Review & Rating Policy

Reviews help travellers choose well and help good hosts earn trust. At Pravaasa, a property's position in search is based on a trust score built from verified stays and reviews. Advertising spend has no effect on it, and placement cannot be bought. That only works if reviews are real, so this policy exists to protect their integrity.

This policy applies to every review, rating, photo, comment, and reply on the platform, whoever writes it. It should be read with the Guest Terms, Host Terms, and Prohibited Properties & Activities policy.

Only a guest who has completed a real, verified stay can review a property. A stay counts as completed when the booking is marked completed, or when the booking is confirmed and the check-out date has passed. A confirmed booking whose dates are still in the future cannot be reviewed.

There is one review per booking. You cannot post a second review of the same stay, and you cannot review a property you have not stayed at. This is the main protection against fake and paid reviews.

The same rule applies to travel stories: a guest can share a story about a property only after a verified stay.

A guest review includes a star rating from 1 to 5 (whole numbers), and may include a written comment of up to 2,000 characters and up to ten photos. Please write while your experience is fresh: we encourage guests to review within 14 days of check-out.

A good review is specific and honest. Describe the room, the cleanliness, the food, the host's welcome and communication, whether the listing matched reality, and anything the next guest should know. Say what was good as well as what was not.

Photos must be your own and must show the property or your stay. Do not post photos of other people without their consent.

Each new verified review is used to recalculate the property's trust score, which is one of the signals used to rank stays. No host can pay to change how their reviews are counted. Removing, hiding, or altering a review is done only through the moderation process in section 11, and when a review is removed, the affected score is recalculated.

Reviews must be honest, relevant to the stay, and based on first-hand experience. They must not contain:

- Hate speech, slurs, or content that demeans a person or group.

- Obscene, sexually explicit, or graphically violent content.

- Threats, harassment, or personal attacks on a host, guest, or staff member.

- Private personal information such as phone numbers, addresses, ID details, or photos of identifiable people without consent.

- Defamatory claims that you cannot support, or accusations of crimes.

- Advertisements, links, promotional text, or contact details.

- Content unrelated to the stay (for example, politics or a dispute with a third party).

Negative reviews are allowed. A review is not removed just because it is critical, because a host dislikes it, or because the experience was unpleasant. It is removed only if it breaks these standards.

- Fake reviews: any review not based on a real, verified stay, including reviews by hosts, their relatives, staff, or competitors.

- Paid, incentivised, or traded reviews: offering or accepting money, discounts, free stays, upgrades, gifts, or any benefit in exchange for a review, or for removing or changing one. Review swaps between hosts are also prohibited.

- Review extortion: a guest threatening a bad review to get a refund, upgrade, or favour they are not entitled to, or a host threatening a bad review or reputation damage to pressure a guest.

- Review gating or pressure: asking only happy guests to review, demanding a particular rating, or pressuring guests to change or delete a review.

- Retaliation: leaving or threatening a negative review because the other party raised a complaint, a dispute, or a damage claim, or because they left a critical review.

- Coordinated campaigns: organising groups to boost or attack a property or a host.

- Impersonation: writing as someone else or pretending to be a guest or host you are not.

- Manipulating the process: using multiple accounts, tampering with bookings to create reviewable stays, or any other attempt to get around the verified-stay requirement.

Reviews must not refer to a person's race, religion, caste, nationality, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or other protected identity as a reason for a rating. Our system automatically rejects host reviews of guests whose comments refer to race, religion, nationality, gender, or other protected identity characteristics, and asks the host to rewrite the review. Guest reviews that demean a host or staff member on those grounds will be removed.

Hosts must judge guests on conduct during the stay, such as cleanliness, care, communication, and respect for house rules, and not on who the guest is.

If a guest has raised a dispute about the same booking and a host then submits a low rating (2 stars or lower) for that guest, the review is flagged for our team to check whether it is retaliation. A flagged review may be hidden or removed if it is found to be retaliatory.

A guest who raises a genuine complaint, a refund request, or a damage dispute must not be penalised for doing so. Equally, a host who raises a genuine damage claim must not be penalised with a retaliatory review.

If you are a host and disagree with a review, remember that reviews are individual opinions. If you have a response, keep it factual, courteous, and brief, without disclosing personal details of the guest. Do not try to contact the guest to pressure them to change or remove the review.

If you believe a review breaks the content standards, or is fake, report it for moderation using the options in section 12. We will look at the booking record, the content, and any supporting evidence before deciding.

A guest who disagrees with a host's review about them can dispute it from their account. A disputed review is marked as disputed and is looked at by our team. Our team can decide to publish the review, hide it, or remove it. Hidden and removed reviews no longer count towards reputation.

Moderators look at the content of the review against this policy, the booking and stay record, any related dispute or support case, and the evidence either side provides. Reviews are removed only for a verified policy violation, not for negative criticism alone.

If you think a moderation decision was wrong, contact support@pravaasastays.com with the booking reference and an explanation. We will reconsider the decision, and if it was an error, correct it.

If you suspect a fake review, a paid review, a review swap, or review manipulation, report it through the Trust & Safety reporting options (Report Fraud or Report an Issue), and include the property name, the review, and why you think it is not genuine. You can also email support@pravaasastays.com.

If you are offered money or a benefit to write, change, or remove a review, do not accept it, and report it.

Depending on the severity and history, we may remove the review or the content, recalculate trust scores, send a warning, restrict review features, hold payouts, suspend or terminate an account, and where a crime is suspected, refer the matter to authorities.

For hosts, fake reviews, paid reviews, self-reviews, and retaliation can result in removal of a listing and a ban from the platform. For guests, extortion and fake reviews can result in suspension or termination of the account.

For questions about this policy, or to appeal a moderation decision, email support@pravaasastays.com or visit the Support page.