VRBOReviews 1,999

What was a fabulous relationship with a wonderful company has now turned into a nightmare. Not only does VRBO charge owners 1500. 00 a year, but now they have enacted a "fee" to the customers of anywhere from 4 to 10% of the rental. Most seem to be toward the 10% range. I have three properties listed and have considered these to be a great retirement venture for myself. Since Expedia took over, my inquiries have just about stopped. One of my houses is in the mountains and draws young families but by adding the $80.00 "fee" onto a weekend rental it seems to have put them over the edge. They no longer rent. I was rolling right up until Expedia took over. Because of their greed, I may have to sell my homes. I am sure there are a lot more people who have to be so disappointed in the new system. What we signed up for originally and what we have now are two different things, including the credit card fees. They promised 2.5% and now it's 2.8%. That changed the minute Expedia took over. They have set the web site up to force the customer into booking through their payment portal by threatening them with "no service" if they do it any other way. I have listed my homes on VRBO for 15 years and it's been wonderful... until now. If anyone does start a class action suit, I am in. This is not what I signed up for.

Just total greed and disregard for both property owners and travelers. Dishonestly sold us an annual marketing agreement, and less than 3 months later started changing the rules - charging guests for making reservations, more for paying online, and charging owners for the same reservations. They had a useful dashboard, then blocked it with a popup that forced its property owners to sign up for their Online Payment system. Said they could make any change they wanted to their agreement, but would not offer a refund. What was originally one of the better vacation rental systems has now fallen to be one of the worst. Their extra take? Roughly 12% more to their pockets, on top of what travelers have to pay for space, and in most states, county tourism and state taxes. STAY AWAY. And, zero help and zero respect when calling to try to fix the situation. Value had initially been good, but no longer. They now steer traffic only to owners who sign up for their online payment system, in addition to charging both sides for reservations.

They have gotten greedy. The customer service stinks. They don't reply to emails. The people at their call center just read responses out of a book. This company will go the way of K-mart (brink of bankruptcy in a few years) unless they make major changes to their greedy policies.

What a joke! Oh, and if you use expedia, travelocity, Trip Advisor, etc, you're patronizing the same parent company that owns Homeway and VRBO. Dump them all. Send a message that corporate greed won't be tolerated.

If they're going to charge more fees, customers should get something in return -- other than headaches.

We have used Brno for several years now and are extremely disappointed in the new service fee being charged by vrbo. This fee is just an additional income generator for the company and adds no value to the renter. We pay in advance for the rental so I don't know who they are protecting? The new fee is so extreme you can rent a very nice hotel room instead of a home.
We will be checking out other options, so if you rent your home on vrbo this is why your rentals are decreasing. Too bad a good thing was destroyed.

I loved VRBO. My husband and I have great experience with VRBO, until today. When I tried to book a condo for our winter vacation and found a surprise $100 tacked on for a service fee. What a joke. At this point, we might as well stay a hotel since it costs the same. Extremely disappointing. I would love to know of any other sites that don't charge fees for nothing and give them my business. What a terrible thing to do for these owners of these properties who already pay.

I was using VRBO for several years and I was happy with it. Year after year that greedy company started grabbing more and more from both, owners and guests. They charge owners with astronomic yearly fee, charge for using credit cards (which is now practically mandatory) and recently started to charge the guests too, with very high fee of (in most cases) 9%. They call it "small fee"!
Triple deep in the rental business changes rental landscape very seriously and forces owners to lower the prices to accommodate their terrible appetite. Just for maintaining one website they grab more income than the home owners.
Both, owners and guests should boycott this ridiculous company.

Expedia purchased HomeAway for $3.9 Billion (yes, billion). Who made this all possible? The homeowners. If homeowners don't list on VRBO then traffic to their site dies. It's just that simple. Homeowners are critical to their success, a point them seem to have forgotten in their greedy grab to soak us by raising the listing fee AND adding the new "user fee" (which will be born by the homeowner not the renter).

Talk about biting the hand that feeds you. Bad move VRBO.

Let me add my voice to the chorus of property owners disgusted with VRBO and their institution of this new "service fee" - to be paid by renters. I had been wondering why rental inquiries for my properties had recently dwindled so drastically. Upon receiving an inquiry today I went to the dashboard and was horrified to see a 9% service fee added onto the price quote breakdown for my potential future renter. I called VRBO customer service voiced my extreme dissatisfaction, only to be greeted by an agent doing her very best to try and justify this additional charge. There is NO JUSTIFICATION for it. VRBO substantially increased their advertising charges less than 18 months ago. My platinum level charges increased by almost 30% per year. Now it appears VRBO is looking for further revenue and this time it its the renters who have to pay. All this does for property owners, is diminishes the number of inquires and ultimate rentals. I am going to look at moving my properties elsewhere and in the meantime - until my subscription runs out, inform anyone inquiring about renting over VRBO that this new "service fee" has nothing to do with me. It is just VRBO being greedy. I intend to give potential renters alternative options for rental - where they will not have to pay this fee.
2 years ago I would have given VRBO a 5 star rating as a property owner - how unfortunate that now feel unable to give them more than 1 star.

We need a class action suit. We paid VRBO to let us advertise on their site. THAT was the deal, the only deal. When a client responded to our ad, the bull was in our court. They have no right to step in at that point and charge our clients after we do the work and sell our product to the client. The "service fee" should be optional as any insurance fee is. In addition, the service is not all it's cracked up to be. 24/7 not so sure. I called 11:50pm and held on for 20 minutes before hanging up! Some service. Class action somebody, lets go.