VRBOReviews 1,999

I am a homeowner with two VRBO listings. I am appalled by this new service fee being charged to my guests. They describe it as a "small fee" that has equated to hundreds of dollars for my guests! This is on top of a hefty annual subscription fee that I am paying. This greediness from the Expedia company needs to change right away! What is the point of bringing more revenues for more advertising if we are loosing customers by the masses who will refuse to pay this fee. On the flip side, I have used vrbo for my personal travel and I will look elsewhere to avoid paying such an awful fee.

Well i M getting requests for summer but the length of stay instead of a week is 3-4 days on average. I believe that the new service fee is greatly impacting what a guest is willing to pay. I am sending out quotes but not getting as many back. Additionally the quantity of guests is increasing per request. You can only put so many in a one bedroom condo. I have also had a guest decide to delete a day and to that you have to delete the booking and refund the deposit and then create another one and request a new deposit and that is before the final payment is even due. So the whole service fee is gumming up my listing and I have decided to sell my unit. I think that this is only the beginning and believe that the advertising cost will also go up this year. It will be interesting to see if enough people are upset enough to impact Expedia's bottom line. Lets hope so.

I quess Expedia purchased VRBO and their greed kicked in as they are screwing loyal customers with a large booking fee. I agreed to pay an annual fee of over $1200 and then they changed rule to screw vacationers with a new 10% fee. They sent an email and buried the information so no one would notice. I do not understand how they can change terms when I have an annual contract.
I will be looking for other alternatives as this fee is not warranted as they do not manage anything or work with clients to rent out properties.
Please unchecked auto renewal on the Web site so they get the message that we are going to walk and not tolerate unethical greedy business practices.

As a new owner to VRBO, I have great concerns regarding the new service fees. First, I didn't know anything about these fees and learned thru a booking. I was completely shocked and had to do the research myself. Where is the professional courtesy to your business customers? Secondly, you went from charging no service fees to a whooping 4-9%. That is an outrageous jump. I have two potential bookings, one with a service fee of $469 (52 days) and the other $499 (84 days). This is a significant service fee! I would imagine that I will not get these bookings, thank you VRBO! I am in Florida where the winter is peak season and customers book 1-3 months at a time. Customers will certainly think twice on making these long term bookings. Consideration on reducing these outrageous fees for long term guests must be considered or we will loose these valuable bookings. We are smart, savvy business entrepreneurs who will either go to a new competitor or find ways to overcome these ridiculous fees. Where are the programmers for a new start-up company, step forward, here is the opportunity!

We rented a cottage for April 2016 in Indian Rocks Beach from J. Goss. We paid 50% down. Six weeks from our arrival date the people who own the property canceled on us with no explanation whatsoever. They refunded our money and would not answer my first two emails. Eventually they did respond and said that they had decided to renovate their property instead of rent to us. 90% of the rentals in that area are already rented for spring break and we could not find anything in our price range. I called the office of homeaway.com and VRBO, but they did absolutely nothing to help us and had me file a complaint but in the end that it was up to the rental property owners as to whether or not they would do anything to help us with our situation. I will not use the VRBO again.

But I did not think it would be so swift or so blatant. Expedia has mentioned a reduction in fee's based on the new gouging policy they have implemented. I have always had the pay now payment option. I have yet to see an decrease. We still pay a yearly fee and 3% of booking. Apparently this is to benefit the owners, but I have yet to see how any indication on how. They can say it all they want - but that are not able to show us.
I am sure as they pointed out research was done on the impact of this added fee. It would not have been based on impact to the owners - no way. The research conducted was on how it would impact Expedia. Would Expedia damage there revenue streams by adding this fee. Would the increased revenue form this fee offset the owners who move to other booking site options (airbnb) and will the decline in bookings that the owners will surely see have a negative impact of booking revenue. The answer is no - no negative revenue impact to Expedia based on reduced bookings to clients. Expedia in no way are concerned with the owners line of business. I know that for me - on a 2 day booking the new fee charged see's an additional $30 into Expedia's pockets. Thats a huge increase for them. They can easily absorb the negative impact. For Expedia to make this level of return from my property. Based the old fee base - they would need my apartment to book 6 - 2 day bookings. This is much easier money for them - they do not care about owners.
I will start telling my booking inquiries to book through Airbnb and save some money.

VRBO and Brian Sharples, Business 101, never try to fool your customers. Without them, you don't have a business. Shame on you for hiding a fee and expecting that your customers wouldn't notice. Your VRBO customers already agree to pay you an annual fee and allow you to charge a fee per transaction? Poor, poor business ethics! Business is born from necessity and competition and I'm looking forward to doing business with a company that doesn't think its customers are too ignorant to notice or care. DISGUSTED!

I cannot believe that VRBO is able to force these fees on consumers. And the nerve... get us signed up, pay all the costs, lie to us about how the "Book Now" works - Since these fees have taken effect, not only have we had no rentals, but not very many inquiries either. There must be a better place to advertise your vacation rentals. We are on Air BNB and don't mind paying their fees as we don't pay anything to have our homes listed on their website. It actually works very well. Please someone give some input on where we can list our rental properties without gouging the consumer. Typical big business... Keep in mind there are lots of large corporations that have gone under and hoping this will be another one. We must stick together and try to put an end to this or else cancel our listings.

I am a home owner and have rented through VRBO.
I just learned of the new Service Fee that VRBO has added to each booking. This will negatively impact our business. Home owners were not contacted about this fee and I assure you our renters are taken care of by me and my wife. This fee is deceitful and will not serve our guest in any way. I hope all renters and home owners call and complain about the Service Fee. I will make arrangements for our guest to book through other avenues.

I hope for a class action lawsuit to ensue and am quickly looking for an alternative.
Hi have always held platinum memberships for my two properties and suddenly, without my approval; they add traveler fees to my guests which I can not control.
This was done without my approval or option to withdraw my account and get a subscription reimbursement. The CEO published an "after the fact" letter to the members in Support FAQ explaining the reasons in a thin attempt to justify it. The sites were consolidated and now they are going to start squeezing the clients to extract all the profit of property rental.
They require using their booking / finance system for 3%; take a subscription fee and now extract up to 10% from your guests. Well we know who that really come from; our rental income!
To add insult, I just had a client see the fee and cancel their booking after paying for it with a credit card chargeback. I was then charge $25 by VRBO for the chargeback fee; since they could not collect it from the client.

Our stay over the New Years Holiday's with the inlaws and kids was the best ever! We travel to Santa Barbara from Sonoma each year at the Holiday's for the beauty of the ocean and the warmer weather. Our stay at #2364 was outstanding. Close to everything, ocean, piers, and downtown, never had to use car. The home was beautiful, spotless and the kitchen perfect with the best of appliances and I mean the very best. Decor very nice and new with a great upper deck to sit and enjoy breakfast and a cup of coffee to start your day. We will be back and if fact have already booked again.

I am a homeowner on VRBO and am so embarrassed by the people they hire to represent their company. I have been on hold for 15 minutes with no apologies, and have hung up on 2 separate customer service reps because they were so rude. I've been trying to switch the account the money goes into for 2 years, and have been unsuccessful, again, with no apologies. Really bums me out that a company would accept such a low quality of service in this fast paced day and age where pleasing the customer is #1.

I hope one exec reads this and makes change.