FlipKey is an online vacation rental

Vacation rental

Vacation rental is the renting out of a furnished apartment or house on a temporary basis to tourists as an alternative to a hotel. The term vacation rental is mainly used in the US. In Europe the term villa rental or villa holiday is preferred for rentals of detached houses in warm climates...

 marketplace. It has an inventory of more than 100,000 rental properties in over 5,000 regions. FlipKey is a Web 2.0

Web 2.0

The term Web 2.0 is associated with web applications that facilitate participatory information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web...

 site that puts a strong emphasis on the value of qualified, user-generated reviews of vacation rentals.

FlipKey is majority owned by TripAdvisor

TripAdvisor

TripAdvisor.com is a travel website that assists customers in gathering travel information, posting reviews and opinions of travel-related content and engaging in interactive travel forums. It is part of the TripAdvisor Media Group, operated by Expedia, Inc. TripAdvisor is a pioneer of...

.

FlipKey listings include professionally managed properties in addition to rent-by-owner properties.

FlipKey also powers the vacation rental search on TripAdvisor. Every home listed on FlipKey is automatically listed on TripAdvisor.com.

History

FlipKey was founded in 2007 by T.J. Mahony, Jeremiah Gall, and Carl Query. FlipKey.com officially launched in March 2008. In August 2008, TripAdvisor announced a majority stake in FlipKey.

In addition to guest reviews, FlipKey listings also feature a property description, photos, an availability calendar, and the ability to promote limited-time special offers.

In 2010, FlipKey began offering a [TripWow] slideshow widget for users to install on external websites. The widget automatically generates a slideshow to display the property photos from FlipKey.