With 9flats.com, travelers can rent someone else's apartment, room, or house (or even igloo) and enjoy feeling more at home than one would typically feel in a hotel. Property owners, on the other hand, can earn money renting out their spare space. The goal of 9flats.com is to make travel more rewarding, comfortable and affordable, and to give homeowners an easy way of boosting their income. The service is a great way for travelers to get more value for their money. Since hotels come with big overheads, travelers can find more reasonable and inexpensive accommodation options. There is also a more local feel to the experience since the host will be of assistance throughout the trip. Other benefits of 9flats.com include:

Search Feature - 9flats allows users to search accommodations without creating a user account or signing into their profile. The search feature is easy to use and on their homepage.
Host Rating - Each host is given a star rating, so guests can easily see how other travelers have rated their experience with the property owner.
Seasonal Pricing - Certain listings include seasonal prices, so travelers can plan their trip based on the most cost effective time of the year. Prices are usually lower during the off-season.
Online Support - There is a support button on every page of their website, making is easy for users to get answers to their questions while searching listings.
Simple Booking - 9flats makes it simple for travelers to make reservations. They have two options to finalize their reservations; they can either click the "Book" or "Instant Booking" button on their desired listing or they can call the Booking Hotline.

With 9flats.com, travelers will be able to take advantage of coming home to a comfy apartment or house instead of a stuffy hotel room at the end of a busy day's sightseeing. As a group or family, travelers will love having a living room to hang out in and a kitchen to cook in together.

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The Bad

Lacking some features
Customer service issues
Poor reviews

While 9flats.com has a lot to offer travelers, especially those traveling in a group, there are some features and services missing from the platform. While not all other vacation rental platforms include the below services, they are common enough to make a note that 9flats.com does not offer them. These missing features include:

Contact Information - The only way to contact a host is through the website by clicking the "Contact" button on the host's profile. No email or phone number is provided for the property owner.
Customer Service - Travelers have had bad experiences with their customer service. When emailing, 9flats' support team would respond with terse, condescending one-line emails that didn't help resolve the customer's concerns.
Cancellations - While hosts are usually the ones concerned about their guests canceling near their arrival date, hosts can also cancel on their guests. There have been cases where travelers have been told only 2 week before their reservation that the host was canceling their booking, making it very difficult for travelers to find new reservations.
Commission - 9flats takes 15% commission from hosts for each reservation. Other vacation rental companies are known to only charge 12% commission.
Foreign - 9flats is actually a German company, which is evident when reading their policies as everything is listed in Euros. The English site is well done, but it may be a barrier for some American travelers and hosts.
Reviews - Many of the reviews are in other languages without a translation feature, which could be frustrating for American travelers who only speak English.

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The Bottom Line

9flats is a good option for international travelers who know more than one language. Since 9flats.com is a German site, many of the reviews are in languages other than English, which makes it hard for many Americans to get the information they need before booking. 9flats' format is very similar to Airbnb.com, which is probably a better option for American travelers since they won't have to deal with currency confusion and booking with a foreign company. Those that use 9flats can expect the following from the service:

More value for their money
Privacy and home comforts
Local tips and advice
Cancellation issues
Commission costs

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14 Reviews

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laura

They collect the money from the guests, but they don´t pay the hosts. See recent reviews on Trustpilot. The police should close this business down. They are robbers. They say they are not able to pay due to the crash of their financial software. But the part which collect the money from the guests, nevers stopped working. How come there´s nothin in the newspapers about the latest developments at 9flats? Hosts have not been paid since 2 months. I´m a succesful host on Airbnb and Wimdu. Recently, I had my first guests through 9flats. And the last, as I, like many others, am still waiting for my money.

10 years ago

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Dux

I registered on the website and everything seemed ok. But after a while, a customer who I have declined on other sites booked my house 9 months in advance. I had to option to accept or decline. After realizing the situation I wanted to cancel the reservation but I couldn't. 9flats asked me to pay them for declining a client, months in advance. I didn't receive any funds. I didn't even put in any payment information on the site, so there was no way possible for me to receive the money that the guest apparently payed them . Now they don't even let me delete my account. Very bad experience. They are way behind competition.

11 years ago

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Joanna

From the perspective of a host - I can absolutely not recommend using 9flats to anyone. Having used other platforms previously (mainly Airbnb and Housetrips), I find their customer service extremely poor. Firstly, the customer service hotline only operates in restricted hours (compared to eg. Airbnb's 24/7 service). A few days after uploading my property, I received a very suspicious message urgently requesting various scans of highly personal documents. After receiving it, I immediately thought it was a scam and called their hotline, only to find out that they had "reason to distrust me" yet were not willing to name the reason. The person working at the hotline very rudely assured me that my data won't be sent other to third parties, however the terms of use the hotline worker referred to claims the opposite. The entire experience seemed strange especially after all the great experiences I had on other platforms. I can only encourage hosts to use other platforms and will certainly not be working with them.

11 years ago

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Francesc

Be aware with 9flats... I'm in a dispute in Paypal with them. I did a cancellation of 506 eur with a 15% deduction, but I never received the money. They never answer calls and never answer email. I was alerted by a host because he did'nt receive money. Take care and choose other options

9 years ago

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Fotini

They do not pay the hosts. I have not been paid for over a month. They give ridiculous excuses such as that they have technical problems and they do not know when they are going to pay the hosts. Absolute horrible treatment. Hosts avoid, the company will never pay you!

10 years ago

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Dude

Terrible customer service. Thief. Not serious. Becareful they are not in Germany, account is in Singapore. As a host or guest, please choose Airbnb, they are more serious.

10 years ago

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Teo de Mas

9 Flats does not pay Hosts, please report to police, 9 Flats is a scam... they are stealing hosts money... please stop this, thieves!

9 years ago

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David

They collect the money from the guest and they do not pay the host. TrustPilot has many such testimonies for this crooked company.

10 years ago

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Paulo Torres

9flats dont pay to the hosts. I am still waiting my payments. Shame on them

9 years ago

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yasmin

9 flats do not pay the hosts last few month! do not trust them al all!!

10 years ago

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Catarina Silva

Fraud! 9 Flats collect the money from the guests and don´t pay at the hosts.

10 years ago

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Jose Molina

Problem with payment. 9Flast has not pay our last booking after 1 month.

10 years ago

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Michael Vierbuchen

Be Careful, they are not paying out the host anymore !!!

10 years ago

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frank San Diego, CA

getting a refund is impossible! Don't use this site

10 years ago