FlipKey

*****DO NOT USE THIS WEBSITE*****
I tried to rent a property by submitting info via this website. Shortly after I received an email from
who claimed to be the owner Edgar Miner and instructed to wire the rental amount. Long story short, we managed to find the owner’s phone number Edgar when he became unresponsive to our follow up and he denied any transaction. We got scammed! The property link:
Also, when we contacted FlipKey’s customer service, all they said was to sort this out with the owner because the transaction wasn’t handled through them. How very irresponsible feedback considering the company is hosting people to scam. The company did put ‘Sorry, we could not process your request. Please check back soon or contact Customer Care.’ when I tried to resubmit to re-​establish the email address for this property.

This is the worst company I have ever dealt with. No one should EVER list their property or rent a property from Flipkey/​Trip Advisor.
Here’s our situation. A guess rented our property for Labor Day weekend. They paid Flipkey and Flipkey never gave us the money. We have tried at least a dozen times trying to remedy the situation and can only reach a customer service person in India that is powerless and can’t do anything. There are MANY other reputable sites like VRBO and AirBnb that you can list or rent a property on. BEWARE — STAY AWAY from FLIPKEY. Most people list on multiple sites anyway, so you can find what you are looking for elsewhere. At the time I am writing this review, there are 51 1 star reviews for Flip Key. We need a class action suit!

I’ve been using the paid version of FlipKey for a few years now to advertise a vacation rental property in Breckenridge, CO. I also advertise on the HomeAway suite of sites, and AirBNB. FlipKey is, by far, my least favorite of the vacation rental hosting services.
First and foremost, their customer service is mind bogglingly atrocious. I’m a paying customer. It costs hundreds of dollars a years to list my property on their site and I still get treated like crap. I can’t imagine what the owners using the «free» service get. They REALLY push the Help section and make it very difficult to find a way of contacting a real live human being. Unfortunately even if you do manage to figure out how to contact a real live human, they probably don’t speak english as their first language and are heavily reliant on customer service scripts.
Second, while their website is improving, it’s still really difficult to accomplish anything. Since the most recent change, I can’t figure out how to change my e-​mail response templates. It’s nowhere to be found. Type the word «template» into their Help section and it comes up blank.
Third, and this one is probably the most frustrating because it’s unnecessary, they try to make all these templates and auto-​created rules for listing with respect to cancellation policies, and payment terms, and rates, and you name it. Unfortunately for them, not every owner is the same and not every owner wants to run their business the same. As an example, the tax rates in Colorado are usually 3 decimal places… so 7.775%, but FlipKey only allows you to enter in 7.78%. They’ve locked the tax rate at two decimal places. WHY?! Why lock something like that? So now EVERY quote that FlipKey calculates for me to send to a potential guest is automatically wrong.
Fourth, and I don’t use this feature for this reason, is that they withhold MY money until the guest checks in. HomeAway does not do this. Sorry FlipKey, but that’s MY money to hold, not yours. Yes, AirBNB does this too, and that’s why I only open AirBNB to last-​minute renters. As a result, I handle all FlipKey inquiry payments on my own. I love the HomeAway payment features because it makes my life easier. FlipKey does nothing to make their owner’s lives easier.
Unfortunately, I do get a fair amount of business from FlipKey… at least a half dozen bookings a years, I’m sticking with them for now in hopes that TripAdvisor will clean things up and make them suck less. I think it’s more likely that the vacation rental business websites will keep consolidating and I’m hopeful that FlipKey will continue to alienate their customers and business from them will drop enough that I can drop them.

Regretful booking
I searched and successfully booked a vacation home on this site, until the property owner texted and requested an additional $ 600 for cleaning and security deposit.
These fees were not listed on the rental page, and FlipKey has continuously been unable to assist or cancel the reservation. Their customer service appears to be entirely out-​sourced, which in itself is not an issue but their options for assisting customers is inconsistent and it appears their staff has little power in the way of altering or closing a reservation.
Horrible experience in all, we should have stuck with AirBnB or VRBO — we have never had issues with those services.

I have been advertising my home on Flipkey for approx. 8 months and have been very pleased with their services. Recently I received a review where their issues were either terribly over-​exaggerated or absolutely false. I contacted Flipkey to bring this to their attention and I also responded to the reviewers review. Instead of taking down the review, they removed my response where I tried to restore my honor and stand up for myself. I have written them 3 times. Yet, they will not respond to me. I have also communicated with the gentleman who did the review. He informed me that he felt bad about the review and he would like to do another one and has contacted Flipkey as well to ask them to take it down. To this day, the negative review is still posted. I pointed out to them that his claims were either not accurate or false. And, he feels bad for what he said as well. Yet, they will not remove his review even though it is false. I had all 5 star reviews with no complaints from anyone until his review was posted. This review is going to impact my business financially. Obviously Flipkey doesn’t care. The least they could do is write me back. Maybe I will get a response on here.
Update: I contacted Flipkey again after reading their comment on this page. They haven’t gotten back in touch with me as of 1÷22÷15. The misleading and over exaggerated information review still remains and to this day, I haven’t rebooked it except once.

Flipkey customer support sucks. If you call them, the representatives are very difficult to communicate with, then they say to wait for someone else to call you back but that doesn´t happen. I´ve been waiting for close to 2 weeks now to simply pay a subscription price. I mean, something as simple as giving them money and they are not even responsive. Sorry but I like HomeAway better (Airbnb charges too many fees and doesn´t even have a good sorting option).

We tried to rent a house but unfortunately the owner double booked. That was the first problem. The second problem is she charged us before noticing she overbooked. The third problem is FlipKey still hasn’t given us our money back!!! We’ve received confirmation emails from the owner and flipkey stating our money would be refunded within 24hours but could take up to 5 business days depending on the bank. Here we are, about 2 weeks later and still no refund!!! Thankfully we found another rental on Air B&B which we should have gone with in the first place. I’ll never rent through FlipKey again and wish I had paid more attention to reviews prior to using their site. Oh and it took more than forever and a day trying to speak with someone in customer service… don’t even get me started there. This place was such a disappointment! :(
Update: It’s now been over a month with no refund! I had to notify my bank because at this point, it seems pretty shady… Never again!

I am writing solely about their customer service from the host side. I found it to be the absolute worst! You cannot simply email a question (or call for that matter). Rather they make you choose one from a list of 5 or 6 possible questions. Then you receive an automatic reply with no option to request further help if you need it. When I finally did get an email reply back it took over a week. It is like they do everything they can to make it frustrating to get help.
I don’t get it. What a stupid way to run a business, especially in a space that is so competitive.

Flipkey made a come back. All the issues I had over the winter are gone and bookings are going OK. I have 3 different properties in different States and Summer is quite busy so all went OK overall. Still is very hard to talk with a live person. Payments, however, are smooth and guests seemed to find the site easy to use.

Update to my update: despite responses stating Flipkey has reached out, I have never been contacted by «upper management» or their «trust and safety» team. Please come up with better, realistic names to your fake departments. Martha Parina has current listings on Flipkey.

As a high end property owner this booking site is the MUST FRUSTRATING site ever!
The automatic email filtering software they use to make sure you do not cut them out of their commission is horrible! It makes communicating with guests nearly impossible.
I am NOT TRYING to go around them, but because of this software, I am honestly about to remove my listing.
We have lost two serious bookings this week alone because they make it IMPOSSIBLE to set up a tour of the property! Customers think I am not responding to their requests, but in reality FlipKey is blocking my emails. FlipKey makes me look very bad to my potential customers and I am really sick of it!

Flipkey SUCKS!!! No customer service at all! Losing customers on a monthly basis and deposits that should go back to past guests in 7 days are getting lost! Unbelievable! Plus… Found out they have some sketchy way of charging guests: it’s a % anywhere from 8.5% — 13.5% and how they choose what % to apply to guests staying the SAME NUMBER OF NIGHTS WITH NO VISIBLE VARIABLE is «secret» according to the final email (after MANY) from some guy in India. the only thing I can figure is that they charge guests depending on the affluence of the zip code they inquire from. It’s absolutely ridiculous and I’m pulling out! They have brought very little value to my rental! :((
Here’s the actual email response from «customer service»:
Dear Sara,
Thanks for getting in contact.
Travelers pay a booking fee of between 8.5 and 13.5%, which is calculated as a percentage of the rental cost and any additional fees you might charge.
Why is the booking fee variable?
We can’t reveal the factors that affect whether the reservation fee is 8.5, 10, or 13.5%. We protect this information so we can remain competitive and continue to provide you with bookings.
Travelers are happy to pay to book.
The booking fee does not affect how much you earn — only what travelers pay. Travelers find this a small price to pay for the convenience of finding and booking their vacation online.
It’s easy to work out the cost of a stay.
Potential travelers can always see how much it costs to book your property by going to your listing and entering their dates.
You can always opt for Annual subscription wherein you get the following benefits
No booking fee charged to guest
Contact information available with property
Direct payment to personal bank account
I hope this resolves your query. For any further assistance feel free to revert to this email.
Best wishes,
Swapnil Bharti
The FlipKey Team

Buyer Beware:

Flipkey and property owners will give no refund if there is a medical disaster and you can’t make it to the rental. My wife broke her foot and we canceled almost two weeks before the rental and it’s Tough Luck on any refund they already have your money! Never feels good to throw $ 500 bucks out the window. Sad state of Flipkey and it’s policy in my opinion. Not any offer of using the credit, full or partial, at a later date.

I emailed support about a missing review. There has been 3 exchanges now and they have provided only generic answers from the FAQ that do not even apply to the specific problem. They now tell me to contact another email address. Why did they not forward it themselves as is standard business practice? This makes this business seem rinky dink, like the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing.

I am writing this review as a vacation home owner. The site is absolutely terrible. I cannot think of a good reason to use them except it’s free. They hold your payment until the day the guests check-​in. How insane is that? Let me give you a real world example. I had someone interested in my property and they booked a week for the summer in JANUARY. When do I see a single penny of this? You guessed it. In August, days AFTER the guests have checked in. Completely absurd. 8 months of them holding MY money.
If that’s not bad enough you would hope they’d use some of that money to have an easy to use website. Nope guess again. They were sending my inquiries to my spam folder. I missed I don’t know how many bookings and to top it off because I didn’t respond in a timely manner my rating gets blasted. I found this out because FlipKey sent me an email to check my spam folder. Gee thanks, don’t fix the issue or anything.
Good luck calling them too. If you are able to get someone on the phone they are entirely useless. And their fees for using the site to guests is atrocious. I tried steering people from the site to save them money and their security system catches it and does not allow the mssg to go through. Ha, funny they can’t seem to send booking inquiries correctly but have mastered catching people trying to go around the system or pass on contact information.
They are terrible. VRBO and Home Away are your friends

While it was very time-​consuming, we were able to reach Trip Advisor’s customer service to file a complaint against the host. The deposit could not be refunded as you are at the mercy of the host as you are in writing a review — she sent me a personal email to inform me she removed the review. Because of our complaint, it seems the apartment was removed from the site. Unfortunately, she still has another listing up. We forwarded the harassing emails we received from the owner; I am surprised they would allow her other listing to remain.
Lastly, my review has been «pending» on the Trip Advisor website for the last 3+ months.

If I could give ZERO I would. AWFUL!!! They hold your money, owner of property NEVER EVER responds. When you email the company they don’t respond and the telephone number they give you is not a working number.
This website should be shut down! SCAM

My husband and I have properties listed on Flipkey. They have the WORST customer service I ever experienced. I received a low response rate b/​c someone accidentally sent me 15 inquiries and I only responded to one. They eventually erased the multiple emails but did not change my response rate. I called and sent numerous emails but they said that they could not change the response rate manually and eventually my response rate would go back up over time. Not very satisfactory
We also list our properties on VRBO and the customer service is much, much better.

Now the worst booking company by far. Do not rent with or from FlipKey and be very careful about any listing on TripAdvisor. To increase their profit, they took a mediocre-​to-​good website and combined it with a British website to make a platform so filled with bugs that it will rob you of your money.
For two months, for example, they have had a bug on their website that prevents hosts from changing their rates, the dates that the rates are associated with, and the minimum number of nights. They acknowledge that this is a bug. I reported it in the first week of January. Now, even their Indian-​based customer-​support team cannot change the dates from their end. Terrible, terrible business. Do not use or your loved ones will prematurely die.

I’m sorry this company just totally sucks. I list my apartment on Airbnb and Homeaway and thought I’d throw it on Flipkey to try to get some extra revenue.
I got a request and I tried responding and got a message that I was soliciting credit card information and that my message was blocked. It’s almost impossible to find live help anywhere on the Flipkey site. You basically have to scrounge the internet for a phone number.
Eventually I found one and was on the phone for 30 minutes when a rep told me that because I sent it on the phone the message didn’t go through. He then said he would manually send it for me. 10 minutes later I get another notification that that message was blocked.
I ended up finding the head of the division’s email and emailed him which was the only thing that prompted a genuine response. The person apologized and said because I mentioned Airbnb in the message, even though it was entirely innocuous, the message was blocked.
Meanwhile, this was 5-​days after I got the initial request that I was unable to contact the person who requested my apartment so I’ve lost that opportunity for business and I’m sure the person has booked with someone else.
Flipkey could only offer me an apology and meek promise to try to do better. I am not optimistic. Meanwhile I’m sure Airbnb will continue to eat your lunch Flipkey.