Originally Posted by
KRSW
As a rule, I won't stay in any Marriott property which gets less than 4* between Marriott.com / TripAdvisor reviews. If it's on the edge, I'll poke through the reviews first and see what people are really complaining about before booking. I used to do 3.5* or higher, but since the lockdowns quality and service have declined at many properties, including ones I used to enjoy.
This is an excellent policy and I do exactly the same, usually disregarding the highest (often fake) and lowest (angry and specific) review. The rest give a pretty good sense of what the property is actually like, with 4.0 being the cut-off. The only exception is a property I'm directly familiar with, such as a recent long stay at a property under renovation. The public reviews were overwhelmingly negative but everything was fine.