How The Sage Life Style verifies a hotel award before a property is called Elite

Two organisations dominate the vocabulary of hotel distinction in the English-speaking world, and both publish exactly how they work. Forbes Travel Guide has awarded stars since it "started in 1958 as Mobil Travel Guide," when it "created the original Five-Star rating system for hospitality." AAA's inspection programme dates from 1937 and is expressed in Diamonds. The Sage Elite badge on a hotel page rests on those two systems — and on a verification process that we would rather describe in full than have you take on trust.

What the rating bodies say about themselves

Forbes Travel Guide states that "our global team of inspectors are anonymous, so they have the same experience as a typical guest," that "our highly trained inspectors visit every property we rate, evaluating based on up to 900 objective criteria," and that its hotel stays "span a minimum of two nights." It defines three tiers: Five-Star properties "deliver an outstanding experience and consistently offer a highly customized level of service," Four-Star properties are "exceptional properties, offering high levels of service and quality of facility to match," and Recommended properties are "excellent properties with consistently good service and facilities." On the question every reader should ask: "No one can buy a rating; all ratings are earned through our objective inspection process." The awards are published annually — the guide states that its "2027 Star Awards will be announced on February 10."

AAA describes "annual, unannounced inspections of every Diamond hotel," with inspectors "remaining anonymous to achieve a true-to-life experience," working "full-time, year-round, evaluating thousands of hotels annually" against "82 points of inspection." Its designations run from Approved through Three and Four Diamond to Five Diamond, which it defines as "a luxury experience with superior services and amenities."

Both systems share the properties that matter to us: the inspection is anonymous, the criteria are published, the result is a matter of record on the organisation's own site, and the award has a date.

What we do with them

A distinction reaches a Sage hotel page in four steps, and no step can be skipped by anyone, including the software.

1. Submission. An editor records the award exactly as the organisation publishes it: organisation, award, level, year and the URL on the organisation's own site where it can be seen. Nothing is paraphrased. An award without a verification URL cannot be submitted.
2. Verification by a second person. A different editor, or a super-admin, opens that URL and confirms the listing. The same person cannot submit and verify. This is the four-eyes rule, and it is enforced by the system rather than by good intentions.
3. Recomputation. Only verified, current awards feed the Elite status. One current distinction from an approved organisation produces Elite Rated; distinctions from two or more organisations produce Elite Plus; a continuous verified record over five, ten or twenty years adds a tenure flag. The status is calculated from the record every time the page is served, never typed in.