I'm going on a 10-day vacation overseas at the end of this month. Given how infrequently I do big vacations (a personal issue I'm working to overcome), I have zero tolerance for surprises when it comes to my accommodations. I simply look for large and established four- or five-star hotels that have been around for a while and have numerous positive reviews across several web sites. Another hack I do is to use the "!mill" directive in DDG to filter out corpspeak and SEO-type stuff. I try to book directly with the hotels whenever possible -- although sometimes language and cultural barriers make that prohibitively tricky. I once spent half an hour trying to book something on a Japanese-language hotel web site (making generous use of page source and Google translate) before giving up and going through Booking.com, since there are apparently things about Japanese hospitality culture that I'm not clued in to.

In the end, I probably pay something like 50% more for my accommodations than I could if I were to take chances with AirBNB. But for me, the insecurity and potential for high-stress situations once I arrive in a foreign country just aren't worth it.