VRBO

After multiple issues with AirBNB we tried out VRBO and have not looked back since. Much better overall experience. Better Customer Service too!

VRBO is the worst company that I've ever come across with in the US, in my entire life. My advice to all of you is to STAY FAR AWAYYY from this so-called company. I'm a landlord who works with various companies, including VRBO. A tenant checked out from my house on June 21st, 2020, who rented the house through VRBO. Since 06/21/2020, VRBO has not transferred the rental money to my account. For the past 12 days, I've been calling VRBO, every single day, and waited at least one hour on the phone to get connected to a VRBO "agent." Each agent has done his/her best to go above and beyond the limit to LIE to me on the phone. They keep telling me that they have the money; yet, due to a "technical issue only," they could not transfer the money to me. Each agent told me that the billing department would contact me, and until today, no contact has been made. I think they just do not have the money as they are not even returning the money to those who rented, but also cancelled the rental due to COVID-19. Everyone, please DO NOT rent through VRBO, use other web sites to rent. Please advise what to do & how to proceed to get my money back. If someone knows how to handle this situation, please let me know.

This is the worst place ever to use Sept/2020 I couldn't fly to Bonaire in the Deutch Netherlands because of Covid19 scam, and I told them that united airlines canceled my flight. I asked them for a refund of $918 for a week at one of there rentals they told me I need to contact the property owner in Bonaire lol I said I got the services threw VRBO and they should refund me cause it said youget 100% refund. Still months later Canadian Tire MasterCard has launched 2 invegations because this piece of $#*! rip off company won't refund but they take your money! I highly DON'T Recommend this place I miss Air BNB

First of all, do not just go by reviews posted of VRBO. They only allow you to post a review if you stayed at the vacation property. Regarding: Property #******* - Casa de Duck - Georgetown Sands Road in Duck, NC. I had rented this beachfront house in Duck, NC for 1 week through this website in January for a vacation in May. I had paid half the cost as a deposit and the other half was charged to my credit card a few weeks prior to the reservation. This house was 8 bedroom which would accomodate a family reunion including family travelling from Florida and Maine. I was called by the owner the Wednesday before our rental (which was to begin on Sunday) - just 4 days - that they accidentally double booked us. They said they would find us a comparable house, but due to the fact that I was informed of the double-booking just a few days before our trip, there were no houses comparable with the same number of bedrooms and beachfront. The owners offered no compensation, and I never got a refund. Thankfully, I had purchased the rental through my American Express Credit Card, whose fraud department handled it and credited my card completed. However it was months before I received all the credits and I had to pay $1500 more for another vacation house that would accomodate my family. The owners promised to refund me, but never did; even after at least a dozen phone calls and emails. I contacted VRBO who would not do anything, as they claimed they are only a mediator and have no financial responsibility. BBB could not help due to the owners not owning an actual business. The owners stopped responding to me after the first response from them promising a full refund immediately. DO NOT rent through VRBO! You will save yourself a lot of aggravation. I ended up using Sun Realty who was amazing and you know that they will correct any problems immediately.

Do not use Vrbo unless you have money to lose from either being forced to cancel or by having additional astonomical fees forced on you by property owners.

I rented a property for for $2800 for two days.

Virginia/Vienna/Wolf Trap
Luxury Estate near Washington DC Impressive

6br 4full bath and 2 half bath sleeps-20

I accidentally forgot to change the number of guest from the default 2... who knew it would cost me almost 3000...
The property manager wouldnt allow me to change to the correct amount of ppl even though the property was stated to be able to hold 20 ppl.
Then said if I was holding an event they charge an additional $600 an hour for their house staff... even though there is a $400 cleaning fee already as part of the rental.
When I told the owner I would not and couldnt do 600 and hour. I was told they could take my rental fee of $2800 and allow me to have a 6 hour event at the place but could not stay overnight!
The event when I did have it in a a friends yard was a whopping 8 guest...
Then the owner told vrbo he would refund HALF my money if I cancelled in 3 hours. Which I did and have heard nothing from them since.
And they rerented the property again for my dates after I cancelled the reservation.
But has yet to respond back to me or vrbo in refernce to the refund.

The lack of accommodation and unwillingness to return my funds makes me concerned as to whether Vrbo has become a preditory haven.

Vrbo says they can do nothing it is on the owner discretion!

Robber of $2800 just trying to celebrate my daughters college graduation.

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!

Made a reservation on VRBO for Property # ******* with Host Naylan and paid in full for 12/24/2022 to 1/3/2023. Prior to arrival I was having difficulty contacting host and called from a different phone and was eventually able to speak with him on the morning of flight. About 1/2 hour prior to boarding I was informed that the house was no longer available. I was scheduled to arrive at 2:00 P.M. and check in at 3. Without any time to figure out what to do do upon arrival. I was refunded the money eventually but being Christmas eve on saturday and Christmas on sunday left with very few options. Needless to say they ruined my christmas and whole vacation. Later on upon checking the house was available to rent on 12/28/22 to 12/30/22 and by looking at their facebook posts they used the house for their personal use. Had I not called from a different phone I would have arrived without any notice of it being cancelled. VRBO was generous enough to put us in a hotel but that's what we had planned for since the rooms were not close to each other. We were able to get a decent meal or any kind of holiday celebrations. By Day 4 still couldn't find a rental because of the time of the year and shortage of housing in Florida and was forced to stay in a hotel and play an outrageous amount for my vacation which I had not planned on. STAY AWAY FROM THIS PROPERTY AND THIS HOST. VERY BAD BUSINESS PRACTICE AND SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO RENT AGAIN.

As a property owner I am advising everyone out there to not use VRBO to rent out your property. They do not support their property owners and they don't lift a finger to help you with any question or any situation that arises. Their customer service is absolutely horrible. The people that answer the phone can never answer a single question and they always promise to create a case number and escalate the complaint or situation up the chain of command. They give you a case number and tell you that somebody above them will be reaching back out to you within 24 to 48 hours, but time and time and time again you are ignored and nobody ever follows back up with you. So if you wish to protect your home and your rental business you should definitely stay away from VRBO until they get their act together and develop a proper and helpful system for customer service, which is completely nonexistent as it currently stands. Any issue that arises usually takes over an hour on the phone and result is no resolution and no proper answers because nobody there and seems to know what they're doing. They're happy to take your money but definitely have ZERO interest in helping you or resolving issues! Just the WORST! Their owners app doesn't even work right - it doesn't show you much of the info you need to see & access as an owner and the company has known about this problem for at least the last few years because they tell you not to use the app when you call in because it's "still not working properly". For years it has not worked properly and they've known and haven't bothered to fix it. It seems like a bunch of kindergartners run this company. It's just awful which I guess is why there are SOOOO many complaints on here and why they have lower than a 2.0 rating. I guess they just don't care.

This is now our second disaster rental with VRBO. The first was a "Suite on the Grand Canal" in Venice. I'll just say it was a room within a flat with a padlock on the door and the guest must enter through another family's rental (in this case while they were quarreling loudly). There was no one to give us the key, the owner is in Panama and it got worse from there. VRBO did not issue a refund and were of no help.

On to the current failure. We rented a $1000. 00 per night home in Minneapolis for a wedding in June. Covid has closed the venue so we are not having the wedding then. Initially we contacted the owner through VRBO (the entire email chain is there) to ask to reschedule in Aug. He clearly stated the home would be sold by then and he would issue no refunds. We signed a no refund contract so we decided to have a family party there in lieu of the reception. When contacting the owner for next week's arrival details we were informed that "since we had rescheduled (the emails clearly show he refused a reschedule) there were now major renovations to the property in progress". After contacting VRBO and learning that there "Book with confidence" is exactly as travel guru Rick Steves states "a deceptive travel practice, at best" I see why VRBO has a 1 star rating. We have been on hold for hours, shunted from one person to another, lied to, told to wait, told they will contact us, told there is a 48 hour deadline for the property owner to respond... crickets! As it stands, the owner has lied to VRBO, they have stalled us to the point that alternate travel arrangements have to be made and we are out $4000. 00 with no help from VRBO.
There are many other travel sites, please do yourself a favor and use any one of them.

In March 2023 I used Vrbo.com to book a rental house for our spring break vacation to see our grandkids in San Antonio, TX. My son-in-law is stationed at Lackland AFB so we wanted somewhere close by and found a nice little house near the base. I had messaged the property owner several times but never received entry instructions for the house. I was able to find a phone number (through AirBNB) and called the owner. He said the property was no longer available and that it shouldn't have been listed, although it was still active on both Vrbo and AirBNB. We did receive a full refund but because it was spring break, there was nothing else available anywhere near their home and it would be several hundred dollars more at a hotel over 30 minutes away. When ended up sleeping on the couch at my daughter's house and made the best of a bad situation. Several days later I received an email inviting me to leave a review, which I did. Here's what I posted. According to the property owner the property should have been unlisted from Vrbo months earlier. This left us stranded without anywhere to stay during spring break. I don't know that I'll be using this app to book a property in the future. Date of arrival - March 11,2023 Today I received an email from Vrbo.com stating my review could not be posted to their site because it did not meet their content guidelines and that my submission contains a customer service-related issue and that I would need to contact their customer service staff. When I contacted them I was told that because I did not complete my stay I was not able to post a review. Since they are not allowing me to review the property owner, who may or may not be at fault, or their service I'm reviewing them here and warning you to be careful if you use their service.

HomeAway.com, VRBO.com and VacationRentals.com have completely changed their websites to be combined into one collective pool and they are trying to control how travelers and property owners communicate with each other. It's horrible for travelers and property owners.

They are also desperately trying to convince travelers to use their online booking payment system and telling property owners that 85% of people want to book using their online payment system. The real reason is they will charge the traveler and property owner a fee to book that way.

This new format also makes it harder for travelers and property owners to communicate in a personal way leaving unsatisfied travelers and property owners. I paid my yearly fee and within 1 month and with no notification they changed their site and basically ruined my short term rental business that I've spent 4 years building up with 5 star ratings. When I asked for a refund they refused, which confirmed to me that they are acting unscrupulously.

I tryed contacting the Better Business Bureau and none of the 3 sites can be found. If I was a traveler this would make me question their business practices.

This review is not ment as a rant since I have booked a multiple yearly lease which profits about the same for me. I do feel an obligation to warn travelers and property owners of their business practices as I own another successful company which can be easily found on the Better Business Bureau site and we have an A+ rating after being in business for over 10 years.

My advise if you use them for booking is to bypass the automated system and fees, and contact the property owners directly, or find other sites to book from that are more reputable. Thanks and good luck. -Jim

Hi Homeowners,
We've all heard the complaints! Most homeowners have suffered huge losses in rental income thanks to these@&?%$ at VRBO/Homeaway. Having said this, my plan has been to leave these greedy crooks. Before leaving I built my own site with "go website", signed up for a free 2 month listing with "Vacation Home Rentals", and a totally free listing with "Home Escape"
With all these alternatives in place I still did not feel right about just pissing off the remaining 6 months of listing with VRBO, not to mention all the lost money in rentals they have caused me and everyone else. So I called VRBO and asked for a refund since they moved me way down in the listing since I did not opt for the "book it" feature and have changed the terms of agreement on 2/19/16, in the middle of my year long contract with them. You all know the answer "sorry we don't give refunds." Upset I left it at that until I read someone's posting here on this site to file a chargeback against VRBO through your credit card company used to pay for your listing. I myself used a Chase Visa card to pay for my listing and so spent a few minutes and called my credit card people, explained my position and requested a form to ask for the refund of my money.
I wrote how I was moved way down on the listing pages, how they changed the terms of agreement with no notice and to review this site as well as consumers affairs complaints on VRBO. Also mentioned that a class action lawsuit process has been started in Texas. All in all I invested about 20 minutes calling, filling out the form and faxing it in. I did this about 20 days ago.
I'm am excited to say that "I WON AND VRBO LOST!" I only really wanted a 50% refund, but went ahead and asked for the entire amount. I received back my FULL yearly subscription of $899.00 today! Take that you son of a guns! I encourage everyone that has felt screwed over by them to file a dispute of charges with their credit card company and to ask for your money back. Again I want to thank the person who suggested that people try this avenue of justice, posted on this forum, and I can gladly testify that it can and did work for me!
4/13/16
Ron S.

This condo #502 at Raceway Condo was extremely fabulous! Clean, perfect location and beautiful view of the mountains.

Vrbo are useless. Better use a chocolate teapot
Booked through VRBO as previously used their old existence of home away with reasonable satisfaction.
However Vrbo are not professional or any use to the customer if you need help.
Our booking was with a French speaking host.
When we could not get response we asked Vrbo to contact them telling them the host spoke no English.
You are connected to a random Vrbo agent off shore reading from a script. We were put on hold whilst he rang the owner. After ages the agent came back to state "the owner speaks no English"?
This was typical of the 10 or so requests for help.
We asked what happens if the French government bans travel due to Covid. The response was worthless.
The owner sent no check in details.
The Vrbo response was to go to the address on the sales page. We explained this was at a distant highway?
Vrbo state they have no responsibility to contact the owner in his language and to call Vrbo France (at our cost)
Vrbo France we're bemused why I was calling them?
In summary DONT USE VRBO
We have a saying in the uk which meets the Vrbo customer support
AS MUCH USE AS A CHOCOLATE TEAPOT.
DONT DONT DONT USE THEM THEY ARE LESS THAN USELESS.

My husband, son and myself booked a getaway to Miami for the week of Thanksgiving. My husband's cousin invited us to celebrate Thanksgiving with them (in Lakeland - 4 hours away), so I booked an apartment for that 1 day and night. We left Miami, while driving to Lakeland, I realized I heard nothing from the host. I contacted her, to be informed my booking was not confirmed, and the location was occupied. Now I had already paid, and received confirmation from this very host, and I told her as such. She asked me to send her proof, I tried to call her, her number was not working. I called VBRO immediately. The rep' I got was very nice, very helpful. He too tried to reach the host, but had similar issues with her phone. He told me he was going to escalate my matter, to make sure I got refunded. Made sure we were at the legal check in time(4pm), before labelling it a 'no go'. He then advised I find other lodging. So here I was, on the road, with my family, on Thanksgiving, with nowhere to stay! I know my husband's cousin would have had us stay with them, but they already had 32 people at their house. I found a hotel room. The next day I was contacted, to find out what happened. And this is when this got bad. It was like pulling teeth! I had to provide ALL the documentation, even my message with the host, to prove I was wronged. DAYS of back and forth! Then in 1 email. I was told they'd refund my hotel stay. Good news is. I got my refund for the lost stay, but when the time came for them to refund the hotel stay. I was told to provide proof of when I was informed of such. Thank God I still had the email. I sent it, you'd think that would be enough...NOPE! Was told since my hotel was cheaper than the place booked, they would not refund. So if it were more expensive they would have?! Well, no to that as well. I was told the email was 'not what they meant' and if it were slightly more expensive they would have refunded. Hey VBRO...then why not say that in the email then?! Don't put things in writing, to then say it is not what you meant. I have been using VBRO for 12 years. I will never use them again, or encourage anyone to use them.