The eingecheckt Score: How We Review Hotels
A beautiful room alone does not make a great hotel stay. Nor does a single friendly member of staff or an exceptionally good breakfast determine whether a hotel truly delivers overall.
With the eingecheckt Score, we therefore aim to make our personal impressions as transparent and comparable as possible. It brings together our assessments of different aspects of a hotel stay in one clear overall rating.
Our goal is not to judge hotels against theoretical standards. We rate what we actually experienced during our stay.
What is the eingecheckt Score?
The eingecheckt Score is our editorial overall rating of a hotel stay.
After each stay, we assess different aspects of the hotel using a fixed set of criteria. Tina and Michael submit their ratings independently of one another.
This initially gives us two personal assessments. Combined, they create what we believe is a more balanced picture of the stay.
The score is designed to show at a glance how convincing the overall hotel experience was for us.
Important: The eingecheckt Score is not an official hotel classification and is not connected to the familiar hotel star system.
A five-star hotel therefore does not automatically receive a particularly high score from us — just as a smaller or lower-classified hotel can achieve an excellent result.
We do not rate the hotel category.
We rate the experience.
What We Rate
For our hotel reviews, we use a consistent assessment framework. Depending on the hotel and the facilities or services we actually use, the following areas may be included:
Room
What is the overall impression of the room? Do the furnishings, condition, functionality and sense of space work well?
Sleep Comfort & Quiet
How comfortable are the bed and mattress? How quiet is the room at night? Are there any disturbing noises from inside or outside the hotel?
Cleanliness
How clean do the room and the areas of the hotel we actually use feel?
Bathroom
How functional, well maintained and pleasant is the bathroom? Are the facilities, condition and practical usability convincing?
Breakfast
If we have breakfast at the hotel, we assess not only quality and choice, but also organisation and atmosphere.
Service
How do we experience our interactions with staff? Are processes professional, friendly and focused on finding solutions?
For us, this is not about polished perfection. What matters is how a hotel actually treats its guests — especially when something does not go according to plan.
Location
How practical is the location for the type of stay in question? We also take into account which kinds of trips the hotel is particularly well suited to.
Atmosphere
How does the hotel feel as a place to stay? Does it feel coherent, welcoming and comfortable?
Value for Money
Does the experience offered by the hotel match its positioning and the price level guests can reasonably expect?
We deliberately do not publish a snapshot of a single nightly room rate, as hotel prices can vary significantly depending on travel dates, occupancy and booking conditions.
Parking
If we arrive by car, we look at factors including availability, convenience, organisation and any additional charges.
Wi-Fi
How reliable and practical is the internet connection during our stay?
Bar & Restaurant
If we use the hotel’s food and drink facilities, these may also form part of our assessment.
Spa & Fitness
We only assess wellness, spa or fitness facilities if we have actually used them.
Sustainability
We pay attention to measures that are clearly visible and verifiable during our stay. We do not rate sustainability claims that we cannot assess ourselves.
Overall Conclusion
Ultimately, the key question is always:
How convincing was the stay as a whole?
Because even a long list of strong individual ratings does not automatically add up to a perfect hotel experience.
We Only Rate What We Have Experienced Ourselves
One of the core principles of eingecheckt is:
We write about what we have actually seen, used or experienced.
If we have not visited a spa area, for example, we do not rate it based on photographs or descriptions on the hotel website.
If we have not eaten in the hotel restaurant, we do not claim to be able to judge its food.
And if certain information is not available to us, we do not invent or fill in the gaps.
Our aim is not to create the most comprehensive hotel directory possible.
Our aim is to provide a credible account of our experience.
Two People Can Experience the Same Hotel Differently
Hotel stays are subjective.
What matters enormously to one guest may barely matter to another. That is exactly why we initially rate our stays independently of one another.
Tina and Michael may have different opinions on individual aspects of a hotel.
That is entirely intentional.
Our score is not designed to create artificial agreement. It brings different perceptions together into a shared overall picture.
Where our impressions differ significantly, we may also discuss this openly in the relevant hotel review.
What Does a High eingecheckt Score Mean?
A high score does not mean that a hotel is completely flawless.
It means that the stay impressed us overall.
Luxury is not the deciding factor.
A very well-run smaller hotel can therefore receive just as strong a rating as an international five-star property.
Equally, a famous name or high official hotel classification does not protect a hotel from criticism.
What ultimately matters to us is the experience itself and the level of service that actually reaches the guest.
Our Reviews Are Independent
We want our hotel reviews to remain transparent and easy for readers to understand.
That is why we clearly disclose whether we paid for a stay ourselves or were invited by the hotel.
An invitation does not automatically result in a positive review.
Our assessment criteria remain the same.
For us, criticism is just as much a part of a credible hotel review as praise.
Hotels do not receive a better eingecheckt Score because they work with us, provide us with a stay or otherwise cooperate with eingecheckt.
No Hotel Is Perfect — and It Does Not Need to Be
We do not deliberately search for faults during our stays.
But neither do we want to write glossy brochures.
Minor weaknesses are part of almost every hotel stay. What matters to us is how much they affect the overall experience and how the hotel deals with them.
A problem therefore does not automatically lead to a poor rating.
Sometimes it is precisely the way a hotel responds to a problem that reveals how well it is actually run.
Why We Developed the eingecheckt Score
Online hotel reviews often consist of individual snapshots.
One guest rates the breakfast, another is frustrated by the parking situation, while someone else gives five stars simply because the staff were particularly friendly.
All of these experiences may be completely valid — but they are often difficult to compare.
That is why we wanted to create more structure with our own rating system.
The eingecheckt Score combines our personal experience with a consistent assessment framework.
This allows readers to understand not only whether we liked a hotel, but also why.
Our Principle
We do not review stars. We review stays.
The eingecheckt Score is not intended to represent an absolute truth about a hotel.
It shows how we experienced one specific stay at one specific point in time — using the same criteria we apply to our other hotel reviews.
Transparent, understandable and independent.
That is the eingecheckt Score.