VRBOReviews 1,999

My group booked this house for September 10-14,2018. One of our group contacted Lidia to cancel the booking on June 12,2018. She was told there would be a $250 cancellation fee, not the full refund. As the cancellation was almost 90 days before the check in date we understood we would get a full refund as it says on the contact. I then contacted the owner by phone today and she said we owed a $250 cancellation fee that she put in her contract in the paragraph above the statement of 100 percent refund for cancellations before 60 day check in. I told her that is conflicting with the 100 percent refund statement and we thought the fee must be for some sort of other issue related to a cancellation. She said she can add what she wants to her contracts. I tried to get her to see how unclear, misleading and frankly unfair it is. She didn't care and would not change her mind. So I contacted VRBO and they said they would write up the owner but could not tell me what they would write, and then told me they do not get involved and to work it out with the owner! So they are of no use whatsoever in disputes and allow owners to charge a cancellation fee in conflict with their policy. Will not use them or Home Away again. So beware people.

Since being bought out by HomeAway, the services and cleaning fees have escalated. The rules that typically go along with these rental properties are also a burden. You have to pay a hefty cleaning fee, yet still clean up after yourself before you leave. Heaven forbid you have a friend over or move a piece a furniture... kiss your deposit goodbye. I'm going back to hotels and resorts where I'm actually treated like an appreciated paying guest.

I have had a vacation home listed on VRBO for almost 4 years. The first 2 1/2 years were great. Very simple website to navigate and I generated plenty of inquires and bookings, was actually considering buying another vacation home. Now since being bought out by Expedia I get almost no inquires, I get more hits from Craigslist than VRBO/Homeaway/Expedia, or whatever they call themselves now. Long story short, I am putting the home up for sale now because of VRBO's corporate greed. It's a real shame this was a great outlet to rent the home and help pay expenses and have guests have a wonderful vacation. I suppose all good things come to an end.

This company is very unprofessional, horrible at business communication, and their owners of property are just as bad. Flakey and misleading. Had to file a dispute with my bank because they weren't refunding me my money after canceling a reservation. They say its an automatic refund. 4 weeks go by and still no refund. Battling with VRBO and bank. Other property owner canceled on me after verifying reservation because a different owner wanted the place the same days as me. She was rude and unprofessional. Would NOT recommend using VRBO. Horrible service

This week I was very busy at work. I had an inquiry on one of my props which I did not reply to in the 24 hour period. For that infraction, vrbo took my listing down and made it inactive. I HATE THIS COMPANY! So how do you benefit from this? Beat them at their own game. VRBO tacks on an approximate 10% service that goes into their fat, undeserving, scum bag pockets. Can you avoid it? Yes, but they make it hard. The key is to get in touch with the owner directly. If you type in your email address or phone number, the scum suckers at VRBO have coded their systems to XXX out the address, be it email, phone etc. Consider using google search to find the property another way. Can it be found on facebook, yelp etc. Is there anything in the reviews that would tip your hand to contacting the owner. Can you use a prior renter to get to the owner? Is there an onsite or nearby office that may be able to give you the owners info?. On the other side, consider using a google search that you can instruct the owner to use to allow them to find you. If you are a repeat renter, then never use vrbo again and instead go direct to the owner. Don't be a doormat to VRBO stepping on you! Consider using numbers spelled out for instance don't use "8", instead use "eight" or "ate". "3" could "three" or "tre"... etc... My quest to find another vendor continues. My issue is that Homeaway and vrbo are huge and have big exposure. I will continue to undermine them, save my renters the 10% and search for a viable alternative to this company that has regressed from a trusted and useful partner to a devil that I continue to reluctantly use and utterly despise. Good luck. Please share if you have found other websites that operate like VRBO used to!

In helping small business owners for the past 14 years, especially in the vacation rental industry, it is sad to see a market behemoth like VRBO.com slowly take away the business of owners across the country. Not only do they want to control the calendar, money and rules, but now they want to control the communication. Who owns the small businesses anyways? An owner isn't even permitted to communicate with a prospective client unless it goes thru the VRBO.com system. So many leads are lost this way due to unnecessary rules and steps.

Hopefully another company takes notice of the trend that small VR owners are leaving VRBO.com on a daily basis and creates a platform that is fair and continues to support the small business owners. Another market giant has tried, but is following the same format at VRBO.com. They also are losing clients on a daily basis due to this practice.

Having a corner on the market is one thing, but when others figure out how to get the traffic, hopefully VRBO.com falls as quickly as it was built.

6/27/18
I went to renew my listing on VRBO today and was told I have to use "HomeAway Payments" or I cannot list my property. That means my guests pay VRBO/HomeAway a high booking fee in addition to my rent AND that VRBO/HomeAway will keep my guests' payments until after the guests check in and then and only then would VRBO/HomeAway pay me those funds. I get reservations 6 - 9 months in advance and use the deposits to pay expenses like insurance and taxes on my vacation home. I spent an hour trying to get a waiver of the HA Payments requirement to no avail. I found out today that VRBO/HomeAway uses a third party company, Vacation Rent Payments, to handle my guests and my funds and that company refuses to release the funds until guest check-in. VRBO calls it "HomeAway Payments" but it is not VRBO/Homeaway at all but this third-party company in Europe. I have no contract or relationship with this "Vacation Rent Payments" and VRBO did not tell me about them at all. Now they have my banking information and that of my guests! I am cancelling my VRBO listing ASAP.

Made my reservation 4 months ahead of our trip to Los Angeles, CA in June 2018. First reservation was changed due to plumbing problems. They moved me to a different property, 2 days before my arrival they cancelled my reservation because somebody overbooked the dates! They need to check their reservations! They returned my money but with 2 days to find a new property it was a nightmare... No properties in safe places within my budget... ended up in a hotel with 6 people! I will not used them again!

We just returned from a week spent at Aunt Bugs 402 Blackberry Ridge cabin, Pigeon Forge, TN. From day one, we had carpenter ants in downstairs bathroom and two bedrooms, three leaks- two in the kitchen in three places coming from upstairs shower, one in the bedroom from an overflowed toilet that came from floor/ bedroom ceiling gushinh water across part of the bed and all over the bedroom floor(caused two people to need a hotel for three of the nights). Manager sent a plumber out twice which did not help leaks. Manager sent out Orkin for ants but they were crawling days later, no usable pans or skillets for us to cook... disgusting pans and skillets! Manager sent out sheets for the bed that was soaked; however they did not address the mattress that was soaked. Finally, after our second call, someone was sent out to disinfect the mattress! Not a healthy place to sleep for sure! There was a propane barbecue pit that did not have propane so our son cooked hamburgers on the stove. Water leaked on the counter top on our food. There was NO cabinet space so we had to line up our food, bread, etc. on the counter. Manager did send out a set of pots and skillet, and they also sent out someone to replace two burners and fixed one burning that leaned. The right burner caught on fire the very first time we tried to cook. Basically, we spent the entire week reporting one issue after another. Unacceptable accommodations for our family of nine.

VRBO is very deceptive. I booked a condo 9 months in advance, knowing I could cancel and be refunded 100% if I did so 60 days in advance of my stay. Well, 6 months from my planned stay I tried to cancel, and booked another condo through their site because I needed more rooms. I am out 412.00, the full down payment. When I called to discuss this, they state that the owner had in her policy that she would keep 250.00 (in small print), even though the main page stated 100% refundable. What idiot would agree to losing money. I would book a hotel in which you can cancel up to 24 hours in advance. I will never trust this site again and will tell everyone I know not to book with them, I would ask you all to do the same and eventually they'll get the message. VERY dissappointed.

We rented a property through VRBO, and while it was fine to begin with, the real trouble came when the owner accused us of damages we did not inflict. It turns out the damage deposit is at the complete mercy of the home owner, and there is literally nothing you can do as a consumer.

While VRBO claims you can dispute these issues, in practice they ignore emails, phone calls, and side with the home owner -- even in the absence of any proof, and a sterling 5 star reputation from other property owners in the past.

We will never be use this service again.