N G.

I joined VRBO years ago when the idea of renting houses for travel was still pretty novel. The site was great, the property owner/managers were great and would get back to you promptly, the prices and fees were reasonable - no complaints. Since then, I've mostly done hotel travel but gave Airbnb a try for longer stays, and I really loved the experience. This past week, I've been trying to plan a weekend getaway with a few friends. We collectively decided to use VRBO since that's how we found our last vacation place together (we never even looked at Airbnb). Big mistake. The calendars aren't updated, so while some listings offer the option to "insta-book", it's not really that at all. Even after entering your credit card info, you still have to wait for the property manager to confirm. After trying to book several houses, a few never even responded, and the others had no availability. One of the hosts even modified our original reservation dates and said, "Hey, we don't have your dates available so we booked you on the following weekend." What?! I mean, I'm sure they were just trying to be nice but... don't you think it's a bit odd to expect four people to change work commitments, childcare, and transportation to accommodate your never-updated calendar? Even after saying "no thanks" we got a request to pay for the wrong dates. Finally, we got so pissed off trying to contact property managers to no avail that we started our search all over again on Airbnb. Literally within an hour, we had a new place booked and confirmed - cheaper, better, and no hassle. Don't even waste your time looking at VRBO. Their fees are horrendous, there is zero customer service or accountability, and the availability calendars literally mean nothing. The platform itself seems to be stuck in a time when e-commerce was kinda new, but nothing really worked properly yet, so you basically had to get on the phone anyway to make sure your booking went through, and of course it didn't, so you had to follow with a strongly-worded handwritten letter... who has time for that? I mean, I sometimes wish I could go back to 1998, but not when I'm trying to book a vacation.