VRBOReviews 1,999

Go charged for a vacation rental that I never finalized. Got not final website totals, confirmation, email nor is it listed on there own website as ca future trip. Tried getting the charge revered and was told that i needed to go to the owner but they wouldn't provide email, phone number address. This was for over $1000. I am working with back card dept. instead. In the meantime this leaves the owner with cheat i am sure he. Thinks is a rental for a timeframe and it will not get resolved until after this date. So if you are an owner or a vacationer do not use this plethora of site owner by VBRO

We have tried to contact VRBO numerous times over the past 24 hours for help with a reservation we booked through their site. The owner has now insisted that we not pay the second half of the payment through VRBO. They want us to work outside of VRBO and show up with $1600 Euros is cash. We have wasted hours of our vacation trying to reach VRBO. We are routed to a customer service line where the employees have limited english, they ask the same questions over again and again, they say they are escalating it to the "resolution team", and then we never receive a return call or email. We called back again today and asked to be connected to the resolution team and they refuse to transfer us. they aske us to give them the facts AGAIN, and say someone will contact us. We arrive i Paris tomorrow and we have received NO RESOLUTION, and NO HELP from VRBO. We've attempted to call their corporate number in Texas and it is virtually impossible to get a live human being

7 years of growing a very small (8 properties) management company with VRBO and FK / TA. Now they both use extortionate business models. There's a lot of agreement on that but I need some direct business advice on where to post listings going forward. I have huge concerns going forward. They basically tripled my costs for consistently declining service and hold my properties with 200+, 5-star reviews, hostage to their bull$#*!e. Any advice is welcome, thanks!

We have a beautiful beach house on Kiawah Island, SC, and have used VRBO for a long time and were very happy. Since they were bought out by Expedia, the changes have been 100% terrible. We always loved being able to control the renting process and now we have to follow their incredibly rigid and costly model.

Everything sucks, from their 2-step log-in process, their "service fees", even their latest advertisement has two kids having a pillow fight in a VRBO house. WE DO NOT WANT OUR RENTERS HAVING PILLOW FIGHTS IN OUR HOUSE!

They recently sent an e-mail telling owners that they would be redacting e-mail addresses and phone numbers from all communication between us and potential renters, until after a booking is confirmed. ALL communication can only go through their secure platform.

I understand that they need to earn a profit, but the increase in fees for our renters is significant and we are getting pushback and an overall decline in business. Please let us go back to the old model!

We rented to a kid that claimed he was 26. He booked our place for 1 night. Our housekeeper walked in the next day to red wine sprayed on almost every wall, scratches and holes on the newly painted walls, gauged dining room table, sticky substances all over windows and fabric furniture, broken screens, all lights unplugged, broken post on our deck which rendered it structurally unsound, trash thrown over the deck and strewn about the property, toilet in upstairs bathroom overflowed and left a huge water stain on the main floor ceiling, piles and piles of empty liquor bottles and used condoms everywhere. We estimate $20,000 of damage. When we called VRBO they showed us 1) no concern, and 2) told us it wasn't their responsibility. There was NO recourse for this renter except the useless $99 insurance policy we require (that VRBO offers) and it only covers injury and accidental damage. Thank GOD we purchased an umbrella liability policy. We have had to contact the renter directly, incur legal fees and of course pay thousands to bring our home back to the pristine, lovely state it was in before this nightmare occurred. I do a lot of social media marketing for our home and up until now was sending all traffic to our VRBO page - most months I send close to 3,500 unique visitors to their site. We will now focus on Airbnb.

VRBO is a NIGHTMARE. Fees are ludicrous and now I have to ask myself why I allow that big a margin to go to them when - in serious and dire situations - they are absolutely useless to me.

BEWARE and choose Airbnb.

I wrote a review last year pointing out that VRBO is ripping off travelers and owners with their mandatory service fee. As an update, I have found that my properties can stay booked using two new regionally-focused vacation rental sites. Thankfully I have been able to do well without VRBO.

One new piece of data about VRBO is that their customer support has turned completely abusive toward me, accusing me of violations of their terms of service for the remaining property I have listed on their site. After I was able to show the customer rep that I had not done anything wrong, he apologized and told me that they are trained to deal with owners that way.

My two brothers and I rented a house to get together for my Dads 94th birthday in Los Angeles, California. We had paid, confirmation number in hand, and the property manager calls up 3 days before and says he has a problem, would you be interested in another house? I replied with a nice, detailed email describing why another house does not interest us. On Tuesday, May 23rd, the PM emailed us saying he still is working on the problem, we do not know what the problem is. Our first day to arrive was May 26th. On May 25th, still no word, so we call him. Turns out the renters had asked for a extension, hence his request for us to move to another house, and now the renters refuse to leave the premises. We now have NO PLACE to go. One brother came from Switzerland, the other from San Francisco for this event. After screaming at the PM, we got another house, but it was a dump compared to what we had rented and paid for. He then got us another house in a different location not very convenient to our needs. VRBO was 100% ABSENT during all of our discussions. We filed a case number, but they did absolutely ZERO to help us, except to record our conversations. I tried to get a transcript of one particular recording, but they will not release anything. Our vacation was nothing more than a stress filled 3 days of trying to find a place to enjoy ourselves, a complete and total disaster. We have refused payment to the PM, due to his 3 days of incomplete answers, confusion, stalling for time, changing his stories and reasons. If you have read this, you are now warned, good luck. Us? We will never use them again and we will tell as many people we can about our experience.

I am a property owner of a unit in Maui with 29 5 star reviews. Expedia bought out VRBO and it is no longer a website that lists vacation properties where owners can manage the reservations and transfer of money themselves. Expedia has changed the model and inserted themselves as the middleman, forcing home owners to lose control of how they wish to rent their property and imposing ridiculous fees to guests and owners alike. They tout better customer service but that is a complete falsehood... as an owner when I expressed my concern the customer service rep said, "I guess we'll have to part ways then..." really shows how much they value the properties that allow them to even have a business. On the flip side the customer service for guests is horrible as well. They remove the direct personal contact with the owner and when you call because you have an issue, VRBO will tell you to contact the owner. WHAT A JOKE! We are leaving VRBO as owners and will look for other ways to rent when we travel ourselves.

Vintage Gardens B&B is a charming historical house, nicely decorated, well organized and very clean and cozy. The owners thought of every little detail of possible needs and wants of the guests. The landlady was charming and personable, and breakfast was gourmet. A special touch was that without our knowledge she put cookies and a trail mix in our food bag.As we were traveling on our bicycles along Erie canal, this was very helpful.We highly recommend this BnB.

Booked a property on the lake. Great property, horrible owner (who lived next door). She had 20 people at her house for the weekend and they used the entire lakefront and all the spaces she advertised. Kids were running around everywhere, screaming, playing baseball by our vehicles. I said nothing, just enjoyed what I could of the lake and the area. I got an email to write a review of the property, so I did. I was quite kind, though I felt the need to point out the fact that the only space you get is the front yard, and that the owner and her family basically take up everything else, even though you paid to stay in a lakefront property. I get the owner's review upon my submission of my review and it is HORRIBLE. 2/5 stars. A 1/5 for cleanliness and a 2/5 for communication. I emailed the owner and questioned the review since the cottage was CLEAN (except dog hair- but I paid a $100 cleaning fee) and my communication with her was good. She stated it must have been a computer glitch and that she rated me much better than that. She apologized and blamed the website and promised to call to take care of it the next day. I waited, and nothing came of it. So I contacted her again via email and asked her to please remove my bad traveler review. She did not respond, so I called VRBO. Basically they said there is nothing they can do, and that only that particular owner would be able to see my bad reputation review. (not true, they can see my average which is affected by her poor, false review) I got an email from VRBO stating that per my request, the property review I wrote was removed. (I never requested that!) So I called them again. The customer service is probably the most useless waste of time ever. They told me to re-submit the property review. I let them know I already did, and it was still not showing up online. Forever later the rep comes back on the line to say VRBO rejected my review, but the review team handles that, and they are offline and do not have a phone number. I said, then read my review and let me know what about it made it get rejected. She stated only the review team could do that but they had no info as to why it was rejected. I said what is the criteria for rejecting a review? I was put on hold again, only for her to come back and say they did not have that info. I said, then how does the review team know what to reject? Again, no info. So finally I hung up after vowing to never use VRBO again.

I've had my property listed on vrbo since 2012. The first 3 years were very good. Just a normal, nice company to do business with. However, in the past 3 years they have gone from being a site to advertise my villa to potential renters, to taking over nearly every aspect of how I run my business. It feels like I've become the schmuck who just pays the bills!

Now they've changed the way they handle REVIEWS.

Recently, they sent me an email that looked like it came directly from my last renter, but upon opening it, I realized it was actually sent by vrbo, using my renters name. Is that even legal?
The email said that I'd received a new review, but they wouldn't show me what it said, or how many stars we were given, until I rated my renter first! I felt like I was a child on a playground and they were running around saying "I know something you don't know... NaNaNaNa. NaNa!" Lol! They were basically going to extort a rating out of me! I called them to question this new procedure and the representative all but came right out and told me that it was a negative review. I was pretty upset, as we've had nothing but positive reviews and have worked very hard to ensure our guests have a positive experience. Although some furnishings did sustain damage, maybe $100 to repair/replace, I eventually rated my renter with a less than positive review than I would have normally.
Vrbo literally pitted us against one another. I suppose since they were purchased by Expedia.com, they've become a very poorly run company. Not only will we never book anything through EXPEDIA.COM,(or anything else they've bought up, Hotel.com; Booking.com, etc.), we will be dropping our listing and going back to a local rental agency, airbnb or maybe TopVillas.com. What a shame, it used to be a great way to connect couples and families with their next vacation rental and now there's so many fees added on for the renters and the owners that it's definitely worth it to explore other options.

This company is a total SHAM! The customer service is abysmal and they do nothing to help the renter. All they care about is following a script when you call their so called "customer service".

I sent an inquiry to book a property and provided the company with my credit card information. They put a hold on my money for $353 and the reservation was not confirmed. I tried to resubmit my request and an additional $353 was put on hold. The owner never responded.

I found another property I liked and tried to book that one. Another $384 later, I still had no reservation or place to stay. With $1100 of my money being held up, I reached out to VRBO/Home away to find out about a refund. I also did not want to do business with them any more so I told them to pull back my last request.

I was told that I had to contact the owner directly, which is ludicrous in my opinion. So, I called, emailed and texted the owner. Finally, I received a text back from the owner telling me she would refuse my reservation. About 30 minutes later, I get an email saying my reservation was confirmed! WHAT?

Upon calling VRBO I was told there was nothing they could do without the home owner canceling this reservation.

I would highly suggest NEVER NEVER NEVER EVER using this company... who claims they are nothing but an advertising platform! Their agent told me they do not actually represent any properties or owners.

USELESS! Try something like Turn key. An actual company who can actually help you!