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Is IHG surpressing negative reviews on its website?

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IHG, the parent of Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza, InterContinental etc, publishes traveller reviews on its website for each of its hotels.

For some time there have been rumblings on Flyertalk about bad reviews mysteriously disappearing after being submitted.

A couple of weeks ago, I had a HfP reader contact me.  He had stayed at the new – well, rebadged from Kensington Close Hotel – Holiday Inn Kensington High Street.  

My understanding is that this hotel – room photo below, although I believe refurbishment is underway – could not be more of a dog if it had four legs and barked.  (I told this to an IHG executive at Christmas, this comment will not surprise them.)  It still averages 3.9 out of 5, however, from reader reviews.

Kensington Close Hotel

According to our reader:

I had a terrible stay at the Kensington High Street HI and wrote a suitably scathing review once the automated system asked for it after my stay.  They then deleted it. Refused to publish it. Refused to send it back to me. Just want the whole thing to “disappear”. They deny it is censorship, but can’t find an alternative word to describe their actions. I am escalating a complaint with them that they cannot do this and have to take the bad with the good if they host a review service. It is is very dishonest practice to delete the bad ones and just leave the good reviews.

One Flyertalker, who submits regular reviews, stated that he never grades below a ‘3’ because that is likely to see the review disappear.  His own grading of rankings is:

Overall score of 4.6 is great
Overall score of 4.3-4.5 is ‘nothing special’
Overall score of 4.0-4.2 is ‘hit or miss’
Overall score of 3.9 or below is ‘avoid at any cost’

On this scale, the Holiday Inn Kensington High Street is correctly positioned – it averages ‘3.9 or below’ – but the casual reader of ihg.com may not see it that way.

Another Flyertalk member submitted a positive review of a property but did mention that it had bedbugs.  He got the following response:

Your review has been rejected.

As a valued guest, your concerns are of the utmost priority. Therefore, rather than posting your review, we have alerted our Customer Care Team. One of our agents will be reaching out to you immediately. We apologize for the experience you had at our hotel, and thank you for bringing it to our attention.

Here is a report from a Flyertalk reader who wrote two reviews back to back:

Holiday Inn – Birmingham – 1 star Review (IMO) – Still Pending 2 days.
Staybridge Suites Birmingham – 5 Star Review Submitted 10:45 – Approved and Live 14:00

It isn’t certain that IHG is filtering out bad reviews from its website.  You don’t need to be a sceptic, however, to believe that you shouldn’t take everything that appears on a corporate website with a grain of salt.

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Comments (82)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Concerto says:
    29 Apr29 April 07:15

    This is why I don’t bother writing a single review on the IHG site any more. I also don’t bother reading them.

    • Peter K says:
      29 Apr29 April 10:59

      +1
      I clocked this a while ago and so just use Trip Advisor now.

  • Prins Polo says:
    29 Apr29 April 07:19

    The same thing happened to me – at least now I know it was not an isolated incident!

  • Andrew says:
    29 Apr29 April 07:23

    I would second that – I stayed at HI High St Ken a few weeks back and found it to be a terrible hotel with a small cold room. They also gave me no Spire recognition at check-in. IHG should be ashamed of such a hotel.

  • Ramones says:
    29 Apr29 April 07:36

    Some years ago I heard about a multinational company that engaged in the unscrupulous activity of trolling review sites, blogs and forums and actively posting positive comments and even negative comments regarding a competitor.

  • Kris Schimmel says:
    29 Apr29 April 07:45

    I was there last week for the marathon. It was fine. The room was a bit small, but clean (no bed bugs). Tube station is just around the corner. Staff were nice. My points posted after checking out the next day. Renovations seemed to be completed as lobby and my room at least was quite nice. My only complaint was housekeeping didn’t replace the soap after cleaning the room after my first night. A quick call and 2 minutes later, new soap. I wasn’t blown away with the place but I all I wanted was a cheapish place to stay for a few nights that was centrally located. It suited my needs and I recommend it and would go back.

  • Mark says:
    29 Apr29 April 08:18

    It’s actually an offence to delete bad reviews.

    • the real harry1 says:
      29 Apr29 April 08:54

      pls name that offence!

    • Harpo says:
      29 Apr29 April 09:15

      Causes offence maybe – hardly criminal

    • Richard says:
      29 Apr29 April 09:50

      Posting fake reviews is illegal (arguably fraud, which would make it an offence, but certainly against the Unfair Consumer Practices Directive, which would mean they could be sued for it). That’s probably what you’re thinking of. Censoring bad reviews isn’t illegal as far as I know.

    • Fenny says:
      29 Apr29 April 10:30

      Submitting a review isn’t the same as it being published and removed. The reviewee can decide which submissions they choose to publish.

  • Harry Holden says:
    29 Apr29 April 08:28

    I left a scathing review of the Intercontinental Malta which was published in November. It is now missing.

    On a tablet, I can only access reviews left since 28th February.

    • Miles says:
      29 Apr29 April 09:17

      Done the same with Malta, which is gone and one for Crowne Plazza Gatwick to be told I couldn’t write negative views

    • Kimberly says:
      29 Apr29 April 10:24

      I also left a bad review for the Malta IC and it got bumped from the first page of reviews to well beyond that about a day after it was published. And the reviews pushing it out of viewing range were suspiciously positive and glowing. I suspect there’s a bit of astroturfing that they do to make sure that any bad reviews get “lost”.

  • Curious says:
    29 Apr29 April 08:36

    Not being funny, but am I the only one who thinks these hotels are cr@p without having even stayed in them? Aren’t HIX for example just basic junk generally? This is why I’ve never fathomed the excitement generated by otherwise knowledgeable people surrounding IHG deals…

    • mark2 says:
      29 Apr29 April 08:41

      We did stay in one once and it was poor, particularly the food.
      We are staying in another in June but we shall not arrive until 2000 and have to leave early and I have got points so will use them up and keep Marriott points for another day.

    • Mr Dee says:
      29 Apr29 April 09:08

      Yes I agreee HIX are useless, poorly designed rooms with paper thin walls and a breakfast to avoid in most cases

    • Paul says:
      29 Apr29 April 09:23

      In the UK they are crap… but cheap and not a bad way to gain a lot of points. In the USA HIX are great.
      Food still ropey but it’s free so eat elsewhere. My experience of HIX in the USA is that they are far more upmarket than here….. but then is that true of most hotels and almost everything else!

      • Rob says:
        29 Apr29 April 10:02

        This is the new UK HIX design rolling out – https://headforpoints.com/2016/05/02/holiday-inn-express-ealing-review/ – which I would happily stay in.

        I stayed in one in The Hamptons a few years ago which was astonishingly nice, basically a four star.

        I’m also positive about Hampton by Hilton (they’ve just invited us to the new Berlin one so that will be an interesting test, and I visited the new Excel / City Airport one last week) and I have grudging respect for Premier Inn because the beds and rooms are generally high quality – for the money – even if the restaurant is a pub. Haven’t tried a Citizen M yet.

        • @mkcol says:
          29 Apr29 April 12:05

          Citizen M are great, fun & young. Fantastic bed, so long as you don’t mind not being able to walk all the way around it from one side to the other.

        • Ro says:
          29 Apr29 April 12:17

          How come the respect for premier inn is grudging?

          • Rob says:
            29 Apr29 April 13:57

            Because the way they lock you out of the hotel without a key card, the lack of public space and the requirement to eat in a pub, even for breakfast, means that I shouldn’t be keen, but they don’t skimp on the rooms and the value is decent.

            Will be checking out T4 soon.

        • Graham Walsh says:
          29 Apr29 April 14:46

          I stayed at the Citizen M in Amsterdam earlier this year. An interesting concept. Very friendly staff etc. Again, it’s a room that you spend 4-8 hours in depending how much of a late night you have 🙂

          I’ve heard good things about the London one too.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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