After traveling different places and listening to all of your travels, I have noticed a gripe with what we get for our dollars. In my book, one or two stars are usually dumps. Four or Five stars are the hotels that I like to stay in! Now the catch is the three stars. They vary from dumpy to very nice. I worry about trusting my vacation dollars on a three star.How many of you have thought that for three stars you would have a clean and decent hotel and did not? What do all of you think? Don't you think the rating system needs to be somewhat updated?

I do dollar signs now instead of stars.
O

Um, girl, there isn't a rating system. Every organization in the US that rates hotels -- whether it's Mobil, AAA, Pricelines, or whoever, is using their own rating system. Read their guidelines closely -- some use very subjective jfactors, others just quantifiable things like whether or not there's a restaurant and room service.

Depends on the rating. Sometimes, the "star" system isn't qualitative in nature (i.e., how "good" or "crappy" the hotel is); sometimes it simply indicates relative level of amenities at the property (room service, concierge, laundry, etc.). I cross-reference those with user ratings from travelocity.com, tripadvisor.com and this website to see if there's any correlation, and choose accordingly. I also look for AAA Diamond ratings, just to get a more objective assessment.

Some "two-star" facilities (no room service) get astronomically high user ratings (clean, great staff, perfect location); conversely, some of those "four-star" hotels get panned.

It would be interesting to know what rating system girlonthego is referring to. Without telling us that, this entire post and thread are pretty meaningless. Priceline? AAA? Mobil? Peoria Travel Club?

I have just found that the three star hotels have gone down hill. It is hard to get a nice room at a decent price. I look at the AAA rating and Mobil. I don't trust the Expedia's or Priceline type ratings. I guess I will go with Kal and say look at the dollar signs......

In assessing hotel quality, I rely on a combination of things: Mobil Travel Guide, AAA, Frommers, Fodors, posts on these forums, posts on FlyerTalk.com, and posts at Trip Advisor. I find the experience of other travelers to be most useful, but only if a sufficient number of people have posted about a particular hotel. With the guidebooks, I trust Mobil's ratings much more than the others.

I NEVER rely on Priceline's, Travelocity's, Expedia's or any of the other booking engines ratings. They have a strong tendency to overrate.

Agreeing with rjw that ratings have more to do with hotel amenities than how clean or nice the hotel is.

Coming from the hotel industry, I can tell you one of the differences in AAA 3 and 4 diamond ratings are 24 hour room service. A hotel that only has room service from 6AM until 2AM will only get a three diamond rating. The same hotel that adds 4 more hours of room service will get a 4 diamond rating.

Of course that isn't all of it but a good example.

If you want to be assured of nice accommodations, look for either Relais & Chateaux or Small Luxury Hotels of the World.

Some two star or diamond hotels are very very nice.

Given that certain types of people are attracted to certain types of hotels (and motels, fast food places, etc.), why not switch to a rating of people, not where they stay. A twit, for example, might get a single star, and where he stays, or she, would thus be awarded a single star. This is an approach we've use for annual trips to Europe, and it's been valuable in helping us avoid places frequented by unsavory types such as backpackers and hairstylists. This might work for others as well, IMHO.

Unsavory types - backpackers and hairstylists? Now that's a new one!!!

A public service announcement:
travels(un)happy = travellaughter = travelplans = blacktie = leone = sobetraveler = no personal experience, most advice based upon his Fodors grudges = ignore.

GoTravel's point about stars and amenities is a good one. Priceline requires a hotel to have a restaurant on-premises in order to get 3*. In large cities, you can sometimes get very nice hotels that are stuck at 2.5* because they don't bother to have their own restaurant just cuz there are so many restaurants already, on the same block! One example is NYC, where the Courtyard by Marriott Midtown East is the only 2.5* listed on BFT; this was a great bargain at $75 when I stayed there.

We have had very good luck finding rooms by using a combination of Frommer and Lonely Planet guidebooks, TripAdvisor.com, and this forum.

Using this strategy for a recent trip to Mexico, we stayed in very nice three- and four-star properties in Mexico City, Veracruz, Oaxaca, Puebla, San Miguel, and Queretaro. Rooms ranged from $85-$135, with an average of about $115 and included top hotels in some of these places.

Ranting=fishoverdose=strangeperson.

All of these US systems are proprietary so it isn't a matter of needing updating -- it's what those entities think is important to their audience. I think Mobil's ratings are worthless to me as they seem geared to upscale business people and provide no relevant information. I think AAA ratings are more geared toward the average traveler/tourist and make more sense. I actually prefer European ratings systems to any of these as I trust them more as they are not so subjective and they make more sense to me. I can tell much more what I am getting when I book a 2 vs 3 vs 4 star hotel in Europe.

I don't even understand what is important to those requiring five star hotels -- I can understand a nice luxurious room, but some of the things Mobil rates, and doesn't rate, are completely unimportant or even undesirable to me (like turndown service).

For example, I recently stayed at a nice Comfort Inn in Naples FL on the Marina. I didn't want to spend what some of the nicer hotels cost there, which was about twice as much. It looked fine online, had good comments on Tripadvisor, and had a great location, so I booked it. Then I was perusing a guidebook and saw that Mobil had rated this hotel as a 1*. I have never stayed in a 1* hotel and couldn't understand how a hotel with the amenities of this one could merit 1* unless it were a total dump and rundown. I was nervous and expecting a tent or something.

There was nothing wrong with this hotel. Sure, it was a standard modern chain hotel, but perfectly clean and comfortable and had amenities I'd associate with a 4* hotel (in-room coffee maker, in-room ironing board and iron, perfectly nice TV, etc. The hotel had an elevator, helpful staff, and a bar and restaurant and covered parking (I think a pool also).

Upon reading Mobil's ratings definitions in one place, it appears they rate hotels as 1* if they don't have a business center or in-hotel fitness center or something. That hotel could send faxes, by the way, and may have had some business room, I don't recall. In short, Mobil's 1* rating of this place was less than useful. AAA rates it 3 diamonds, which is what I would think appropriate. If Mobil rates that place as a 1*, that means there is no distinction between that and a complete flea-infested dump with no amenties at all. This hotel in quality was very similar or even better than Sheratons and Hiltons I've stayed at on business in NYC, which I bet are given a much higher rating by Mobil. I think Mobil is biased in a way that isn't useful to the average traveler.

Christina, Mobil's ratings are completely useless.

About two years ago they completely redid their rating system and hotels that were 5 star were dropped to 4 and the 4 were dropped to three, etc.

There is no rhyme or reason for Mobil's new ratings except to show execs on crack.