I Worked in Hotels for 6 Years, and I’ll Tell You About 16 Signs of Accommodation You Shouldn’t Book

Our rest or business trips depend a lot on how well we choose a hotel or an apartment to stay at. If the appliances don’t function properly, the staff are rude, and the noise doesn’t let you sleep well, then even a well-planned trip turns into a nightmare. And sometimes, you might even pay for your stay, and then realize that the place doesn’t exist at all.

My name is Maria, and I’ve worked in hotels in different countries around the world for 6 years. Specially for CHEERY, I’ve made a list of things to pay attention to when choosing a place to book.

The hotel doesn’t have a social media page.

It’s better to check the hotel you like and find out if it has a social media page, where they post new information about their offers, and communicate with their future guests.

If there is no social media page or the page hasn’t been updated in a long time, and clients’ questions are not answered (on Facebook, you can see how quickly the page reacts to messages), it’s an alarming sign.

You can book a place only on 1 website.

Almost all hotels work with several platforms because they help them reach a bigger audience. If a hotel can be booked only on 1 website, it may mean 2 things. Either the hotel is too small, or the owners are not interested in their property and don’t want to waste time working with many websites.

Besides, not all companies allow people to contact the hotel staff directly. So, the information may not be accurate, and the hotel will respond longer.

The staff doesn’t confirm the reservation.

An automatic confirmation doesn’t mean you will get the room. The hotels that care about their clients usually send a welcome letter and quickly answer all the questions and provide all the information.

If you can’t contact the hotel, maybe there’s something wrong with it. It might already be closed, but still, be on the website.

The owner wants to communicate via a personal e-mail or messenger.

All the details about your future stay should be discussed on the aggregator website. If some of the promises aren’t kept, you will be able to use the correspondence to contact the support and ask for compensation. Besides, sharing your data with third parties may be dangerous.

Room photos are clearly edited.

Edited photos mean that the owners are trying to hide some flaws. Bright colors, or lightened shots, mean that they might be trying to hide old bed sheets, cracks, or stains on the walls.

If the lines are curves on the edges, the photos might have been shot with a wide-angle lens. So, the real size of the room should be written in the description, don’t judge by the photos. To understand what a place looks like, you can ask the staff to take a fresh picture of the room with their phones. If they refuse, it’s an alarming sign.

Some details are not on the photos.

All the rooms of the place should be in the photos from different angles. Pay attention to small details. If the windows are closed with the curtain, there is a chance the view is not very nice.

When all the photos are made with artificial light, it might mean that the place is in the basement, or there are no windows. If there are too many close-up photos of decorative details and the rest of the place looks blurred, the owners were trying to hide some flaws.

There are no photos of the outside of the hotel.

If there are no photos, showing the place from the outside, it’s also an alarming sign. Maybe, the hotel is located in a dangerous or not a good-looking area. The inside photos can be easily edited, but it’s harder to edit the outside.

The description is more about the location, and not the actual room.

All owners try to present their place in the best possible light. But if the description focuses on the location and sights, it means there aren’t enough advantages to the room itself.

On Google Maps, the area looks different than it does on the photos.

In any case, you should look at the surroundings on Google Maps and read the reviews about the places nearby: restaurants, stores, and clubs. On the map, you can see what the neighborhood looks like and if there are any unpleasant surprises, such as building sites.

The description might say the hotel is in a quiet place, but the photos will show that it’s near a busy highway.

The search shows other hotels that used to be at this address.

Sometimes, hotels change owners. And new owners might have no funds to do a renovation to get rid of old problems. So, they change the name and create a new page for the hotel. So, the hotel will look new and with no reviews.

The guests are sure they are choosing a completely new place, but in fact, it’s a building with a lot of problems. To learn about the history of the place, google the address and see if there are other names for the same place.

The hotel has just been built and opened.

Completely new hotels are really fresh and good-looking. But some internal problems can only be found and fixed when it’s functioning. So, the first guests will deal with different problems. Besides, new hotels might not have some of the services they say they have. The prices might be cheaper, but the experience may also be worse.

All the positive reviews are recent.

Even the best hotels might have bad reviews, and it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t book them. But if there are recurring problems in different reviews for a long time, it means that the owners can’t fix them.

Besides, you should check when the bad and the good reviews were written. If the negative reviews were posted a long time ago, and then the owners praised the place, the situation might have been fixed. If the situation is reversed, it’s a bad sign —maybe, the management changed, and the quality level dropped.

The place has too many notices of reservation cancellations.

On Airbnb, you can see notices that an owner canceled certain reservations. If the owner does it too often, it’s not a very good sign. It’s very unpleasant to spend a lot of time choosing a place just to have the reservation canceled several months before the trip. And it might be hard to find anything good in the same price range.

The hotel is on the list of objects with bugs.

Even the best hotels have bugs. Several websites help find out that there are parasites in hotels. The list of American and Canadian places is on BedbugReports.com, European hotels are on HotelBedbugRegistry, and the places around the world are here on BedbugPestControl.com.

Additional services don’t have an accurate price.

It’s better to know exactly what the room has and what you should pay extra for. Some hotels allow visitors with pets or additional beds only for extra money, but you don’t know how much exactly. So, the staff might ask for any amount.

What do you pay attention to when booking a hotel or an apartment?