How your Booking.com review score is counted, and how to raise it

This is OneHorizyn's own guide, written from Booking.com's Partner Hub. Booking.com says it plays no part in deciding your score: it collects the scores guests give and works them out.

• Each guest gives an overall score from 1 to 10. It is the only question a guest must answer, and it is what your review score is made of.
• Guests may also rate Cleanliness, Comfort, Value, Facilities, Location and Staff, and services such as Wifi and breakfast. These are optional and don't count towards your review score; Booking.com says they are kept apart so the score reflects the whole stay rather than details a property can't control, such as its location.
• Until January 2025 the score was the average of the past three years' reviews. Now each new review counts for more than the ones before it, and a review counts for less as it ages.
• For a property with few reviews, Booking.com gives its most recent reviews the same weight, so that one review doesn't swing the score too far.
• Your score shows once you have your first review.

• Booking.com emails each guest about 48 hours after check-out, asking for a review, and the guest has three months to write it.
• Only guests who booked through Booking.com can review you, including no-shows and someone who booked for family or friends: the booker receives the questions and can pass them on to whoever stayed.
• A guest who has turned off Booking.com's emails may not get the request, and a new request can't be sent.
• Booking.com no longer accepts anonymous reviews, though an old version of its app may still let a guest send one. Anonymous reviews already published stay up for their 36 months, and being anonymous isn't a reason to remove one.
• Booking.com may stop showing reviews after a change of owner.
• A new property can import its review score from Airbnb while registering, and only then. Booking.com shows it until the first Booking.com review arrives, and never shows other sites' written reviews.

1. 1Log in to the extranet.
2. 2Click the Guest reviews tab.
3. 3Choose Guest reviews for your score and your reviews, or Guest experience for what guests think of their stays.

Guest reviews has four tabs:

• Overview: how many reviews you had at each score over the past 36 months, and every review from that time, newest first, filtered by With comments, Without replies or All reviews.
• Categories: your score for Staff, Facilities, Cleanliness, Comfort, Location and Value for money, and how each has changed over the past year.
• Your progress: a card that can show Last year's score, Review score and Competitive set, and your progress by score, traveller type, country or topic.
• Review score calculation: how your score is worked out, with the newest reviews weighing most.

Booking.com's advice starts before the stay. Make sure that:

• Everything about your property on Booking.com is correct. Booking.com puts it as managing expectations: the page should show what a guest will find.
• Your photos are up to date.
• Each booking's details are confirmed, and you have contacted the guest to ask whether you can help with anything.
• You have read and replied to earlier reviews, and fixed or eased what those guests complained about.
• Your facilities are selected correctly, so you show up when guests filter their search.

Booking.com's suggestions for when guests arrive and stay:

• Offer a drink or a snack, on the house, to guests waiting to check in.
• Have ready what guests may need, such as a map, drinking water or ear plugs.
• Tell guests to contact you about anything urgent, so you can put it right on the spot: at the front desk, or through a WhatsApp or text message line you can later use for a satisfaction survey too.
• Take care over breakfast: Booking.com points out that it is the last meal guests have with you.
• Go the extra mile in service, and keep the property clean, comfortable and within every sanitary rule.

A complaint put right on the spot is one the guest doesn't carry home to the review.

• Encourage guests to leave a review on Booking.com. Booking.com sends the request itself, about 48 hours after check-out.
• Send your own satisfaction survey, to learn what to improve.
• Reply to reviews, good and bad. Booking.com says a reply with a positive attitude can turn a negative review around for the guests reading it.

To reply:

1. 1Log in to the extranet.
2. 2Under Guest reviews, click Guest reviews.
3. 3Under the review, click “Reply”.
4. 4Type your reply, then click “Send”.

Reply in the language of the review or in English, or the reply won't be published. You can reply only to reviews with a title or a comment, and Booking.com checks each reply first, which can take up to 72 hours. You can reply from the Pulse app too, but only change or remove a reply in the extranet, under “View your approved response” (see the guide on replying to Booking.com reviews). Booking.com's rules say a property must never post a review for a guest or offer anything in exchange for one.

Booking.com removes a review only in set cases:

• The guest cancelled and confirmed they didn't arrive.
• You cancelled the booking at least 24 hours before check-in.
• The booking is marked as a no-show and the review doesn't describe a stay.
• You cancelled on the day of check-in because the guest's card was invalid.
• Booking.com finds that the guest reviewed the wrong property.
• Booking.com believes the guest is using the review to blackmail you, with written evidence.

A guest who arrives but leaves unhappy without staying can still review you, and so can a guest you cancel within 24 hours of check-in because of a double booking. Mark real no-shows as no-shows. When a review's text is removed, its score may stay. To ask:

1. 1Log in to the extranet and click Inbox.
2. 2Select Booking.com messages, then click “See contact options”.
3. 3Select Guest Reviews as the topic, then click “See all contact options”.
4. 4Choose how to contact Booking.com. For a message, give the booking number and explain the problem.

If a guest tells you they made a mistake in their review, they can correct it themselves in their Booking.com account or through Booking.com's customer service.

• Your place in search results: Booking.com lists guest review scores among the main factors, beside location, price, the quality of your page, and how often travellers click through and book.
• Filters and sorting: many travellers filter by score, and the “Top reviewed” order puts higher scores first, with the number of reviews counted for reliability.
• Booking.com's quality rating in squares uses your average review score, and subscores such as cleanliness, as one of its parts.
• A high score helps you qualify for the Traveller Review Awards, the Preferred Partner Programme and Genius.

1. 1Open Guest reviews, then the Categories tab, and find your lowest category.
2. 2In Overview, read the comments on your lowest scores from the past few months.
3. 3Count what they are about, and fix the one complaint that comes up most.
4. 4Say what you changed in your replies to the next reviews that mention it.
5. 5Check the Categories tab again over the following months.

Because the newest reviews weigh most, Booking.com says you see the effect of changes to your property and service quickly.