How to pick a hotel (Part 2)

Last time we started the process of picking a hotel by defining your non-negotiable aspects, your must-haves in any hotel and making some early on decisions.

In this post I will drive it home and in the end, you will have chosen the perfect hotel for your vacation dreams!

Let’s go to step 2 of the process. Here we go!

Step 2: Go to Trip Advisor

Trip Advisor is the first source I check when trying to book a place to stay. Here, there are two situations: You either know about a hotel that someone recommended or you have no idea and you want to start your search from scratch.

If you know about a hotel, you can just enter its name in the search field. Trip Advisor will suggest possible matches if there are any.

It’ll then take you to that particular hotel’s page inside Trip Advisor, where you’ll find a lot of information based on the reviews of people who have stayed at this place.

In the case that you have no idea where to stay, then you write the name of the city in the search field. You will then get to a page for New York, with a summary of top hotels, B&Bs, restaurants and things to do.

You can then click on All 430 hotels and find the entire list. You can start selecting options, for instance, you can order them according to four criteria: Ranking (given by reviewers), prince (low to high), price (high to low) and distance.

Once you’ve sorted your list, you can start looking at some specific hotels. Clicking on the name of the hotel will take you to that particular hotel’s page.

There are a few things to check here: The circle score, is a 1 to 5 score averaged from the scores given by reviewers.

Reviewers are regular people who have stayed at this hotel and have taken the time to write a review about it.

I usually look for a score of at least 3,5. I feel more comfortable with scores of 4 and above.

Then you can find a summary of all the reviews with links so that you can filter down even more. My recommendation is to read the “Excellent” reviews as well as the “Terrible” reviews.

This will give me a quick spectrum of what to expect.

My friend Juan is wary if the hotel has less than 20 reviews, which I can relate to. Though there was one fantastic hotel (one of the best I’ve stayed in) I visited that had no reviews. It was so good, I was compelled be the first to write a review for them.

You need to be careful with terrible reviews. Sometimes people’s egos gets hurt when a bellboy doesn’t carry their bags all the way up to their room or they get an angry waiter or an apathetic receptionist.

To me that doesn’t necessarily mean that the hotel is no good, to me it means I need to do a bit more research because those may have been isolated events.

Most of the time you can tell whether the person was an obnoxious snobbish guest that just wants to get back at the hotel for the poor service of one or two people, mostly they’ll pick on small details without providing evidence and they use an angry tone in their writing.

After I’ve read some reviews, checked some preliminary prices and I’ve decided this hotel deserves a second look, I move on to step 3.

Step 3: Go to the hotel’s website

When I’ve narrowed down my search to around five hotels, I then visit their own website.

I surf around for:

Check in and check out times

Critical when planning a trip on a budget, you need to beware of these times to avoid unwanted extra charges.

Address, location, transportation

With the address I go to Google Maps and see where the hotel is located in the city and I compare its location with that of the attractions.

I start to plan possible transportation routes, be it by metro/subway or bus or on foot, moving from one attraction to the next to see how long it would take me to get from place to place. If transportation takes more than half an hour from the hotel, I start to look for closer places.

Here’s an example of walking route from The Herald Square Hotel in Manhattan in New York, to the Empire State Building, to Madame Tussaud’s in Times Square.

View Larger Map

Amenities

Does it provide free Wi-Fi, an electronic safe, an elevator or free breakfast? These may be important factors when making the final choice. If you have special needs or special food you can check if the hotel can accommodate you.

If you have any concerns or questions, you can contact the hotel directly by phone or email!

Prices according to room type, single, double, suite…

Sometimes these words don’t mean the same thing in different countries or for different hotels. Sometimes a single room can have a narrow bed, sometimes it can have a queen bed, it’s still a single room.

A double can have two queen beds or two double beds or one queen bed and one small bed. You really need to look at the pictures.

Special price packages

Do surf around each hotel’s website because many times there are special packages you can take advantage of, cutting even 50% off the price!

By checking all of these items you can now make a decision on where you want to stay, that will be the perfect match for you!

Step 4: Book online

Most of the time you can book your hotel online. Every so often I go to Booking.com to double check on prices and reviews.

Since you know the exact dates already and you’ve checked if they have any special packages, you have all the information you need to make your reservation now!

Phew! One less thing to worry about, isn’t it?

Read here my hotel reviews in Trip Advisor!

So, what do you think of this thorough methodology?
I’ve found it to be very effective and I’ve never been disappointed with my choices (except for the shared bathroom hotel in Paris, ew!).
Do you have any other tips to share? Do so in the comments field!
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Tags: New York, organization, planning, tips, tools