pool. 8.4 on booking. We got so drunk that evening. Thoroughly recommend visiting Kazakhstan. Lovely people, and there’s never a dull moment.
mike10921 5y ago
booking.com is the spirit airlines of hotel websites. Even if it is half the price stay the heck away. If your stay gets fd up they literally do not give a flying f and will laugh in ur face for expecting any type of customer service.
- incomplete 5y ago
  but... you can't beat the prices. i've had one TERRIBLE booking experience, a couple of meh, but the vast majority of my experiences have been just fine. heartburn avoidance: read the fine print (the cheapest rate(s) usually don't allow for cancellation/rebooking), and compare similar rates/condition across a couple of sites before clicking 'book'.
- babyshake 5y ago
  The last time I used booking.com the photo used for the listing was completely different than the room I was given at the hotel including the number of beds and some other major things. When I showed this to the hotel manager he just shrugged and didn't care. I opened a support ticket with booking.com and they never followed up. It's a bummer how quickly we are descending into fully automated, no F's given customer support culture as a result of the very same technology that many of us have built careers around developing.

by nkmnz 5y ago

stewx 5y ago

What's important to know about Booking.com review scores is that customers do not choose the scores, per se. They ask you a series of questions like "was the bed comfortable?" and if you say "yes" to all of them, that's scored as a 10/10.

thriftwy 5y ago

I think any Booking user knows that 8+ - awesome, 7+ - okay, less than 7 - handle with care. At least it's more consistent than "star ratings"

listenallyall 5y ago
Seems every online star system is heavily weighted to the upside. Your assigned Uber driver has a 4.6? Likely going to be a nightmare. An Amazon product at 4.2? Probably garbage.
Jenk 5y ago
That's known as the Net Promoter Score. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_promoter_score https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_promoter_score In summary: 1-6 are demoters (will talk negatively of their experience to others), 7-8 passive (probably won't talk about their experience), 9-10 promoters (will talk positively about their experience).
- vdqtp3 5y ago
  Real world summary for anyone graded by NPS: if you got a 10, you're meeting expectations. Anything else and you're getting a write-up.
- thriftwy 5y ago
  Point being, Booking is translating their users' input into NPS

madaxe_again 5y ago

Unless you had to drive over broken car windshields to get there, unless you were greeted at the barbed wire festooned gate by a man in a string vest with a hole in it from where he perpetually picked his bellybutton, unless the room had a bucket of decomposing semen and condom soup in the corner, unless you got up in the morning to find two pimps taking turns to beat a girl on the hood of your car, I promise you you have not stayed in the worst hotel room on earth. Mind, it was only 500 tenge for the night, which wasn’t bad for the only hotel in a 200km radius.

aaaaaaaaata 5y ago
Good read, but don't stay in a shantytown and call it a hotel, lol
nkmnz 5y ago
I'd say some parts of your story cannot be attributed to the hotel room or even to the hotel as a whole, but rather to the place that hotel's been located, but let me ask the much more important question: what's that hotel's score on booking.com? To me, that sounds like a 3.6!
- madaxe_again 5y ago
  Amazingly, it’s now on booking - at 7.6. Honestly, every aspect of it was comically bad - just four or five rooms (with padded leather doors) around a barren concrete courtyard with several wrecked cars and a bonfire in it. Oh, and they tried to distract us with a song and dance about passports, but I watched them evict the girls from the rooms before ushering us in - same sheets, of course, but we had sleeping bags. Still both got a skin infection. The air con was great though, which was why we were there, and arriving at 5am - it hits 56C in the steppe at that time of year, within a few hours of sunrise. Sleeping in the car out of the question. Man, another Kazakh hotel story - stayed at a “premium” hotel in Shymkent, which they advertised as having a pool, which sounded just amazing having spent the previous night in said amusing hotel. Got our room, my god, it’s great, let’s put the AC on and crash for an hour before hitting the pool. Wake up 20 minutes later, REALLY hot. Decide to see if the heat exchanger for the AC is obstructed, as it’s blowing lukewarm rather than cold air. I open the curtains. It’s dark. Which is weird because it’s 3pm. I go to open the balcony door - and the handle is almost burning hot. As is the glass of the door and windows. And then I realise they’ve bricked up the balcony, because that’s of course where they’ve built the pool - and is where the heat exchanger lives, doing its damndest to pump even more heat into what had already become the inside of an oven. So, we get a new room, after noting that the lobby is full of dozens of huge freestanding AC units and their heat exchangers, and having some trouble explaining the problem to the staff. New room is fine, and has a nice view of the … still under construction pool. 8.4 on booking. We got so drunk that evening. Thoroughly recommend visiting Kazakhstan. Lovely people, and there’s never a dull moment.

mike10921 5y ago

booking.com is the spirit airlines of hotel websites. Even if it is half the price stay the heck away. If your stay gets fd up they literally do not give a flying f and will laugh in ur face for expecting any type of customer service.

incomplete 5y ago
but... you can't beat the prices. i've had one TERRIBLE booking experience, a couple of meh, but the vast majority of my experiences have been just fine. heartburn avoidance: read the fine print (the cheapest rate(s) usually don't allow for cancellation/rebooking), and compare similar rates/condition across a couple of sites before clicking 'book'.
babyshake 5y ago
The last time I used booking.com the photo used for the listing was completely different than the room I was given at the hotel including the number of beds and some other major things. When I showed this to the hotel manager he just shrugged and didn't care. I opened a support ticket with booking.com and they never followed up. It's a bummer how quickly we are descending into fully automated, no F's given customer support culture as a result of the very same technology that many of us have built careers around developing.