Steve
Mesa,#2Consumer Comment
Thu, December 09, 2010
I never saw the negative reports for the hotels that I booked on Hotels.com and these scammers would never answer my emails in regards to the question why they would not publish them.
Tripadvisor published them and I saw similar reports about the same place from other travellers. I agree that it is possible to publish a "five star report" on Tripadvisor using family members or employees but if I read reports about cockroaches, plugged up toilets and mold in the bathroom and see other reports that describe the same place as next to heaven with 5 stars in each category then I am getting the picture.
What is important for me is that I am able to read those negative reports and I found that even those travelers who were completely disappointed were still fair in certain aspects, showing that the ratings they were giving were not completely retaliatory.
The real scam is when Hotels.com eliminates negative reports systematically even if they comply with their rules and guidelines. this is consumer fraud and I hope that the Federal Trade Commission will investigate this.
Thesadreality
seattle,#3Consumer Comment
Mon, November 29, 2010
You named it all, maestro. I've always thought of it this way, I knew the hotel bookers manipulated the public but wasn't sure until I read your report. Now I can freely say that hotel booking is indeed a corrupt industry where the travelers and equally the hotels are the victims. in fact all the ratings, all the reviews and the reservation made through these third parties are a scam. If the public stops using their services they will go bankrupt. I almost always book directly on the hotel's own website. But a number of times I had to book through the smart guys because the hotel's published rates were significantly higher. When the hotels learn to post their room rates on their sites competitively the public will go to them directly. So far travelocity and orbitz for example give better rates which means we are hooked. it's the reality.
Silkmeadow
Vancouver,#4REBUTTAL Individual responds
Fri, July 02, 2010
The Royal Cancun and the Royal Playa del Carmen are very good examples of a big scam going on. The Royal Cancun is only 3 years old and has over 1000 excellent reviews whereas the number 1 resort in Cancun has only 650 excellent reviews. If you compare the number 1 and number 2 resorts and the amount of their reviews compared to the two Royals you'll see something very fishy is going and that fishiness is the fact that these resorts are high pressure timeshare sales.
We booked at the Royal Cancun because of the great ratings but it was not great at all. It was managed and run more like a 3 star, so I dug around the internet and sure enough found this and many websites that confirm what we thought... one big scam.
From now on we are going to trust professional guidebooks or websites that have professional travellers. One that is starting up is (((Redacted))) but unfortunately they are just starting out and do not yet cover Mexico but they are planning on it.
Silk
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