Our Standards · 5 min read
How We Rate Hotels
The Hotel Flock Score is our own editorial judgment, not an aggregation of guest reviews or a paid ranking. Here's exactly what goes into it and what it doesn't claim to be.
What the score measures
Every property gets a score out of 10 across four categories — Design & Architecture, Service, Dining, and Value for the Price — which we then average, weighted slightly toward design and service, into the overall score shown on each hotel page. These are editorial judgments based on research, published reporting, architectural and hospitality-press coverage, and cross-referencing against comparable properties in the same category.
What it isn't
We are not aggregating TripAdvisor or Google review data, and we don't accept payment from any hotel, brand or booking platform to influence a score or a placement in a Best Of list. If we haven't stayed at a property ourselves, we say so, and we weight the score conservatively until we have first-hand reporting to back it up.
Value, specifically
Value for Price is scored relative to the property's own category and rate — not against a budget hotel. A $2,600-a-night desert resort can still score well on value if the experience genuinely justifies that rate relative to comparable ultra-luxury stays; a mediocre $900-a-night city hotel can score poorly on value even though it's cheap in absolute terms.