The truth and validation of online reviews for hotels and overnight accomodation - and some suggestions
Online reviews of hotels, as found on a variety of travel and aggregator websites, are chancy at best and outright shaky at worst. By the way, this is global, so not India specific. So what do you do if you are travelling on a budget and leaving hotel bookings for the end, like we often do, or have opted to travel suddenly? 1) Book a room for only one night. Extend if you like the place, otherwise go walkabout in the same town, and choose something else. We also very often sit in the lobby whilst one of us goes and checks the rooms on offer. Select what you like, not what they offer. 2) Call up the property before making a booking. Very often, the response and quality of answers, will tell you a lot more than the reviews put up online. And in this context, owner operated properties are often a better bet. 3) Use a credit card to make a booking. Specifically credit cards can give you the rights to ask for a reversal of charges towards delinquency in services rend...