FlipKey is an online vacation rental marketplace. It is a subsidiary of TripAdvisor. [1] In 2016 the company listed more than 300,000 properties in 179 countries. Its headquarters is in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. [2]
Although rental owners are verified by the company's staff before being added to the FlipKey website, [3] the site relies heavily on traveler reviews of rental properties. FlipKey also publishes ratings for travel-related items such as food blogs [4] and in the United States it provides ratings of national historic sites. [5]
Citing complaints that FlipKey would not guarantee functional amenities in its rental sites, in 2016 Better Business Bureau gave the company an F rating. [6]
FlipKey was founded in 2007 as a house-swapping and vacation rental listing website. [7] [8] The company was acquired by travel website, TripAdvisor, in 2008. [9] [10] That year FlipKey was included in Travel and Leisure's list of top travel websites. [11]
At first Flipkey sold subscriptions to homeowners, [12] operating from offices on Lincoln Street in Boston. [13] After 2013, FlipKey changed its sales model, giving property owners the option of paying a percentage commission for each property rented. [14] [15]
In 2014, FlipKey moved its offices to Causeway Street in Boston, which was also expected to house another Tripadvisor subsidiary, Smarter Travel. [13] That year Flipkey created a virtual tour of Boston for its website, to promote its property listings there. [16]
In 2015, FlipKey updated its technology platform, resulting in complaints from some large property managers that they were being overcharged. [17] In 2017, the city of Coral Gables, Florida, sued FlipKey, claiming that the company had ignored city statutes prohibiting commercial activity in residential areas. [18]