Lynda T.

I have been with VRBO for my beach rental property since 2009 and have had good rental seasons. I was concerned because I had no rental bookings this year where normally they begin mid-May. I had only had four inquiries where normally I would receive many.

I called VRBO and asked if they had any idea what was going on. The Customer Service Representative told me that the first thing that he saw was that I had not updated my calendar. He indicated that I needed to update my calendar because customers did not like a calendar that had not been updated. I told him that since I had no bookings, I could not update my calendar. And then I was told that I could simply click a button to update even without any bookings.

In a follow-up e-mail, he then told me, "As a reminder, listings will be hidden in date search and calendars will be hidden on the property page if a calendar has not been updated in some way in the past 60 days."

This is the first time since using VRBO in 2009 that I had been made aware of this. I have never updated my calendar in the past except with rental reservations and I have had good rental seasons.

As soon as I clicked on the "Update Calendar" button, I had numerous inquiries. I estimate that, by not knowing about this, I have lost a large piece of my summer rental income - at least half of May and all of June, based on previous rental history, not counting people who might have been looking for July and August.

If I did not have an active rental and rental calendar, I obviously would not renew each year. It is amazing that my calendar is not active whether I click update or not.