How We Work

1. What Book Funduq is

Book Funduq is an online platform where you can discover hotels and other stays in Damascus and across Syria, compare real prices and availability, and book instantly in your own language and currency. The properties on the platform are independent businesses: they manage their own listings, prices, availability and policies through a partner panel, and they provide your accommodation. Your accommodation contract is with the property; the booking service is ours. The legal framework is in our Terms of Service — this page is the plain-language version of how it all works.

2. How we make money

Our revenue is a commission that properties pay us for confirmed bookings — a percentage (or fixed amount) agreed with each property. How that commission is collected depends on the property's collection model, which is stated at checkout before you commit:

• Online deposit. The commission is exactly what you pay online as your booking deposit: it is collected at checkout, counts fully toward your total price, and you pay the remaining balance to the property directly on site.
• Payment at the property. Nothing is collected from you online. You pay the entire total price to the property on site, and the property settles our commission with us separately — out of the price you have already paid, not on top of it.

• Guests pay no service fee, no card fee, no markup under either model — the total price you see is the property's price.
• The deposit is not an extra cost: total price = deposit paid online + balance paid at the property. Where there is no deposit, total price = the single amount paid at the property.
• Because our commission is fixed per property, we have no incentive to steer you to more expensive rooms — or toward one collection model over the other.

Exact amounts for every booking — any deposit, the amount payable at the property, and the total — are always itemised before you commit; the mechanics are described in the Payment Terms.

3. How booking works, end to end

• Search — enter dates and party size; we show real availability and real prices from each property's own inventory.
• Choose — compare rooms, photos, amenities, each property's cancellation window and its collection model, all shown before you commit.
• Confirm — at properties on the online-deposit model, pay the deposit by card, processed by our payment service provider; at properties where everything is paid on site, no payment is taken and you simply confirm your details. See the Payment Terms.
• Get confirmed — instantly, or within 24 hours for request-based properties (a declined request means an automatic full refund of any deposit, and nothing to refund where nothing was paid).
• Stay — show your confirmation code or QR document and ID at check-in, and pay the amount due in cash (USD) at the property.
• Change of plans? — with a deposit, cancel within the free window for an automatic full refund; where everything is paid at the property, cancel free of charge at any time. See the Cancellation & Refund Policy.

4. How search results are ordered

By default, results are sorted by a quality score computed the same way for every property. The score combines the property's publicly available guest rating and the number of ratings behind it (a statistical average that prevents a single 5-star review from outranking hundreds of consistent reviews), with the property's official star class as a minor tiebreaker.

Two things the ranking is not influenced by: the commission a property pays us, and any form of paid placement — we sell no advertising positions. When you search with dates, properties without availability for your stay are moved to the end of the list and clearly marked as unavailable rather than hidden, so you always see the honest state of the market. You can override the default order at any time by sorting by price (low to high, high to low) or guest rating.

5. Where ratings come from

The guest ratings you see on Book Funduq today come from publicly available Google ratings for each property, shown with their review counts. We do not yet operate our own review system, and we do not edit, filter or reorder these third-party scores. When we introduce reviews collected on our own platform, they will be from verified stays only, and this page will be updated to describe how they are collected and moderated.

6. Our relationship with properties

Properties join Book Funduq through an application we review, and manage their presence through a self-service partner panel: listings, photos, room types, prices, availability calendars, cancellation windows and booking mode (instant confirmation or on-request). The collection model of a property is agreed with us and set on our side. They are required to keep information accurate, honour confirmed bookings, and not to request any payment beyond the confirmed total price. Properties that repeatedly fall short can be suspended or removed from the platform.

7. What we do for guests

• Price transparency — one total price in USD, itemised before you commit into what is charged online (which may be nothing) and what is payable at the property; displayed currency conversions are clearly indicative.
• Secure payment — card processing by a licensed, PCI-DSS-compliant provider; your card details never touch our servers.
• Honest content — no fake urgency banners, no invented discounts, no hidden unavailable rooms.
• Real cancellation terms — the applicable cancellation rule is shown before you book, and refunds within the free window are automatic.
• Human support — reachable by email and WhatsApp in multiple languages via our contact page.

8. Complaints and dispute handling

If something goes wrong — with a booking, a payment, a property or the platform itself — email info@bookfunduq.com with your confirmation code. Complaints are logged, investigated and answered; we aim to acknowledge within 24 hours and resolve most issues within a few days. Where a complaint concerns a property, we take it up with the property on your behalf. Your statutory consumer rights and the dispute options in the Terms of Service remain available at all times.