6 ms·

It's such a shame how short-sighted profit motives ruin everything. User reviews are such a wonderful thing -- until companies figured out it's more profitable

It's such a shame how short-sighted profit motives ruin everything. User reviews are such a wonderful thing -- until companies figured out it's more profitable to hide negative reviews and just sell people crappy products. Booking.com is the worst in my experience, and it makes me sad to hear that Airbnb isjust as bad...

yuvalr1 4y ago
Since Airbnb couldn't verify my credit card due to technical reasons, I started using Booking a lot (with the same card - no problem whatsoever), and it was a pretty good experience. Why do you think this way about Booking?
- hiq 4y ago
  What's your minimal rating when you book? I found out that anything lower than 8/10 is really bad on Booking, which was counterintuitive to me.
  - deadbunny 4y ago
    Sounds like video game reviews. Anything lower than an 7/10 is considered bad. As an example, Aliens Colonial Marines[1] was literally unplayable, filled with bugs, and generally got a 48/100. To me that should be a middling game not literal unplayable garbage. 1. https://www.pcgamer.com/aliens-colonial-marines-review/ https://www.pcgamer.com/aliens-colonial-marines-review/
    - throwaway290 4y ago
      Reviews are not representative. You want to look for new reviews (fake reviewers are active in waves, only for as long as they are paid), even if they are bad, read them and see what people dislike. The only way to warn others without risking your account is by posting a reasonably high rating and a seemingly positive review that obscures how horrible the place is. "Convenient if you drive a car, otherwise you'll want to rely on cabs since walking one way might take 30+ minutes. Lovely staff, make sure to ask about reception hours since they may not always be as advertised. Perfect bed if you like a hard mattress and aren't too tall (say less than 6 ft). Got a bit itchy in the morning, probably my skin allergies. Some roach sightings but they are everywhere in this price range right?" This will stand out among all the paid 5 star reviews with two words and three grammatical errors.
    - supertofu 4y ago
      48/100 is an F.
  - elliekelly 4y ago
    Yes! Does Booking give stars on a curve? Because there is some serious ratings inflation happening. I once stayed in a 6/10 “room” in Spain and it was just a walk-in closet with a cot. And calling it a walk-in closet is generous. It was really more like a walk-in closet sized shed or garage that had been tacked onto the side of the house. Picture the back door of a house that when you open the door that should lead outside you instead enter a generic Home Depot type shed that has had its doors removed and been nailed to the side of the house. It was only marginally better than sleeping in a cardboard box. No one in their right mind would ever rate this “room” more than 1/10 but somehow on booking.com it was a 6??
  - CaptainZapp 4y ago
    True, but so what? Just book rooms with a minimal review average of (i'd say) 7.5 and up. The good thing about booking.com reviews is that you must have to have stayed at a property to leave a review. Sure, that can also be gamed, but the risk is significantly lower that a review is outright dodgy.
  - xboxnolifes 4y ago
    Realistically, this is how every rating system I've ever come across works. On a 10 point scale, you avoid anything under a 7.5. this applies to even unfiltered public ratings, so I assume it's an attribute of how human apply numeric opinion scoring.
    - wizofaus 4y ago
      7/10 on Zomato is pretty good though, whereas a 3.5/5 Google review suggests "stay away unless desperate". But I agree there's no system where 5/10 means "average". I suspect it does relate to our time in educational institutions where a 50% mark is really the worst possible score you ever want to consider.
  - splonk 4y ago
    I used to have access to a large set of hotel review data. The median score on Booking was 8.1 (if you filter for business travelers it's in the 7s, but I'm not sure if that's available in the UI). This is partly because the scale is actually from 2.5-10, not 1-10 or 0-10 as you might expect. The rest is probably just because people don't evenly distribute ratings and tend to favor the top and bottom of the scale.
- newaccount74 4y ago
  They ask you what was good about the hotel, and what was bad, and then they show only the good part of the review to others.
  - raverbashing 4y ago
    I always see both parts on the review
    - newaccount74 4y ago
      If you click through to the detailed reviews you can see both parts. But on some screens they show just the positive part.
      - aconsult1 4y ago
        I have at least one example of Airbnb ignoring a bad review. I had a pretty bad experience in Washington DC once and left a review to warn future guests. To my surprise such review never came online. I checked for several weeks after and saw new reviews popping up on the same property but my review was nowhere. I still use Airbnb but just lower my expectations by a huge amount because according to them everyone is having a fantastic experience. Just like Instagram... Thanks internet!
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- SOLAR_FIELDS 4y ago
  I had a situation with Booking a couple years ago where I booked a room that was double booked. It’s kind of the hosts fault, but Booking’s support was completely unhelpful in resolving the situation.
arcturus17 4y ago
Like GP, had infinitely better experiences in Booking.com than in AirBnB. I'd just rather stay with professional hosts, except in few cases (eg, renting summer stays for larger groups)
- bartvk 4y ago
  Just being on booking.com doesn't guarantee a professional host, though. I booked a small B&B via booking.com and they cancelled an hour before arriving. Or rather, they told me that we couldn't come and instructed us to cancel ourselves. That felt weird and I said I wouldn't do that. What they then did, was to invalidate the creditcard payment. Luckily I could book another hotel, even though it was holiday season.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    They always want you to cancel because that doesn't hurt their metrics. Same with somehow invalidating the credit card payment.
    - bartvk 4y ago
      Yeah, the whole thing didn’t sit right with me.
  - CaptainZapp 4y ago
    Did you take it up with booking.com? I'd guess that they would be very unhappy about such behavior and eventually drop the property. For what it's worth: I booked 100s of stays on booking.com (virtually always hotel rooms) and never ran into an issue.
    - bartvk 4y ago
      Yup, called support and after our explanation, they asked whether the host offered us an alternative. I said no, and support would get back to us. Never heard from them again.
hasmanean 4y ago
Reviews can have objective facts (the AC is broken), but there is a subjective quality to them that has to be calibrated to each person (shabby decor to one person is faded glory to another). Maybe that’s a good use for AI. It could Calibrate itself to each persons “taste” and filter the world for them. Instead of making users rely on fake metrics like “stars” or hidden clues like the presence/absence of neon lights, or some quality in their logo to signal what type of establishment it is…this signalling/filtering could be done for them virtually.
xtiansimon 4y ago
“It's such a shame how short-sighted profit motives ruin everything.” Slightly off-topic, but this statement reminds me that it’s not just “profit motives”. I deal with third-party customer services (my clients work with third-party b2c who markets to customers, and my client fulfills the orders) a lot. Each company has a slightly different culture and structure. All have front line customer service for merchants, but it can take months to get through to higher levels of support—if at all. Front line say yes yes yes but nothing is fixed or remedied. The only obvious recourse is to leave the platform. Profit, yes. But also structure and roles of employees you are allowed to speak with who have no power for remedy, or incentive to be rational actors.

yuvalr1 4y ago

Since Airbnb couldn't verify my credit card due to technical reasons, I started using Booking a lot (with the same card - no problem whatsoever), and it was a pretty good experience. Why do you think this way about Booking?

hiq 4y ago
What's your minimal rating when you book? I found out that anything lower than 8/10 is really bad on Booking, which was counterintuitive to me.
- deadbunny 4y ago
  Sounds like video game reviews. Anything lower than an 7/10 is considered bad. As an example, Aliens Colonial Marines[1] was literally unplayable, filled with bugs, and generally got a 48/100. To me that should be a middling game not literal unplayable garbage. 1. https://www.pcgamer.com/aliens-colonial-marines-review/ https://www.pcgamer.com/aliens-colonial-marines-review/
  - throwaway290 4y ago
    Reviews are not representative. You want to look for new reviews (fake reviewers are active in waves, only for as long as they are paid), even if they are bad, read them and see what people dislike. The only way to warn others without risking your account is by posting a reasonably high rating and a seemingly positive review that obscures how horrible the place is. "Convenient if you drive a car, otherwise you'll want to rely on cabs since walking one way might take 30+ minutes. Lovely staff, make sure to ask about reception hours since they may not always be as advertised. Perfect bed if you like a hard mattress and aren't too tall (say less than 6 ft). Got a bit itchy in the morning, probably my skin allergies. Some roach sightings but they are everywhere in this price range right?" This will stand out among all the paid 5 star reviews with two words and three grammatical errors.
  - supertofu 4y ago
    48/100 is an F.
- elliekelly 4y ago
  Yes! Does Booking give stars on a curve? Because there is some serious ratings inflation happening. I once stayed in a 6/10 “room” in Spain and it was just a walk-in closet with a cot. And calling it a walk-in closet is generous. It was really more like a walk-in closet sized shed or garage that had been tacked onto the side of the house. Picture the back door of a house that when you open the door that should lead outside you instead enter a generic Home Depot type shed that has had its doors removed and been nailed to the side of the house. It was only marginally better than sleeping in a cardboard box. No one in their right mind would ever rate this “room” more than 1/10 but somehow on booking.com it was a 6??
- CaptainZapp 4y ago
  True, but so what? Just book rooms with a minimal review average of (i'd say) 7.5 and up. The good thing about booking.com reviews is that you must have to have stayed at a property to leave a review. Sure, that can also be gamed, but the risk is significantly lower that a review is outright dodgy.
- xboxnolifes 4y ago
  Realistically, this is how every rating system I've ever come across works. On a 10 point scale, you avoid anything under a 7.5. this applies to even unfiltered public ratings, so I assume it's an attribute of how human apply numeric opinion scoring.
  - wizofaus 4y ago
    7/10 on Zomato is pretty good though, whereas a 3.5/5 Google review suggests "stay away unless desperate". But I agree there's no system where 5/10 means "average". I suspect it does relate to our time in educational institutions where a 50% mark is really the worst possible score you ever want to consider.
- splonk 4y ago
  I used to have access to a large set of hotel review data. The median score on Booking was 8.1 (if you filter for business travelers it's in the 7s, but I'm not sure if that's available in the UI). This is partly because the scale is actually from 2.5-10, not 1-10 or 0-10 as you might expect. The rest is probably just because people don't evenly distribute ratings and tend to favor the top and bottom of the scale.
newaccount74 4y ago
They ask you what was good about the hotel, and what was bad, and then they show only the good part of the review to others.
- raverbashing 4y ago
  I always see both parts on the review
  - newaccount74 4y ago
    If you click through to the detailed reviews you can see both parts. But on some screens they show just the positive part.
    - aconsult1 4y ago
      I have at least one example of Airbnb ignoring a bad review. I had a pretty bad experience in Washington DC once and left a review to warn future guests. To my surprise such review never came online. I checked for several weeks after and saw new reviews popping up on the same property but my review was nowhere. I still use Airbnb but just lower my expectations by a huge amount because according to them everyone is having a fantastic experience. Just like Instagram... Thanks internet!
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
SOLAR_FIELDS 4y ago
I had a situation with Booking a couple years ago where I booked a room that was double booked. It’s kind of the hosts fault, but Booking’s support was completely unhelpful in resolving the situation.

arcturus17 4y ago

Like GP, had infinitely better experiences in Booking.com than in AirBnB. I'd just rather stay with professional hosts, except in few cases (eg, renting summer stays for larger groups)

bartvk 4y ago
Just being on booking.com doesn't guarantee a professional host, though. I booked a small B&B via booking.com and they cancelled an hour before arriving. Or rather, they told me that we couldn't come and instructed us to cancel ourselves. That felt weird and I said I wouldn't do that. What they then did, was to invalidate the creditcard payment. Luckily I could book another hotel, even though it was holiday season.
- bombcar 4y ago
  They always want you to cancel because that doesn't hurt their metrics. Same with somehow invalidating the credit card payment.
  - bartvk 4y ago
    Yeah, the whole thing didn’t sit right with me.
- CaptainZapp 4y ago
  Did you take it up with booking.com? I'd guess that they would be very unhappy about such behavior and eventually drop the property. For what it's worth: I booked 100s of stays on booking.com (virtually always hotel rooms) and never ran into an issue.
  - bartvk 4y ago
    Yup, called support and after our explanation, they asked whether the host offered us an alternative. I said no, and support would get back to us. Never heard from them again.

hasmanean 4y ago

Reviews can have objective facts (the AC is broken), but there is a subjective quality to them that has to be calibrated to each person (shabby decor to one person is faded glory to another). Maybe that’s a good use for AI. It could Calibrate itself to each persons “taste” and filter the world for them. Instead of making users rely on fake metrics like “stars” or hidden clues like the presence/absence of neon lights, or some quality in their logo to signal what type of establishment it is…this signalling/filtering could be done for them virtually.

xtiansimon 4y ago

“It's such a shame how short-sighted profit motives ruin everything.” Slightly off-topic, but this statement reminds me that it’s not just “profit motives”. I deal with third-party customer services (my clients work with third-party b2c who markets to customers, and my client fulfills the orders) a lot. Each company has a slightly different culture and structure. All have front line customer service for merchants, but it can take months to get through to higher levels of support—if at all. Front line say yes yes yes but nothing is fixed or remedied. The only obvious recourse is to leave the platform. Profit, yes. But also structure and roles of employees you are allowed to speak with who have no power for remedy, or incentive to be rational actors.