Independent ski chalets and apartments are those run by owners or small ski companies rather than the larger tour operators. Typically you will be dealing directly with the company owners or someone who works closely with them. Generally travel has to be arranged separately.
On the Availability sidebox, change the dropdown from '1 week' to 'a shortbreak'. Results will be filtered so only properties offering shortbreaks are shown.
Try selecting 'La Plagne' then 'a shortbreak' to see list of properties offering shortbreaks in La Plagne, for example.
Try selecting 'La Plagne' then 'a shortbreak' to see list of properties offering shortbreaks in La Plagne, for example.
When you've searched for chalets or apartments and received a number of results, then the panes on the right hand side allow you to refine your search based on specific features to the chalets or apartments included in the results - e.g distance to slopes, internet access, DVD player etc. If none of the listed properties support that criteria (e.g gym) then you cannot select that feature to narrow the results.
Because the footer links are separated for chalets and apartments, Kwinzi automatically filters by either chalets or apartments for all selected resorts.If both chalets and apartments where showing previously it is likely the number of matches will reduce. For the time being there is no way to show just chalets for one resort and just apartments for another resort, or vice versa, in the same search.
Hopefully there will be.
We've started by including property websites for those areas and resorts which have a high number of independently run chalets and apartments, but anyone can add a property and if we need to add a new area or resort then we will do.
If there are any areas or resorts you'd like to see listed then let us know.
We have to credit Snowheads and Wikipedia for this - see the Snowheads glossary and this
Wikipedia entry.
In that case, the fraudsters were putting genuine properties on the listings but providing their own temporary contact details. It was a case of take the money and run. Kwinzi doesn't provide any method for holidaymakers to contact listed sites other than via the sites themselves. Having said that you still need to ensure the sites themselves are genuine. See our recommendations for checking on sites below.
You don't - Kwinzi is a search engine for wintersports properties. Just like all search engines, if someone adds a link to a website then as long as it is appropriate for our target audience we will add it to our database.
That means that if a scammer sets up a website for a fake ski property and adds a link to it on Kwinzi,we will be no wiser than any one else. We do moderate links, but only to the extent that they are for snowsports properties and the information provided to Kwinzi does not contradict the information on the linked site. We know nothing about the people or organisations behind the website.
Before you give out credit card information or make payments of any sort you must ensure that the recipients are who you think they are. Some things you might consider are (in no particular order).
a) Telephoning the owner.
b) Entering into email correspondence.
c) Looking up reviews/comments.
d) Web.archive.org to look up the domain history.
e) www.nominet.org.uk/other/whois for UK domains.
f) Asking for references and contact details of previous renters, and contacting them.
All of the above will help you get a feel as to whether the owner is genuine.
That means that if a scammer sets up a website for a fake ski property and adds a link to it on Kwinzi,we will be no wiser than any one else. We do moderate links, but only to the extent that they are for snowsports properties and the information provided to Kwinzi does not contradict the information on the linked site. We know nothing about the people or organisations behind the website.
Before you give out credit card information or make payments of any sort you must ensure that the recipients are who you think they are. Some things you might consider are (in no particular order).
a) Telephoning the owner.
b) Entering into email correspondence.
c) Looking up reviews/comments.
d) Web.archive.org to look up the domain history.
e) www.nominet.org.uk/other/whois for UK domains.
f) Asking for references and contact details of previous renters, and contacting them.
All of the above will help you get a feel as to whether the owner is genuine.
It might be because there is a genuine error, or it might be because the linked site uses Javascript to show or hide information, in which case the same web address is shared by multiple pages. You can generally tell this by looking at the web site address when viweing properties. If it doesn't change then the site uses javascript to show or hide properties. In that case there isn't a lot we at Kwinzi can do about it.
It means that we are reasonably sure that there are no major bugs, but we don't know what issues will come up in a live environment - until we put it in that environment. Once we're confident we've resolved 'live' issues we'll take it out of beta.
We offer email support via support at kwinzi dot co dot uk and we also manage a discussion group at groups.google.com/group/kwinzi.
As the group is hosted on a different server we can use it to notify you if there are main site issues. Note that if you decide to participate in the group, as oppose to just reading messages, you should follow Googles
anti spam advice.