•A hybrid MCGDM method is proposed with decision makers’ preference and reliability.•Abstract transformations from MPRs, FPRs, IFPRs, and LPRs to DPRs are constructed.•Internal consistency and restricted max-max transitivity are verified.•Criterion reliability is estimated based on decision makers’ reliability.•The proposed method is compared with existing methods to highlight its validity. This study proposes a new indirect method to solve multicriteria group decision-making (MCGDM) problems with heterogeneous preference relations and decision-makers’ reliabilities. To unify the heterogeneous preference relations, the transformation of multiplicative preference relations (MPRs), fuzzy preference relations (FPRs), intuitionistic fuzzy preference relations (IFPRs), and linguistic preference relations (LPRs) into distributed preference relations (DPRs) is analyzed. As consistency among DPRs is constructed under the assumption that decision-makers are bounded rationality, the abstract transformation of MPR, FPR, IFPR, and LPR into DPR is defined, and its reality depends on the preferences of decision-makers. Two important properties of abstract transformation, namely, internal consistency and restricted max-max transitivity, were theoretically verified. The reliabilities of decision-makers are involved in MCGDM by estimating the reliability of each criterion to improve solution quality. Based on the four types of abstract transformations, a process for analyzing MCGDM problems with heterogeneous preference relations and decision-makers’ reliabilities is developed. The proposed method is used to analyze a new business selection problem for an enterprise located in Changzhou, Jiangsu, China to demonstrate its applicability and validity.