What criteria have you taken into consideration while choosing a VPS?

I will prefer teh below sequence,
1. Read list of features for that Host
2. Search on Google about that Host and read the reviews done by others
3. If all reviews come to be good, you can consult any professional who can be of help to you like you can contact me

you cannot always trust reviews and what if you cant find any reviews.

i find this is a good way to check a potential host our.

1) check their site over if they have a live chat button, visit several times a day to see if this is actually activated. if is never online leave a message with a couple simple questions any host should know and if its online give the same questions to the chat advisor.
2) if they have a support ticket system leave a message to sales with a couple of simple questions and see how long it takes for them to answer.

a good knowledgable host should answer within a few hours but give 24 hours to allow for any time zone differences.

also fo a whois search of the websites domain to see how long its been registered as a host may say been hosting 6 yrs but domain registered 1 month ago. also a good host will not hide their whois details.

Are you asking about matching the VPS specs to your requirements or about the VPS hosting providers themselves?

I would check following:
1) Support, is it really 24x7?
2) Host nodes hardware? How up-to-date is that?
3) Uptime information from past year or two.
4) Are they resellers or own the hardware?
5) Platform... Is it shared technology like openvz or something more dedicated as Vcloud or XEN?

Those would be your kick start check points

Also consider if you need control panel for remote OS reloads/reboots. That's an important function for many users.

100% agreed with you, In fact we know already a lot bad complaint about some company but a few forum user still suggest that company to newbie. This issues happen at almost every weeks at hosting forum..

1) Uptime and speed.
2) Hardware and are they resellers.
3) Network stability and uptime.

Support, price are not factors to consider, or not in my book if the hardware and network is decent.

However would like them to be there if they do have problems.

Easyhostmedia has some good tips on checking into the background of your host on whois for domain registration. Uptime is most likely one of everyone's biggest requirements for a top hosting company. I still say that support is necessary. You never know what problems might come up even if you are a whiz when it comes to problem resolution.

If you are talking about hosting service provider, then I would recommend contact web host directly to check what services each web host offering and which they don't … If you are concern about package up-gradation, then once your shared hosting account shows the limitation upgrade to next level (VPS). FYI, all the reputable service providers have a lot of flexibility with their hosting packages so if you consult your all your issues with any web host's sales representative he/she will guide or suggest you the right plan.

Same, with the addition of some:

6) Cost. Expensive does not always mean better, because I know cases of expensive companies that do not give you a bang for the buck. Example is Bitcable, that says it's what you need, some won't see the sense of it but some cherish it, or prgmr.com, same for cheap, it doesn't mean outright not good, look at LEB for example.
7) Goodness of he company: Is the support good? Or just a bunch of kids that believe that keeping server up is the solution?
8) Free Extras/discounted: Like cPanel for example.
9) Possibility to have a VPS reseller: To start a (rather small) company
10) Security: If a host goes hacked and/or ddosed, it's down. It is another point to consider.

EDIT: And here is full Bit cable text:
Phew. Outright I don't like it, there are too many not so good things.

At first I'd check for hosts reputation and reviews from existing customers

If you're looking for reviews, as others have mentioned, I'd support steering clear of 'review' websites. Its too easy to pay other people to post positive reviews.

If you've got some company's in mind, check their social media pages/feeds - if someones not happy, social media is a great place to air frustrations.

Alternatively, most web hosting forums have review sections, or general 'web hosting' chat forums. Do searches and see what the masses say. If you find that a lot of people are either heaping praise or putting them down, then there could be some truth to that.

I want premium hardware, not budget racks. For example, this means SAS 15k RAID-10 enterprise-grade server drive hardware, not SATA RAID-1 (or RAID-less) desktop drive hardware.

Network is also important. I don't want JimBob's backyard "datacenter", I want a well-known well-peered facility in one of the main communication hubs (Dallas, New York, Amsterdam, Phoenix, London, Atlanta, Chicago, etc). If you manage to find a rack in Cheyenne, Wyoming, for example, I would expect speeds to be crap.

Price is secondary to quality.

Suggestions, feedbacks, reviews on forums