suze

You don't have to attend Get-Togethers to get stuff from Trip Advisor.

suze

They *can be* bogus because businesses can write fake good reviews about themselves, or fake bad reviews about their competition.

starrs

It's pretty easy to spot the bogus reviews. Give more weight to a reviewer who has posted a lot in different cities/areas and give less weight to the "onesies". If there's a rave review you don't quite believe, click on the name of the poster and see what else they have reviewed and what they said about those places. If they've only reviewed one place over the years, I'd say it's bogus.

Just like anything else you read on the internet, consider the source. TA makes it easy to see if the source of the review has some credibility - or not.

thursdaysd

@suze - I seem to remember getting a free book last fall.

@amy - I ignore any place when most of the reviews on the first or second screen are from posters with less than five reviews. I read all the bad reviews, but with care - complaining about getting a small room in a London B&B is just silly, for instance.

bettyk

I recently received a luggage tag from TA. I've only posted about 15 reviews so far.

unclegus

TA reviews can't be confirmed,you can write reviews of customer experience,even if you have just phoned them to try to book.you don't have to stay in a hotel or have eaten at a resturant to give a review,you don't have to prove that you have even had the experience.It is way to easy to fake reviews .There are so many one time posters writing reviews for some properties that it is unbelievable,there are absoluted no controls or proper checks to the validity of the reviews which in my opion makes them worthless.
BTw i got a nice book from Fodor's last year for getting a couple of mentions in the new Czech republic & Prague guide.

suze

If you are registered on Trip Advisor just 'PM' the person who wrote the review. I often get questions from past reviews I have posted asking for clarification or more details.

BigAleinstein

They should have a couple of bags including one for missed reviews. I go to the locations I know best and not only are there misguided reviews but there are many, many serious omissions. Restaurants that are far superior than those listed but since they are not in tourist centers or listed in guide books they are ignored. They are particularly uninformed about various ethnic cuisines, but that does not seem to stop from writing about them people simply because they want to belong and have their voices heard.

kwren

I hit the 50 review mark and was immediately offered the bag. I thought it might have been for reaching that level. (At least MY reviews aren't bogus!) So far no comments on the bag though. I'll take it with me to Italy in September and see what happens!

AJPeabody

When I noticed that restaurants near where I live had few usable reviews, I started reviewing the ones I go to. Maybe if there were 50 restaurants near me I could get a bag?

kwren

worth a try!

LSky

I received a luggage tag and some stickers. I wasn't sure what to do with the stickers that I was to hand out to hotels that I liked.

Frances

Mine's arrived! or in fact it's been collected as the postman left a card on Thursday telling me that he had a letter for me that was too big to go through my letterbox. It asked me to go to Pwllheli to collect it- this is 40 miles from where I live but I suspected that that was a mistake and I was right.
No zip! Am I second class or are there different specs for different countries - or level of contribution?
In passing the covering letter referred to me as a "top contributor" and just a few days before they told me I would be having this bag, they notified me that I was a top contributor for May and May hadn't even ended at that stage!I think that I had posted 10 reviews for that month.
Anyway its a nice size-great for swimming stuff when we don't hire a car.

isabel

I got one months ago. I really try to always write reviews of hotels I stay at because I find reading TA reviews a very reliable way to judge a place - and often the reviews even give me helpful information that the hotel's website doesn't have. I pay no attention to the rating system - that does seem pretty random and not relevant. But when there are at least a few reviews, I find the majority tend to agree with each other you can then use that information to judge a place. I pretty much never book a place without checking TA reviews.