FlipKey Reviews 

Highly dissatisfied with hidden booking fee - not mentioned anywhere on the website, very hidden under a small un-labeled grey icon. Host seems nice. Looking forward to a new experience.

Quick and easy! No hassles trying to do what I needed to do!

I have used FlipKey several times over the last 4 or 5 years and can usually find a decent place at a fair price. It can be a little hard to find what you want because it doesn't always recognize your choices- such as a cabin or bungalow and I was still getting apartments in the city. During my last choice I already knew where I wanted to stay because I had stayed there before, but it doesn't allow you to just enter the address so I had to search for it again. Fortunately I recognized the place having stayed there twice before. Then I got a notice stating the owner wanted to change the price and give me a discount- I immediately accepted it and it never recognized that click so I had to contact the owner and they had to do it again, but this time it wasn't quite as much of a discount so I lost some money there. Still haven't figured out how to review places I've stayed at on FlipKey... I know how to do it on Airbnb.

it was a most painful experience and as I understand you will impose a fine or charge on the owners who rented there property to family after I had booked in good faith but keep that to yourselves when I am the one who has had all the stress and problems. It is the first and very much the last time I will use holiday lettings

Not user friendly if you're not computer savvy

Big help in finding a place to stay that could accommodate our party for a decent price

Easy website to use. Put in dates, gives you available options and prices. Click to read about place. In a few more clicks you have your reservation.

Was a easy booking and the owner responded within 30 minutes to answer a few of my questions! Definitely would not hesitate to use again in the future!

I have made a future booking for June. The process of search and booking very easy and smooth. Only the payment policy was complicated but customer attention explained and all sorted out straight away.
Recommended.

Very easy to navigate the site. I will use it again.

informative display of pertinent information

Nope to FlipKeyThis is an old issue as the booking was back in 2017,but the booking in Sanur Bali was completely messed up.Money deducted but no emails or messages turned up at my end.
I finally worked it out firsthand with the owner but the whole experience was stressful as FlipKey are not transparently the agent on the Trip Advisor platform,so people think they are dealing with TA. They are not. And TA do not deal with any problems arising out of such bookings.The phone staff for FlipKey spoke and understood little English and dealt with me via a script.Phonecalls were rarely answered.Not fun and put a damper on an otherwise happy stay.
Never again.Airbnb much easier to deal with anyway.

Vacation Rental Owners Beware. Dealing with Trip Advisor/Flipkey is a nightmare (don't waste your time).

Go with any other company that offers the same service, several should come to mind. The work that it takes to deal with the tripadvisor/flipkey folks is mind numbing. They have ZERO percent concern for owners (and probably the same for renters). If you dare to challenge them on any issue they will threaten to black ball you (no kidding they actually used those words). They did just that to me. I won't bore you with the details but it came down to my trying to get my welcome package to the guest and them saying I tried to book outside of their system nothing was further from the truth. In the end they may account for 1-3 percent of your bookings and there is always an issue with every booking. To boot their website malfunctions everyday. It was truly not worth the horrible customer experience. Stick with AirBnB and VRBO. I have no doubt you'll agree with me at some point if you sign up with them. I hope I've saved you some heartache.

Rented a property through Flipkey(trip advisor)for 2 months in Feb and March.The owner quoted $4500 usd plus $500 security deposit.When we returned the security deposit was to follow within 3 days.When nothing arrived we contacted the owner who advised the additional $ charged was a fee to flipkey.Nothing in our quote to indicate any of this.After many phone calls and emails we have determined we were ripped off by Trip advisor whose representative referred us to the small print where he himself had trouble finding anything to do with a fee.NEVER AGAIN would I use these con men!!!..................I have received your reply but that does not excuse the fact that the fee should have been OPENLY disclosed.It was not and we were led to believe(See correspondence as we were quoted)it was a security deposit which would be returned within 3 days.I don’t really care who’s fault this was,you or the owner,we were misled and should be compensated.This is not a small fee,it was over $600 USD!!!!!!

The vacation rental itself was very nice. However, some other fees were not shown on the website or made known until booking. This included a $35 credit card fee (payable at booking) and a $35 resort fee (payable at arrival).

Hi...House double booked ! We rented a house on Flipkey three months prior to our visit. Had multiple emails with the homeowner and paid the entire rental fee.After flying across the country and driving 1 1/2 house we found that the house was double booked. As the other party was already in the house, we had no lace to stay ! The owner had zero help for us and we ended up staying on a relatives couch for the night. Thought we found a new place but it smelled of mold, mildew and the furniture was dirty. We finally went to a hotel and then found a place to stay for two nights and still needed to find another for three nights. We ended up moving 4 times during our one week trip. It was very inconvenient and ruined our vacation. Our money has been refunded but the handling of this was terrible.

My wife and I are well-respected business consultants. Yesterday we attempted to rent a North Carolina mountain home on FlipKey. We issued a $1217 payment through PayPal, as requested. Our Visa card released the money to PayPal and we were notified that the transaction was completed. We had spent several hours looking for a great place to enjoy a long relaxing weekend and had, before finalizing the reservation, spoken with the kind and helpful property owner. However, within an hour AFTER FlipKey received our $1217 payment, we were notified that there were “inconsistencies” in our reservation and that the reservation had been CANCELED! We immediately called the “Trust and Safety” division of FlipKey that had caused this issue to try to understand the exact reasons, and verify the validity of the transaction, as well as our identity, so that we could move forward with our plans. Over then next hour, we were abruptly told by three Trust and Safety employees that they could not and would not give us any information about this decision and that we no longer would be allowed access to this reservation. The decision was final and there would be no further discussion. They then forwarded the mailing address of their Boston Legal Department. We then called the property owner and discovered that FlipKey had lied, communicating to him that WE had canceled the reservation. We explained what happened and he then noted that FlipKey had done this to him several times previously. He implied that he had to trust their decision on attempted fraudulent transactions and offered no further assistance. As we pursued this matter further with Customer Service supervisors we made it very clear that accusing us of attempting to process a fraudulent transaction and then refusing to explain their actions was outrageous and more than unacceptable. We are angry about this time-wasting inconvenience and even more concerned about this defamation of our good character. We believe it is important to escalate this matter and, at this time, intend to do so. We are now waiting for the return of our $1217, which will take several days. We have canceled our accounts with both Flipkey and their owner, TripAdvisor, and will never again do business with either company. We will also explain this experience with friends, family and clients. We have also opened a formal dispute on our Visa account regarding this large charge. It is our firm opinion that FlipKey's Trust and Safety division operates with inadequate and faulty systems, and/or algorithms, and that these systems irreversibly and incorrectly cancel honest transactions, for which they have already received full payment, disparages their company's reputation, as well as the reputation of their customers, and that these actions cause financial loss for both their customers and property owners. In this case, the property owner lost hundreds of dollars, while being deceived into believing that FlipKey was offering some kind of valid protection for him. So far, financially, we have only lost the equivalent of our wasted time. It is our strongest recommendation that you avoid doing business with FlipKey.

Do not book with this company! Beware and go somewhere else. I rented one unit, paid, got a confirmation number only to have Flip Key change my reservation to a lesser unit with fewer amenities. Apparently the owner dropped Flip Key before my trip and the company decided to put me in a lesser unit with no warning. Major bait and switch, book elsewhere.

I wish I could give this business a zero. Their refund policy is beyond unreasonable. I can understand a 5% or even 10% cancelation fee, especially when done 3 months ahead of the booking date and the reservation itself being during the July 4th peak summer period. I had enough trouble even finding accomodations for this period, so it wasn't like they couldn't get other guests for those dates. I was resigned to a cancelation penalty of $100 or $200, but losing my entire $1,400 deposit was unbelievable, especially since I had to cancel for circumstances beyond my control.

Easy to book and see properties.