FlipKey

Friends recommended us try FlipKey and as such we made our first booking to stay in North California for 14 days in June. The process was straightforward and the owners we chose couldn't have been more helpful. Regrettably due to Covid-19 we are unable to travel and our flights have been cancelled. FlipKey and the hosts have been brilliant. With one click of a button we had a hassle free and immediate refund activated by FlipKey and although we were warned that it could take 10-15 days to receive our money, it was back on our bank account within 2/3 days. This included their administration charge. In addition, we received lovely communication from the owners. All being well, we fully intend to go next year and 100% would like to stay with the same hosts if their property is available. It's a hard and horrible time for many so thank you FlipKey for being so quick to resolve. Early indications suggest that it is not going to be nearly so straightforward with the airline with whom we booked flights and car hire.

We have a vacation rental property listed with FlipKey. Our tenants arrived January 1,2017. As of today, January 11,2017 we have yet to be paid. Funds are supposed to be deposited a day after tenants check in. Customer service is offshore and I continue to get pre-scripted answers. I was contacted by a team member from FlipKey/trip advisor yesterday. She assured me that she was on it and very apologetic. She gave me a phone number where I could reach her or a colleague in the Boston office. After seeing that the funds were still not in our account this morning I tried that phone number. Again it went offshore. In an email she assured me that I could always ask to be transferred to her in the Boston office. When I did that, I was informed that Lindsey was not available (on a break) and that nobody else in the Boston office was available. In the email I received from Lindsay, she stated that the funds have been released and I need to contact my bank. I did that and they ask for a tracking number. Called customer service back and couldn't get a tracking number. VERY FRUSTRATED! Beware working with FlipKey and Tripadvisor!

I put my listing on Flipkey because they said they'd synch my calendar with Airbnb (which I've used for 2 years with no problems at all.) After booking my first renter, Flipkey apparently did NOT add it to my Airbnb calendar and I ended up with a double booking. Bad enough, but there was absolutely NO way to contact them, except by predetemined questions via email, none of which addressed my problem, and resulted in a stock reply. HORRIBLE WAY TO DO BUSINESS, with no recourse for an emergency. (At least Airbnb has phone contact.) I scrambled and found a place with a friend for the Flipkey people, and here I am, 24 hours later, and still nobody has contacted me. STAY AWAY FROM FLIPKEY!

If you plan on booking via flipkey, holiday letting or tripadvisor it is all one company and if you try to cancel they will make it extremely hard for you to get your money back, I tried canceling after I booked by phone they said that no money will be taken for reservation but will just freeze it on my account because I said that I would like to find out some details first once I realized within 24 hours that its not good for me i cancelled it I received an email that its cancelled but on my booking review it wasn't asking an agent after being on the phone to them for about an hour they could not explain told she would put me thru to her supervisor she actually put me thru to the owner which does not speak english although it says she does on website when I called again they said they will call me back in a few min and never did that happened twice and still waiting

Due to health issues with my husband, had to cancel two bookings set for this December in Ireland. Contacted both property owners in early June, and they both graciously agreed to a full refund of my deposits (less booking fees), totaling almost $1,000 USD. I've been waiting patiently since June 5th for my deposit refunds, and decided to call FlipKey directly today for a status.

Upon contacting FlipKey, they said that they had no knowledge of any cancellations, giving the impression that it was the owners fault for not submitting cancellation information to FlipKey. I've been in contact with both owners, and I have no doubt that they have followed through on their end. I believe that FlipKey is claiming ignorance, and will hold on to my money for as long as they can. Horrible customer service! My contact could barely speak or understand English, and it sounded as though he was reading from a script. I'm extremely frustrated.

My booking with FlipKey was made via TripAdvisor. I can't tell you how disappointed I am with TripAdvisor, as I thought they had a much better reputation than this.

Bottom line, FlipKey is a scam, and I will NEVER book with them again!

Booked a rental for the Month of March in Florida, on the beach. Paid in advance and received multiple emails confirming the rental and hyping how wonderful it would be. Arrived in Florida and attempted to get access info from the local property manager. They informed me that the unit I rented wasn't available but they just happened to have another nearby (not on the beach) that they could let me have instead. I had a car paid for the month and return flight at the end of the month. I was stuck and they knew it.

I notified FlipKey immediately and got emails and calls that I couldn't respond to. Punch line from FlipKey was that since I spent a night in the alternate unit, it negated the Payment Protection.

FlipKey's position that it was the property manager's fault and the property manager blamed FlipKey. Eventually FlipKey offered me a 10% refund. When I attempted to accept, FlipKey acted like they'd never heard of me and, by email, asked me to open a complaint file. They're brutal and wore me down.

Avoid them like the plague. Honesty is not in their vocabulary.

We received a notice from the owner they have cancelled our 2 bedroom 2 bath condo which we had booked months ago. They said they had double booked the condo with another site and failed to notice this. I have emails which I have sent to Flipkey (I finally connected via phone call for 25+ minutes I had with the Flipkey representative during which I specifically stated I HAD already booked my own condo due to the lack of response (I waited 6+hours for a response after sending an email) after the owner cancelled the 2 bedroom 2 bath condo. Because of the late cancellation I couldn't wait any longer for a response. Because Flipkey failed to contact me other than send me useless options of condos (AGAIN I specifically stated to the Flipkey representative over and over again that I had to book my own a 1 bedroom 1 bath -which was more money and I lost my trip cancellation money). If I were to cancel at such a late notice I would have been penalized a substantial amount of money.

I found tripkey through trip advisor and at first it seems like a great site. You can find rental properties for less than what you would pay at a bed and breakfast. I was looking to stay at Carmel, CA or nearby in Monteray or capitola areas and they did have entire 4-5 bedroom homes available for what I could only get a single room at a B&B. I was close to estatic upon finding this out. Then here comes the part where tripkey is a next to useless website. I had to contact the owner myself and arrange the stay. They have this form you fill out and the owner is supposed to contact you but I never heard from anyone. I have no idea what happened or if anyone of them received my information to call me. How can you plan a trip without a secure confirmation? I think this site is good in theory but they need much more time to really get the owners on board for this to really work. I would prefer to just pay tripkey and have the home secured for my use. In the meantime there are better places to rent a home than tripkey.

Flip Key is a horrible vacation service. They do not provide a 1-800 number for you to call and speak to someone about a refund. They attempt to push you to the owner via website email and the owner encourages you to just hit the cancel button. Upon this action, you will only get HALF a refund. I understand that with COVID-19 there are many things going on, but it is very simple if the airlines you book, has cancelled its flight from United States to Costa Rica during your vacation time, its clear that you will not be in Costa Rica.
Then Flip Key states they can not override their system for June vacations, but are able to override vacations on April 9,2020 that are set for May 1-31. I recommend people to stay away from Flip Key, unmoral practices in assisting customers and getting refunds. Families are not trying to cancel a summer vacation in another country for NO REASON. When Southwest Airlines is not flying by US restrictions, I believe full refunds should be given. Click on photo below from their website. It clearly shows their if they wanted to refund they could, but they clearly choose not. Southwest Airlines refunded my money because they ARE NOT flying to Costa Rica during my vacation time.

We had our trip planned to Edinburgh, Scotland since October 2016. We used Filpkey (Tripadvisor branch for home rentals). The whole city is booked very fast for the New Years Eve.
Edinburgh Newington Apartment is rented by Mrs. Sandy Ewart and IS A REAL SCAM! This woman accepted our request for a few days stay. We paid the full amount right away (so in October) and she confirmed that she received it. But, one week before departure, she sent an email saying that the apartment was no longer available since she rented it to somebody else because Tripdvisor had (supposedly) never confirmed that we would come. That is obviously wrong since she confirmed she received the full payment and Tripadvisor did send us an email to confirm that too. That is just unacceptable. I defy you to find another accommodation for 7 non-billionaire persons only 1week before New Years Eve in Edinburgh.
The customer support of Tripadvisor is very kind and professional but they did not manage to find us another flat. They did not accept to compensate us for their host unprofessionalism (whereas their competitor Airbnb does!) or pay for the balance between the flat that we paid in vain and another more expensive that remained at that time.
Even though we had been fully refund (with weird exchange rates) I would suggest you to be careful while it comes to Tripadvisor, Flipkey and especially Mrs. Sandy Ewart « Edinburgh Newington Apartment ».

Terrible experience, the worst I had so far!
I've made an enquiry about a property on HolidayLetting and I've been contacted by this person who did confirm the property was still available and in order to book it I had to make a payment via a FlipKey invoice
Which I did. Soon after the payment the person has disappeared.
I did call the company in the email signature of this property manager, they didn't know about this person and they don't rent property!
I started contacting holidayletting customer service but they were really inefficient, keep asking me the same questions I've told them many time I don't have an answer for that's why I was contacting them
Tonight after a week of emails with the customer service and 2 without an answer from the property manager I find out via a random research on internet that the email I was contacting is a scam!
And worst the news was posted on a tripadvisor forum!
Rents2luxury that's the email!
Now how can Tripadvisory not advertise this in their Homeletting website and how can the customer service not been informed about it!
I'm so mad... I'm in my last part of the pregnancy and this booking was for my family to come and spend time with the new born and instead of relaxing I'm quite stressed about the substantial amount I've lost in this and how Holidayletting couldnt care less about it!
I did report it to the Police via ActionFraud but I'm sure I will not see my money anymore!

Had a very bad experience with a condo that I booked in Miami, despite talking and booking directly with a Flipkey employee many months ahead of arrival. I first tried to book this condo online, but was not getting adequate answers or timely responses, so decided to phone Flipkey and ask if this condo was actually available. The Flipkey employee assured me that there was no problem, the condo was available and proceeded to book it for us. I told the Flipkey employee a second time that we were not getting full nor timely responses to our queries and I was worried that the owners would cancel on us or there would be some other problem, as they did not seem very anxious to rent this condo. Again she assured me nothing was amiss and not to worry. Unfortunately, one month before our arrival, the owner did indeed cancel (citing an apparent plumbing issue in the building) and we were stuck with looking for a new place. Flipkey could not be less helpful. Simply put: they were terrible. Each time we called, a new person dealt with our problem, and each time they called us, a new person called (must have been at least 10 different people including multiple supervisors). Each time we would repeat our story, and each time they would say they will call back. But never did the same person call back. It was always a new person. Flipkey did suggest a couple of other places that were obviously inappropriate - much too small for our family and not remotely of the same standard, but at the same price (or higher) as the cancelled condo. The lacklustre offering of a new condo and speaking to a new person each time was obviously an attempt to tire us out so we would give up. Eventually, we booked another condo in the same building through another company, which cost us at least $1000 more because of the late booking. Of note: the building had no plumbing issue, which had been the reason for the cancellation via Flipkey. I definitely will not book with TripAdvisor's Flipkey again, and strongly advise anyone looking to book a rental property to stay away from Flipkey.

FLIPKEY

I booked a unit with Paul in late April/early May only to receive an email 3 weeks before my travel date, stating the unit is not available because he needs to use it personally. Then he offers an alternative unit that is a sufficiently smaller than the unit I originally booked.
BTW - This is the second time, he has changed units and I feel this is a bait and switch. After expressly my disappointment not only for me but the other 4 adults in my traveling party, that 5 adults sharing a single shower would be difficult, I would accept the alternative unit because my travel date is approaching quickly.
HIS REPLY- HE CANCELED MY RESERVATION I made a personal phone to him and was told that he wanted to avoid an negative review so he decided it was better to cancel my reservation. What are my options? Now I have to find an unit that is more expensive and is 20 mins. Bus ride from the area of the original unit

I made contact with customer service and was told that the guarantee does not cover this type of situation. After 3 emails, I received a reply email, and all the rep did she cut & paste the "guarantee" off the website.
What are my options? What are my right? THEIR REPUL: I have rent a different unit. So it 3 weeks out from my travel date and I'm still without a place to stay...

I wrote a review about my experience and the post is still pending 3 days later. WHY? I wonder if the owner has to review the post first?

Disappointed to say the least!

http://www.flipkey.com/crystal-lake-condo-rentals/p*******/

http://www.flipkey.com/chicago-condo-rentals/p*******/

In September 2016 I booked an apartment in Miami via Flipkey for the Christmas and New Year period. All seemed well until December when I sent an email to the owner asking where I should pick up the keys, etc. I got no response and contacted Trip Adviser (TA) for advise. They said they would try to contract the owner. Suffice to say, this went on for several days but I got confirmation that if this rental did not work out, they would look for another rental or I could have my money back. I was due to fly to Miami on the Monday but on the Saturday we still had no confirmation that the rental would be available. On the Saturday morning I was still being advised to wait a further 24 hours to see whether the owner would contact Flipkey/TA. At this point I said I was not prepared to wait any longer and had no choice but to book a hotel at an additional cost of £1228.

I will say that because I paid through the payment guarantee scheme, I got all of my money back. I argued I should also be paid the cost of "Non sterling charges" and after some discussion, I received this as a goodwill gesture. However, there was absolutely no compensation for the stress caused and the additional costs incurred.

I had expected that booking a rental via the TA website, properties would be properly vetted etc. I learned a vital lesson that Flipkey is separate and the relationship is not with Flipkey, who merely advertise the properties, but with the owners. Since this incident, I have seen complaints about Flipkey come up on Rip off Britain, the BBC show.

My personal view is that Flipkey/TA have a responsibility to ensure that their customers do not fall foul to dodgy owners. I will never ever use Flipkey again - in fact I will stick with hotels. 'Buyer beware'.

In November, I attempted to use FlipKey for the first time for a vacation in Sanibel Island, Florida in January. Owner promptly accepted my booking request, so I went ahead and booked flight and a rental car. The owner even reached out to me and gave me extra details, so I thought everything was good. Payments are pulled from my account. A little over a week later, someone from FlipKey, not the owner who had originally worked out arrangements with me, contacts me to tell me that my booking is no longer available and asks if I can do a different week, via phone message (their accent is incredibly hard to understand and I had to replay the message several times) and via email. I tell them no via email and explain that all of my other arrangements have been made. I also reach out directly to the owner asking if this is legit. No response from the owner, and FlipKey cancels my reservation. FlipKey offers to help me find another place but I didn't feel confident that they could help me find what I needed. I decide to give it another try with FlipKey on my own and make several additional booking requests on other properties, the owners don't even bother to respond to my requests. It was really stressful being in limbo like that, especially since my travel dates were set and my plane tickets and rental car were non-refundable. It seems that the FlipKey property owners do a poor job of keeping their availability calendars updated, and they don't even dignify you with a prompt response when their property is not available (instead they either just make you wait 24 hours for the booking request to expire, or they surprise you with a cancellation after everything is booked and paid for). In all my years of using sites like Homeaway and AirBNB, I have never had this issue. I ended up going through AirBNB instead.

My review isn't so much about Flipkey as mush as it is about someone posing to be Flipkey, I sent an inquiry to a person on Flipkey only to get a great response, with a discount for the place we were looking to reserve. This person knew all about our family, age of our children, even the fact we were bringing our dog with us. He linked to "his flip-key website" We exchanged communication over 5-6 emails and he said someone canceled last minute which opened their place up for 2 weeks which he was offering us both weeks for $3800 (usually $2400 a week) just to have it booked before the end of the year. Seemed a little suspicious but still not to tall of a story. After him submitting me a contract with all the flip-key information he asked that I pay in full. A TRANSFER THE MONEY TO HIS OVERSEAS BANK ACCOUNT. I then logged on to Flipkey to look at the initial property site, called the owner who know nothing about me, my family or my dog. And told me his place was booked for the entire summer. He said I was not the first person to call him about his place being offered and he really has no clue who is showing up at his address this summer and flip-key will not help him with this issue. I was lucky enough to never give him any personal information or money but my heart breaks for the family who used all their savings for a vacation and DID get scammed.

I have booked a beachfront property with FLIPKEY for September 28 through October 2nd. 2015
I did not get the property address until 3 days after the booking. When I got the address it was not the same beachfront property that was advertised in the listing. I asked flipkey representative why are they miss-representing the property and I was told that I have to talk to the property owner. I contacted the property owner and he told me that the property is 70 meters from the beach. I have asked the owner for the Goggle coordinates for the property and when I got them I found out that the property was over 300 meters from the beach. I asked the owner to cancel this reservation and issue full refund do to miss-representation. The owner agreed to cancel, but when I contacted FLIPKEY representative he told me that FLIPKEY will not cancel and the rep. Was very rude and un-professional. I had to contact my AMERICAN EXPRESS and open a dispute. I would not recommend using FLIPKEY for any service. There are many legitimate and professional booking services out there.