How the platform works

Wimdu operates as a marketplace with the world's largest selection of vacation rentals offered by several providers cooperating with us. Our marketplace compares in a few seconds all the offers of these providers and proposes them to you according to the criteria of classification defined below. 

The marketplace integrates a vast inventory in one simple search and enables users to book accommodations from diverse providers, either on the providers’ external websites or directly on the Wimdu platform. Wimdu receives a commission from the connected booking provider for every successful mediation of a booking or for the generation of a query or click, respectively. 

Wimdu does not conclude any booking contract with travellers. Rental contracts are entered into directly with the provider and/or the owner of the property, regardless of whether you have been redirected to the provider’s website to finalise your booking or you have entered your booking information directly on our platform (in which case we pass the information on to the provider, to whom you enter into an obligation to pay the amount of your booking). 

Any complaints regarding your rental, cancellation or refund request should therefore be directed to the provider. However, we will do our best to assist you with any such claims, if possible. 

For more details, please see our General Terms and Conditions of Use.

The offers we propose are not exhaustive. 

We work with thousands of trusted providers. For their offers to be listed, these providers must offer tourist accommodation for rent, or allow owners (professional or non-professional) to offer accommodation for rent and to conclude rental contracts through them.

Our providers pay us according to the terms of the agreement we enter with them. Providers who do not pay Wimdu are not listed. Offers from our providers may also be removed if a provider does not comply with the terms of our agreement, if the agreement expires or due to other legal reasons.

The prices and information of the offers displayed on our platform are determined and provided by our providers, either through Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), static feeds or other technical tools. Our providers are solely responsible for the accuracy of such prices and information, which we cannot guarantee.  

The offers’ information is updated through the same means, at least once a day.

The ranking order of the offers will also be determined by the ranking preferences you select: 

• The default ranking is based on the popularity of the offer: Our self-learning algorithm ranks the offers according to their relevance to the traveller, based on the feedback or expectations he/she has provided on our service (e.g. location of the property, number of travellers, price, preference, desired amenities, etc.). The objective is to ensure that the search results match the traveller's needs.  
• Best value: A subgroup of the most relevant offers is selected and ranked from lowest to highest price. The price is shown per stay (or night if selected) depending on your choice and according to the number of travellers indicated. 

The ranking of offers on the search results pages of our platform are based on a dynamic self-learning algorithm that evolves over time and may vary according to a number of different factors, such as:

• The particular combination of search criteria you enter on our platform: These criteria may include variables such as destination, price, number of travellers, type of accommodation, specific amenities of the property (e.g. presence of a swimming pool). 
• Quality of the offers: Once offers are matched on search criteria, other quality attributes such as how popular the offer is, amenities, or user interactions (e.g. how many times the offer was clicked and/or details displayed) influence the final sorting of the offers. 
• The commission received by Wimdu from providers: The commission also affects the appearance and sorting of search results, although it is not the predominant factor and is always used in combination with other factors. 

To conclude, Wimdu’s mission is to provide travellers with the information and tools to help them find an ideal accommodation, among a very large number of available offers.

The reviews on accommodation experiences are provided by users who booked on our platform (indicated as “Verified Guest by Wimdu”) and/or by our providers (as indicated then). 

The final star rating (up to a maximum of 5) is the simple average of all the ratings for the specific offer that are available to us (i.e. we add all ratings we receive and divide this sum by the number of available ratings). In rare cases a star rating delivered by one of our providers may be rounded up by that provider and therefore may differ compared to the provider’s own system. 

Reviews that are collected by our providers can’t be directly verified by us - we trust our providers to check their authenticity.

If a review is collected from a user who booked on our platform and who (to the best of our knowledge) stayed at the accommodation, the badge “Verified Guest by Wimdu” appears. Hence, a review by a “Verified Guest by Wimdu” originates from a user who booked on our platform ensuring that only such real guests may submit a review at all (booking and review details need to be identical). 

If the name of a person who has submitted a review is not available, we display “Guest”.

Shown reviews may be star ratings with or without text, or review texts without star rating depending on what we receive from our users who booked or from our providers. We may display an average of star ratings by our providers, while an overall star rating by us may be calculated based on additional ratings. For some offers, only reviews from the respective provider are displayed.  

The overall rating of an offer may distinguish between multiple sub-categories. The score per sub-category is a simple average of all ratings that are available to us for that sub-category considering the following question behind these sub-categories: 

• Cleanliness: Was the accommodation neat and organized at arrival?
• Equipment: Did the accommodation have all the appliances and amenities you needed and that were advertised?
• Hospitality: Did you feel welcome? 
• Overall impression: Did the accommodation look fine from the outside?
• Location: Is it close to nearby attractions? 
• Price / value: Did you receive good value for your money?

Definitions used by our providers may differ from the above raised questions, while we keep our interpretation.

The overall truthfulness of review texts is not checked. However, we may remove reviews if we become aware that a review is fake, includes illegal, personal or defamatory content (e.g. hate speech, discrimination, threats, violent language). Actions may be taken against reviewers who act inappropriately, particularly in an illegal manner.

In addition, reviews on our platform’s services may be displayed that are gathered through review collection tools (like reviews.io).