We’re starting a new series where we stack up the highest- and lowest-rated hotels within the same brand in different regions.

We’ve already reviewed the highest and lowest Hyatts in New England and next up is the highest and lowest rated Marriott hotel. Since Marriott has many more hotels than Hyatt, we expect a much larger difference between these two hotels compared to the Hyatts. The two properties that we stayed at for the Marriott Bonvoy program were the Residence Inn by Marriott Boston Braintree (4.7★ at time of stay) and the Four Points by Sheraton Boston Newton (3.5★ at time of stay).

Here’s how they stacked up:

Residence Inn by Marriott Boston Braintree

Overall: B (7.4/10) — Recommend

Category	Score
Room	9/10
Bathroom	8/10
Bed	8/10
Value	6/10
Status Benefits	3/10
Location	7/10
Operations	8/10
Food	8/10
Facilities	9/10
Service	8/10

Alright, let me address the score for Status Benefits (3/10) right away. While the check in was definitely not a good start to the stay, the rest of our stay was actually really good and I understand why people rate this hotel so highly. That being said, we have to rate each of these categories fairly, and we didn’t feel like having Titanium status made any difference: we were denied both early check-in and late checkout, there was no thanking of status or mention of welcome gift (though it turns out they did give us 1,000 points for the stay), no upgrade, and the breakfast is already free for all guests. We did also try to use a Nightly Upgrade Award for this stay, but that got denied as well (I’ve been told that this isn’t decided by the hotel itself). Still, despite that, everything else was great. It felt like their modus operandi is to provide a good stay to everyone and not to give special benefits to those with status — I don’t know, maybe we just got unlucky with the our stay with regard to status recognition, but that was our experience.

As far as location, if your intention is to stay somewhere outside of Boston for a lower price, I don’t think this hotel particularly stands out. You do have free parking here, but if you didn’t want to bring a car, you don’t have a particularly easy way to get to/from the city.

Now the positives: As I mentioned before, this hotel is honestly quite good. The room was large and had a full kitchen along with a living room with a large couch and a table where you can comfortably work. Everything was clean and worked well. If you were here for a long-term stay, you would be very happy.

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Four Points by Sheraton Boston Newton

Overall: D+ (5.9/10) — Don’t recommend

Category	Score
Room	5/10
Bathroom	7/10
Bed	8/10
Value	4/10
Status Benefits	4/10
Location	8/10
Operations	6/10
Food	6/10
Facilities	7/10
Service	4/10

This is a hotel that I would almost certainly not return to. The location is really unique as it is literally on top of a highway. While that is cool when you’re driving by, it’s really noisy inside your room, especially when there’s a lot of traffic. In the room there was a white noise machine but I was still woken up several times during the night due to the cars below. However, even without that issue at this hotel, it was still a pretty bad stay. The rate here fluctuates quite a bit, but it seems like they tend to charge around $250 to $300 per night. The breakfast was fine, not any better or worse than a standard American continental breakfast.

When I checked in, I heard them saying to the guest in front of me that their credit card system was down so they can only accept debit cards. In my case, I paid a pre-paid rate so they had my Ritz Carlton card on file and didn’t have an issue. Still, I thought this was ridiculous and I honestly didn’t even have a debit card with me at the time of check-in, so not sure what would have happened if I hadn’t already paid.

The gym was good. Some of the locations of the machines were weird, but the gym had enough and it was a decent size. They do have a pool which I was excited for, but I was pretty quickly let down. The area of the pool itself is a bit awkward since there’s not really room to sit down or relax if there’s more than 3 people but the real issue is cleanliness. When I got out of the pool, I went to dry myself off with the towel and I noticed a bit of a moldy smell and quickly afterwards my skin started to itch. I went to smell the towel rack and there was a nasty odor coming from it that I hadn’t noticed before because of the strong chlorine smell in the room. After this, I quickly went to my room and showered – luckily the itchiness subsided afterwards. I will also admit that after this, I thoroughly investigated the mattress to check for any sign of bed bugs, but everything else in my room was clean.

As far as benefits (with Titanium status), it felt like pulling teeth to get a 1pm late checkout (isn’t 4pm supposed to be a guaranteed benefit?) and the person at the front desk made me feel like I was being a huge pain by asking.

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The Verdict

As a hotel chain with many more hotels, I am not surprised that there was such a stark difference between the highest and lowest rated hotels. Also, in my experience, Marriott hotels also have a larger range as far as quality of their hotels (and Four Points being particularly inconsistent).

I feel like both of these hotels deserve their respective spots as the highest and lowest rated hotels. The Residence Inn isn’t the most luxurious hotel, but for its category, I am not surprised by the large amount of 5-star reviews. For the Four Points, they have rude/dejected service, a bad noise problem, and, to add insult to injury, is actually quite expensive most nights. The best thing about that hotel is that it is right next to Buff’s Pub where you can get some of the best wings in all of New England.

Recommendation:

• Residence Inn by Marriott Boston Braintree: Recommend
• Four Points by Sheraton Boston Newton: Don’t recommend

Have you stayed at either of these? Let us know in the comments! And stay tuned – we’re going to do this for as many regions and hotel chains as we can.