Flipkey may be worse the vrbo
 

I've spent the past week trying to negotiate and communicate directly with a property on Flipkey. They refuse to allow one on one communication. They refuse the owner to receive my phone or email address or theirs to me. The owner is canceling their account. I don't have a rental and they don't have an income.

Owners please build a webpage in which renters can communicate directly. Airbnb, vrbo and flip key have all overstepped with their authoritarian presence.

I don't know the first thing about flipkey (I actually hadn't heard of it as an alternative to airbnb and vrbo before today). Obviously, I know what you don't like about flipkey. What is it you don't like about vrbo and airbnb?

I guess I'm wondering why you need to talk one on one with the property? Assuming it's like airbnb they can message you and you can message back...

I don't like to go thru third parties with personal information. The owner has closed their account with flip key due to their refusal to allow us to communicate independently.

Dear

Thank you for attempting to reply to my request for information. Unfortunately, Trip Advisor has hidden the information you provided and is not making it available to me. I am therefore restricted to correspond with you via this "chat".

I have attempted to respond to your reservation request but keep receiving the following message from Trip Advisor: "We were unable to deliver your message to ."

This seems to be a recurring issue with requests we have received from Trip Advisor. For that reason, we have decided to stop listing our home on Trip Advisor and instead will use another option.

I am sorry that we were unable to communicate with you. We would have liked to have you as a guest at J House. Hopefully, you will be able to find our listing on the other site.

I have never had that problem with flipkey so it must be a new policy.

Must be a new policy as we have used them several times. I have figured ways around the airbnb policy. Do your email like this jim3320 @ yahoo. com or email. One house we rented was 1500 for rental fee and airbnb had my money for ten months. If you have a question while there that needs answering right away it is horrible. I needed help with the garbage pick up and how to operate the washing machine. Someone had moved the instructions for the house and tags for the garbage bags that allowed drop off at the dump. We had a party at house we rented before a wedding and had a lot of garbage. The owner lived an hour away and was able to get in contact with me after several days.
Last rental in Ireland the guy emailed me to email him at the hotel that owned the rental apartment. Darren owned both. He asked for 100.00 deposit and said to pay once there. He answered all my questions via email about the apartment. Five females and I needed answers. :)

I'm pretty sure the idea of hiring a rental management company is for owners to turn over the responsibility, and NOT have to communicate directly with renters.

That's what I though too, tabernash2...

Also, when I looked into airbnb you could ask questions about things like garbage and deposit. I asked about the arming situation and the set up and had no problem communicating through the owner. I thought you were actually encouraged to only communicate within the system because it protects the renter (if the renter shows up and the owner lied, airbnb can refuse to release the payment to the owner.) I could be wrong, but it kind of sounds like a BS answer from the host.

Admittedly, though, I never got past the inquiry stage. It felt like I had to "compete" for the place, and that's too much work. I just prefer typing in my credit card and going.

The parking situation, darn you autocorrect!

I mean for one thing they claim they attempted to respond to your reservation request and the system refused to deliver their response...yet they could send you a response telling you they couldn't deliver their response? That's just fishy to me.

Thanks macross, I did type out my email address and phone number, but flip key/tripadvisor refused to forward it to the owner as well as refusing to forward me their information they wanted to share.

The owner is no longer listed thru them as of this morning because of this.

marvelousemouse and tab, you have no pony in this show. The owner asked me to send contact information as they wanted to communicate one on one without the middle party.

Geez. It was just curiousity. If flipkey has that policy, and neither you nor the hosts like the policy, why use flipkey?

"marvelousemouse and tab, you have no pony in this show."

So you posted on a public forum for what reason, exactly, Inababy?

PS. I guess the "pony" I have in this show, is my years of experience in managing several rental properties.

But, I forget the source. It's Inababy, afterall.
Rational people need not reply.

I admit that I think vrbo is gouging and/or skimming these days, but I never had a problem communicating with owners.

Maybe (just maybe/possibly) the owner had 'issues' dealing w/ the OP and figured it was easier to blame it on Flipkey?

oops -- omitted the :-"

;)

I think you might be on to something, janisj.

I love VRBO as you communicate with the owner most of the time. We had the best guy in Dublin last trip. He owns two apartments and he was so easy to work with. Deposit when we booked and the rest of the money 30 days before. With the house rental in NY someone had taken all the house info and the garbage tags. He wanted to talk to us and we googled his name and got his phone number to work out several problems. The info had his number but was missing. I rented in Paris, Edinburgh and Boston with flipkey. You communicated with person.
Garbage has never been an issue but this place had no garbage pickup which we didn't know about due to the instruction manual being gone.

Agencies are super easy and like working with them also. VIP is one of my fav places to rent from.

<I think vrbo is gouging and/or skimming>

What does this even mean - they're a business and they're charging people for using their services?