TripAdvisor

Calling India for customer service. They hardly understand you and if they do it takes an hour to explain what is it u want. Please bring the customer service to USA. Sick and tired of talking to John who speaks no English

Beyond what everyone else has posted (and from experience I have a low opinion of Trip Advisor) the sign up interface is so poorly done and difficult to maneuver that it’s hard to imagine this is an internet-​based rating service. If they can’t get that right it says a lot about everything else they do.

As a former Unilocal Elite, I’ve used Unilocal for quite a while, and generally use it to find dining options in new areas. One thing I’ve never quite understood is the antagonism between Unilocal users and those who prefer TripAdvisor — they’re useful for very different purposes.
That said, when my wife and I went to Costa Rica for our honeymoon, we left Unilocal at home (metaphorically) and used TripAdvisor for nearly everything we did. The tips were spot-​on (e.g. leave San Jose behind, especially on a Saturday night), and the reviews never seemed to be written just to gain status — something that I’ve occasionally noticed on U.S.-based reviews (both on Unilocal and TA).
This doesn’t even take into account what it’s like to work for the company, which from both my own experience and numerous friends’ stories is very positive. It’s a great company to work for, and a very useful site.

Holy disillusioned! TripAdvisor deletes negative reviews! No wonder I’ve been led astray by them so many times! I had no idea! I posted a review of a terrible experience at a hotel in Amherst, NY after Christmas. It’s gone. And I couldn’t figure out why this hotel got such good reviews. It was, frankly, gross. Now I know. After doing research, I found out that yes, indeed, TA will pull negative reviews. They cater to their advertisers, not travelers.

I love Tripadvisor!!! I use if for all of my traveling and I love posting reviews on there. I notice that many of my friends prefer Tripadvisor to Unilocal.The site also offers translated reviews which Unilocal does not. This summer my family plans on visiting Bavaria. I spent a great deal of time looking up places on both Unilocal and TA and although there are restaurant reviews on Unilocal,they’re all in German! TA offers translated review. I also like how they rank the restaurants according to their stars as well; it makes it a lot easier when there are so many reviews to sort through.

TripAdvisor is the most shill-​filled and unreliable review site (with Google Places and Priceline close behind) and it has let me down several times this past year as TripAdvisor’s hotel ratings have been increasingly inaccurate over time. We’ve experienced (first-​hand) 4-​star rated properties on TripAdvisor that only have a 1.5-star rating on Unilocal.
TripAdvisor will actually remove reviews that businesses don’t want listed on their profiles. No ethics at all, and publicly traded by clueless investment analysts who have no idea that the Red Roof Inn owner in Monterey, California, has enlisted his high-​school-​aged son and daughter to super-​shill their TripAdvisor listing.
People will catch on after they get burned a few times and stop using TripAdvisor, Priceline, Google Places because of their tendency to overrate hotels.
Stick with Hotwire and Unilocal and you’ll be fine.

Funny thing I was given lame excuses that I didn’t click verification links etc and that is why my reviews weren’t posted. I don’t understand why my account was blacklisted I rarely ever gave a bad review on a location.
I’ve posted the same reviews using my husbands account and those were posted immediately so that confirms my account has been blacklisted.
I’ve reached out to tripadvisor several times regarding this issue and always the same response. bull crap

I am being generous with one star. Trip Advisor panders to the companies and establishments that are being reviewed and do not give a care to the customers writing the reviews. No matter what the review says, if the company in question does not like it, the review is removed and a patronizing email is sent blaming the customer for their lack of following guidelines.
I wrote a review that was published. The hotel manager responded with fabrications about meeting me (he did not), fabrications about how the rest of my family had a good time. I am sick of this and this is not the first time.
It is clearly evident that TripAdvisor favors the companies when you go to the contact us page. there are two choices: general and owner. If you click on general, you get an email form. If you click on owner, you get a phone number and a fax number! WTH!
I am coming over to Unilocal

TripAdvisor is generally a decent resource for travel, and when considering travel alone, rivals Unilocal due to the vast number of reviews on their site. Based on quantity of reviews (and potential metadata associated with businesses) alone, It actually has the potential to be better than Unilocal for travelers. ( Unilocal should take note: for attractions like museums, monuments, landmarks, etc, Unilocal should add a field for «recommended length of visit.»)
In this review, to be fair, I’m going to try not to specifically compare it to Unilocal,but I’m probably not going to be 100% successful here.
Their reviewers provide content that generally is a bit underneath the quality of your average Unilocal review (as I believe more of the general public have been exposed to TripAdvisor, including more morons, and TripAdvisor allows more anonymity in their postings than Unilocal), but due to the fact Unilocal is perceived to be more aimed at foodies (though it shouldn’t be) and TripAdvisor is aimed more at travel, it should absolutely be considered as an excellent source for information while travelling.
Why two stars, you ask? Good question… I’d probably give it 5, but here’s why I don’t.:
–Search and site navigation is very clunky. If you don’t type the name of the attraction correctly on the first try in the search blank, you can be searching. Want to see the list of top attractions in Dallas, TX? Go back to the home screen, change the radio button to «destinations», Type in Dallas, wait for auto complete, click on Dallas, Texas under destinations and click the find button, then scroll through all of the crap for hotels and travel guides and other stuff and look for the little link marked «browse all attractions.» That’s at least 6 steps, and a pain in the butt.
–Review process is super slow. Post a review, and you might wait a few days to get it accepted or rejected. I know the Unilocal auto-​filter system can be discouraging for new users, but it’s way better than this.
–When a review is rejected, sometimes it’s not obvious as to why. I believe that one of mine were rejected because I mentioned that I cross-​posted it with Unilocal,and mentioned that I did. I didn’t do that for self promotion – I did that to be transparent. Though, honestly, I’m still not sure.
–Their policy of «No profanity allowed» in reviews: I dislike this ultimately because I don’t believe in censorship. Sometimes, honest reviews call for profanity. I would (and occasionally do) use profanity in a review to add color and to communicate particularly powerful emotions. Sometimes, «profanity» is the best way to do this.(Example: I believe the word «dumbass» is categorized as profanity, according to TripAdvisor. If I was a retarded donkey, I’d be super offended, TripAdvisor!) They’re only words. If you’re offended by them, don’t look to the reviewer, look within yourself. There is nothing more ignorant than fear of language. By limiting what can be said in their medium, their reviews are less genuine. «But what about the children?!?» I doubt they’re avid TripAdvisor readers, and if they are, I hope they know how to deal with curse words as a prerequisite to using the Internet. (And if they don’t, they’ll learn quickly.)
–Their listing algorithm is the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen. (Billy Joe Jimbob’s bait store is #1 of 53 attractions in Timbucktu!)
Examples:
–The «Million Dollar Quartet» is currently ranked as the #2 attraction in Chicago. This is only behind the Art Institute, but ahead of every other attraction in Chicago. (To name a few: Wrigley Field, every other museum in the city, United Center, The Willis (Sears) Tower, Water Tower Place, Michigan Avenue, etc, etc, etc.)
-«Ricki Stevenson’s Black Paris Tours» is currently listed as the #2 attraction in Paris behind only the Orsay, putting it ahead of the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, the Louvre, Sainte-​Chapelle, and Notre Dame. While we’re at it, «How to become a Parisian in one hour» is at #5, which also places it above all of the other attractions I just listed.
-«Discovery Cove» is listed as the #1 attraction in Orlando, FL. Walt Disney World? #10. Islands of Adventure? #19.
The reasons for these stupid listings are super poor consistency of what constitutes an attraction and what doesn’t, and no remotely intelligent way of popularity of an attraction versus the ratings it was given. (i.e. — Just because someone gave one attraction 7 five-​star reviews will probably place it well above one that received thousands of reviews with an average rating of 4.9 stars.)
So yeah, I’m not a fan. TripAdvisor, fix your absurd policies and hire a few more programmers. That may make me like your site more. Until then, I’ll just rant about it here on Unilocal

TripAdvisor is part of my artillery when traveling. The hotel section is helpful but I particularly like raiding it for the Attractions section. I’ve found things there that I wouldn’t have otherwise known about and now I have really good memories of certain trips.

Interesting. It must be bad form to write a review on Unilocal about trip advisor. Just a handful of reviews and most of them horrible. For international travel, I’ve found the reviews on TA to be enormously on target. We just got back from a fabulous trip to Peru, and we really did our research — hotels and restaurants — on TA (with a substantial assist from the chow boards for food). Unilocal is such a robust forum for food and destinations (with the sheer volume of locals weighing in) that I think it works very well for entertainment and food. Sure, there’s chaff to sort through, but the volume + input of locals = great source of intel. For travel, the same force is in play on TA for hotels. You can rely (with enough of a data source) on people’s experiences for a sense of where you want to spend your time and money.

Terrible customer service. They never publish your negative review as long as the owner does not want them there. Same thing with all these vacation rental places. I have spent numerous hours trying to submit a review of this terrible property next to 3 massive construction sites and have never been able to get thru to any customer service or even receive a confirmation of my review. Such sites only allow positive reviews thru.

Terrible customer service. I wrote a review on TripAdvisor and it was removed without telling me. When I contacted them asking why, the response said because I could not rate the «sleep quality».
It is absurd not be able to share the horrible experience I had at this particular hotel. And, this is exactly what TripAdvisor is meant for.
Here is the review:
Subject: Hotel Estambul
Location: Latacunga, Cotopaxi Province, Ecuador, South America
Title: VERY SCARY Experience
My partner and I had a very scary experience at this hotel. The senior woman working the front desk threatened us by screaming at us and locking us in the hotel because we did not want to take the room she showed us and wanted to go to another hotel. She locked us in the hotel until we gave her $ 3 to let us leave. I almost called the police but my partner talked me out if. The hotel smells like mildew and the noise echos in the atrium and is very loud.

The BostonForum is pretty useless. The destination experts spend their time rehasing priceline quotes. One de continously messes up locations of hotels and will actually give reviews on places by the line she observed when driving by. Most of the bloggers rarely step inside the hotels of which they review.
If going to Disneyworld, the Orlando Forum is a must and the blogger partypa is the one to ask questions.

Tipadvisor (TRIP on Nasdaq) makes its money on advertisements — click-​based, display-​based, and subscription and other. Read its 3Q12 financials here:
No wonder Tripadvisor does not like NEGATIVE reviews — for they hurt their profit.
I recently wrote a 1-​star review on Brooklyn Bridge, the unfairness /​injustice on the bridge where it is divided half-​half between pedestrians and bicyclists. Google
for ⁸⁄₂₀₁₂ article on «widening Brooklyn Bridge» and you will see the picture on NY Times by Robert Caplin of 1 bicyclist vs MANY pedestrians. Instead of just moving the dividing line, the city is pondering spending million of dollars to re-​engineer the path. (Note the city member cited from transportation dept number of 4000 pedestrians vs 3100 bicyclists a day.) Tripadvisor deleted my, and the other 1-​star review.
Tripadvisor? Truthful and reliable? Far from it.
And TRIP is now (at ¹²⁄₂₀₁₂) trading at 29x Price/​Earning ratio. It is not only over-​rated. It is overprice.

I cannot stand this company. The functionality of their website is so lame. Unlike Unilocal,which is awesome!, they limit user control too much. I can’t edit my own reviews. Once, I reviewed a place and said they had bed bugs because they did and I received an email from them asking me to confirm my review because that’s a harsh criticism to make. I wanted to re-​read what I wrote to ensure accuracy but they don’t let you do that. I either had to say it was accurate and post it, or rewrite the entire thing. So stupid. I hate them so much that I wanted to delete my account. It took maybe 9 emails and several phone calls to get them to take my account down. I can’t even do that myself? What, am I an infant who needs to suckle on their big giant TA titty or am I an adult who should have his own control over my account on their website. Douche bags.

Is it possible that I’m actually so mad at TripAdvisor, that I’m residually mad at Unilocal for not being their direct competitor?
I wrote a long, in-​depth review for a recent hotel stay and posted it up on the TripAdvisor site. There it was: my first TripAdvisor review. I was so proud! I spent the next couple days with my head in the clouds knowing that I just helped weary travelers the world over.
My sense of altruism was short lived however, because when I went back in a week later to dream about my next trip, my review had mysteriously vanished. Alright, maybe I didn’t do something right. Maybe there was some kind of error on their end. No biggie, I’ll repost it. Easy enough, I had it saved on my iPad.
Flash-​forward another week, now I login just to check to see if it’s posted. Nope, it’s gone. Hmmm. That’s weird. Must be because it’s my first review. Okay, I’ll review another hotel from a while back. Then I’ll repost my other review. Still doesn’t go up, but the other one does. Now I’m mad. I’ll email them to find out what gives…
TripAdvisor customer service gets back to me and says «It appears that your review has been caught up in our automatic filters and editorial processes, which will remove a post from our site if it is deemed suspicious for any reason. Unfortunately, I cannot go into detail about what triggered the removal, nor can I re-​publish your post.» They then go on to suggest that I repost it again. I do, and again it disappears. I email customer service again, this time receiving a more terse statement without any encourage to re-​post.
What a sham/​scam! If they want to penalize hotels for not spending enough bucks with Expedia (see Hamburguesa’s review below), that’s fine by me. But perhaps they could do it before they waste my time.
This review was bought to you today by Spite. Please be sure to support our sponsors by not believing anything you see (or don’t) on TripAdvisor.

I don’t trust Trip Advisor anymore for the following reasons:
[1] We had a horrible experience at a restaurant (Rudy’s) in Moorea, French Polynesia that is highly rated (4.5 stars) on Trip Advisor. Owner intentionally embarrassed my wife and I in front of everyone in the restaurant for ordering only one entrée and one dessert.
[2] I tried writing a thorough three paragraph negative (1 star) review on the restaurant and ensured it followed their rules, but it got rejected. All later attempts to revise the review and resubmit a negative review on Rudy’s also got rejected. I then wrote some standard bull crap positive reviews on scenic points of interests and they got accepted.
[3] I tried writing a 5 star positive review on a locally owned restaurant in Moorea that my wife and I loved and it got rejected.
[4] We used Trip Advisor to pick a lunch spot for our trip in February (lobster season) to Roata, Honduras. Our choice was «Lobster Pot» rated at 4.5 stars on Trip Advisor. Lobster in Roata is supposedly as abundant as engineers in Silicon Valley, yet a 5″ baked lobster tail was priced at $ 25USD as much as it would be if Roata was a land locked state in the US. To top it off the lobster was not fresh; it was mushy with a consistency like tofu reminiscent of the $ 10 steak and lobster buffets in Las Vegas.
My recommendation is to stay away from Trip Advisor. They either have some kind of payoff with the places reviewed on their site (our entire hotel key card in Moorea had the Trip Advisor logo stamped on it) or their filtering mechanism for reviews is faulty.

Anytime I book a trip, I lookup the hotel and see if it clean, good location, and the best advice you are ever going to get because real people have stayed there…
Also, it is great because you can leave a comment about your stay & this helps other people know what to expect…

An advisor to your travel needs, please! I’ve pinned 208 cities on my travel map.
Like other users, I’ve discovered TripAdvisor via Facebook, without knowing they are owned by Expedia which uncovers the annoying ads plastered all over their page indeed. I speculate if their travel reviews are valid, truthful and written by actual experiences to produce specious claims of one’s experience.
TripAdvisor is certainly the Unilocal for travel enthusiasts as writing is my passion to eating sweets!