The Forums of Guanajuato

For those of you who use the various online services to reach visiters to Guanajuato, I wanted to paste the content of an email I got from Flipkey. I think you can see by the language and have probably experienced over the last year or so, they have taken control over our rental groups and the money... now they need to use a heavy hand to keep the owners, their servants, "in-line".

Hi Robert,
We're reaching out to you regarding your account, as our Trust and Safety team recently identified a few violations of our communications policy and guidelines. For example, on the 22nd of May, in correspondence with XXXXX, you instructed the traveler to contact you via your website.
Please understand that we restrict communications and payments to our secure messaging and payments platforms for the safety of our guests and owners. Further, the use of the payments platform allows us to offer advertising to you with no annual fees. We are unable to support accounts that do not adhere to our policies and guidelines.
At FlipKey and TripAdvisor, our goal is to create the most consistent and safest booking environment for vacation rentals for both owners and travelers. We prohibit the exchange of personal information (phone numbers, email addresses, websites, etc) between owners/managers and travelers until the initial rental payment been made on FlipKey.
If you have any other questions, please feel free to reach out to me, and make sure to check out our Help Center for tips on how to get the most out of your listing.
Regards,
Martin

They have the money, our renters and are free to slowly choak off our return from our property. This is a globalization phenomina that doesn't sit well with me. The only way to fight it is to organize locally and compete with them just on your territory.
I am interested in discussing this with others, coming up with some possible solutions. My email is 1126events@gmail.com..... Robert

I also use FlipKey, and I'm unhappy with some aspects of its service. But in this case, Robert, I have to take FlipKey's side.

What FK is describing in the email it sent you is its longstanding policy. Like any business, FK has to make money. The way it makes money is that, in exchange for publishing your listing and making it available all over the world, it collects a small percentage of the rent you charge whenever someone reserves your property via its website. This seems to me a perfectly legitimate business model.

Now, in order for this business model to work, FK has to keep people from doing an end run around it. If a prospective renter finds you via FK and you then try to cut out the middleman and communicate with him directly, FK fears it will miss out on its percentage.

For that reason, FK forbids such end runs. This is crystal clear on its website: "Prior to payment, contact with travelers by phone, video chat, or personal email . . . is prohibited." This rule is nothing new.

It appears you've violated the rule, and FK has warned you not to do so again. Seems fair to me.

Don

I think Robert is looking for a new and better way to attract and deal with potential renters, and is worried by the direction companies like flipkey and VRBO are heading. I have been lucky to have no need for these entities to rent my properties in Guanajuato and hope I never do. Many properties have a wide variety of potential rental scenarios and price structures and flipkey restricting initial contact makes it very difficult for the owner to know what to charge or expect.

So regardless it would be much better for property owners in Guanajuato to come together and form their own rental website. As a group we don't need flipkey or VRBO if we all left them and they had no properties on their site from Guanajuato. Our site would be first to come up.

Hi Don;
I appreciate what you are saying and would have to stand down if it were not for the global destruction of small business that these business models have wrought.

I was with this company for 4 years, they saying they wanted to help me... an owner. I bought in and was happy (hooked), then, they said... we are changing our model now and from now on we will collect all the money.

This is no different than what Visa/MC have done to fraudulently market their points programs "as if it was they who were paying" ... but it was the merchants all along that were paying.

Trip Advisor and Home Away are global companies that are being absorbed by the "hotels.com" model. This model works extremely well in a world where people have stoped being "human" and only behave as a consumer.

As a "consumer" your comments are right on the money... hey, read the rules man!

What is someone to do... when it has become clear that the internet is now totally monetized.... Capital, who has no loyalties, only consolidates power.

I believe that individuals have an obligation to be aware, to act as citizens, not just consumer robots.

I have seen the awful destruction of small business hospitality in Europe, in Asia. This is a serious global problem for humanity.

Compliance (yes, there is a movie)... following the rules... this is how police states come into being.

I know it is a beautiful place, a paridise. I just thing that citizenship calls for more!