Our methodology
How LuxeHotelier scores and ranks every hotel
The score is ours, the method is public, and nothing scores ten.
Luxury travel has no shortage of loud recommendations. What is hard to find is a signal you can check. This page explains the two numbers behind everything on this site: the score a hotel earns, and the rank it holds in our lists. Neither is for sale.
How hotels are scored
Each hotel is scored on the five things that matter for a stay: rooms and comfort, location, service, cleanliness, and value. Every hotel is measured on the same five, and those sub-scores combine into the single score you see on its page, using one formula that applies to every property equally.
Scores are built from guest reviews (what guests write and the ratings they give) and each hotel's own published information. We do not host our own guest reviews, and we never score a hotel we have no data for.
How hotels are ranked
Our score is the biggest thing that moves a hotel up a list, but it is not the only one. When you sort by LuxeHotelier Picks, here is everything that can affect the order, from most influential to least.
1. Quality
The hotel's score, weighed against how many guests stand behind it. A place with a dozen glowing reviews does not leapfrog one with thousands on rating alone. New hotels earn their way up as real guests weigh in. For hotels, official star class is part of this picture.
2. Popularity and momentum
How many guests have reviewed a hotel, and how fast that number is growing right now. We re-measure review growth four times a year from public counts, on a fixed schedule. Hotels genuinely gaining attention rise, and ones fading drift down. Measured, never guessed.
3. Recognition
Major distinctions such as Michelin recognition add a small, capped bonus. Recognition can break a tie near the top. It cannot carry a hotel that guests rate poorly.
4. Small tie-breakers
When hotels are otherwise even, minor rules settle the order. They apply identically to every hotel in the same situation, and none of them can lift a weaker hotel over a stronger one.
Sometimes our editors hand-pick a hotel to feature. When that happens it is labeled Editor's Pick, so an editorial choice never wears the costume of an earned rank.
That list is complete. Nothing else moves a hotel up. Not payment, not a relationship with us, not how loud a hotel is on social media.
What money can and cannot do here
Hotels can pay for clearly labeled placement, and an assessed program fee covers the cost of an assessment visit. That is the full list.
No hotel can pay for a score, a rank, or a spot on a list.
Scores and rankings are generated by the same formulas for everyone, and they are not for sale. If a hotel ever appears somewhere because it paid, it will say so right there.
When we get something wrong
A real person reads every correction request. If you run a hotel listed here, you can have your information corrected, and if you want your listing removed, ask and a person will handle it. Visitors who spot an error can reach the same human through the report link on any hotel page.