VRBOReviews 1,999

We listed our two condos at the Beach Club in Fort Morgan, AL in 2012. It was a great way for me to market my condos to a broader audience and I saw my rental income increase dramatically. I am what VRBO refers to as a hybrid owner in that I use VRBO to find my guests and then turn them over to my on-site manager to clean, maintain and collect the money from my guests. VRBO started telling me that if I didn't use their on-line booking system I would have to pay more for my annual subscription and my listings would be moved down the list of offerings. I was ok with this since I have a ton of repeat customers and all was well. At this same time, if you were part of their booking system, they started charging my guests a percentage admin fee (not sure what they call it) and Ive heard its between 8 and 10%. This year they told me that they will not allow me to renew without being a part of their system. My contract with my management company does not afford me the opportunity to do this so when my two contracts expire I will not be able to continue to list on VRBO. Ive spoken until Im blue in the face to them going up the chain. I have NEVER experienced such arrogance. This company started as a great way to get the word out about my rental properties and changed their business model in mid-stream. This is the ultimate bait and switch and, just like unscrupulous drug dealers, the have me hooked on their service. They have no investment in my properties but want to share in my revenues for offering a marketing service that I am paying for annually. I wish them well (not really) and expect that their arrogance will be rewarded by another VRBO-type service provider will fill the void left for us hybrids that they are kicking out.

I found the Green Palm Inn in Savannah, Ga. What a gem! A perfect hostess, innkeeper. Fabulous cook. Every breakfast was more delicious than the last, always had cookies, sweets and had a "Happy Hour" (two) at 4:30. The rooms were great. Each has it's own bath and the decor was what you'd want for Historic Old Savannah. Beds were excellent.
My wife was celebrating her 80th birthday and Diane treated us and the other guests like family. Couldn't have been better. There's only four rooms, so make your reservations early, as I did.
Fred W.
Boca Raton, Fl.

Since VRBO sold out to Expedia in 11/2015 for $3.9 billion, they have deteriorated to just make money off of the guests and owners. They force you to enter your credit card first. They take money from the owners. Find the small link to "email owner" first before entering your credit card. Try to get owner to call you. VRBO doesn't give owner your # and keeps owners contact info from you to force you to use VRBO and steal your money. Find a way to contact owner directly. The VRBO guarantee is worth less than toilet paper. They do not even verify if the person advertising a rental actually owns the home any longer! Contact the owner directly! When you email owner, spell out your #. Say "ring" instead of "call" Spell out your email. (use *dot* instead of actually giving your email, as VRBO encrypts and deletes your number and email from owner, so that you are ultimately forced to use VRBO. Owners hate the new VRBO/Expedia system.

I Have Had my Florida vacation rental condo on VRBO's site for 10 years and the changes that have been recently made have been purely for their benefit only and shows to what measures they will take for just pure GREED on their part. I Have cancelled my account and will NEVER return unless they let me have the contact with the guests that I have had in the past! Customer service is useless!

We had our beautiful cottage in AZ with VRBO for years and loved it! We met lovely new guests, the site was simple for guests and owners. THEY HAVE BEEN TURNED INTO A MONSTER. We don't trust them, and have had 1 new booking since the takeover. We can't communicate with our guests, and we have a sneaking suspicion they are sending fake requests to us. TERRIBLE to have a company working for you that you believe is trying to stab you in the back and take your clients. I have a slimy feeling all-over about this shoddy run operation. How sad.

Can not go wrong staying here. Mike and Anne Marie are terrific hosts. They are very friendly and helpful. Felt like we were visiting old friends. Did I mention the breakfasts are positively delicious.
Enjoy!

Simply said, VRBO, or Homeaway, and Vacation Rentals.com, want those they "use" (my home is worth several hundred thousand dollars) to pay for the subscription. There are certain parameters that penalize those, like me, who do not. Basically, if you do not pay for a subscription, they put you in the bottom of the search results. I use to get half my business from Homeaway/VRBO until they changed a while ago to a harsh unequal format, that makes Property Management companies their most important customer, meanwhile leaving me, a owner operated rental, scraping for attention on their site, only due to the algorithms they have set up to reward those who pay for the Subscription, and punish those who do not.

No matter to me, but I do think it is a stupid way of marketing a product. I would call it PAY TO PLAY.

Shame on you. Equal is equal, whether I am an owner operated using your site, or I pay for the subscription. This is sadly not the case currently with VRBO or Homeaway. I use to get a lot of hits off their site, until they changed their algorithms, to make my property not at the top of the list.

I review at 4.9% on VRBO/Homeaway & Airbnb. Airbnb is the best at this point for an owner... by FAR.

I hope Homeaway makes changes to allow "owner operated" be more competitive.

They took $3700 from my VISA. Sent me a confirmation email with no information about the rental. Called a dozen times got passed everywhere. No one could give me the address and a reservation payment receipt to show the front desk, no physical address to even KNOW WHERE TO GO when my wife and two young daughters land in a foreign country! No phone number nothing. When I called the last time 12 hours before leaving to the airport, I got a phone number. I had to write it on a napkin. They said they could not send an email! I have never seen anything like this! WORST WORST WORST! So disorganized.

I booked a hotel in Belize through VRBO. I got the confirmation e mail with the reservation # and property#. I had no idea the name of the hotel or address. I called VRBO to get the information and they ran circles around me. I had the confirmation # and had already paid! They finally gave me the property owners phone number. So much frustration! How can they book without knowing the name of the resort and what would the motive be of refusing to tell the customer? I will never book with them again!

When you search on VRBO for vacation rentals in a particular town their website shows you about 5 or 6 different towns and even includes hotel rooms! No wonder my bookings have decreased 80% this year. This is false advertising/lying. Here is an example: I searched on Keaau, HI and it shows me Hilo, Hi, Pahoa, HI, Volcano, HI, etc. which makes competition for listings outrageous. Since this change, I receive no bookings only scammers contacting me.