Vrbo Vacation Rentals 17+

We booked a week in Florida as I’ve done many times with vrbo. when we got there late the evening of check-in we checked our beds as we always do for bedbugs. this is the first and only time that we found any. Obvious immediate panic, immediately moved all of our stuff back out of the rental luckily nothing had been touching the beds. rented a Holiday Inn room for the evening so at least we were out of the bed bug houseAnd could figure out our next move. At first it seemed like vrbo may not help us, luckily the owner of the property immediately sent out pest control, verified that it was a bedbug, and then said that we could not come back to the house so had to refund our money. so no problems with the refund and we booked a new place through vrbo, moved on with our vacation. A few weeks after returning from our vacation VRBO contacted me to let me know that they didn’t think that we had received our full refund and that due to their Homeaway guarantee we could get reimbursed for the hotel that we had to pay for and for any overage from the new rental that we had to purchase. Turns out there was not an overage but we did receive a refund for the hotel that we had to stay in. Very surprised by vrbo customer service that they contacted us and didn’t just let it go. Well done vrbo!! The post experience has definitely renewed my view of VRBO and I will continue to use them for future services.

Thank you for taking the time to leave us a review. We are so sorry to hear about the issues during your original booking and the stress that must have caused you and your family. We appreciate you letting us know that this was able to be fully resolved and the difference that made. We always aim to make sure things are made right.

I am disappointed I have to leave a review, but this company does not know what it means to be a business of the people. I rented a home on this site and upon arrival I was told by the homeowner that the home should not have been listed. Fine, I did just waste time driving here but I will gladly take my refund and move on. Oh but wait, the person who received the money needs to initiate the refund.. ok. So what happens if they don’t do that??... the answer is nothing. According to the vrbo guarantee this is not vrbos problem. I mistakenly booked a rental that wasn’t available and it’s my fault... makes sense right. Vrbo should not be in business, a simple google search will lead you to others in similar positions as myself. Vrbos response to me was to “leave a review” 😁. Awesome thanks guys! The vrbo guarantee team to the rescue! Oh by the way, the response team will only communicate to you by email, so if an issue arises and it needs to go further than their customer service line you must wait on an email from the vrbo guarantee team!! Oh boy how convenient! We can screw people over and don’t even have to speak with them! Awesome! Basically I can put my current apartment on their site and receive the funds, then tell the renters it’s not available, then I can just disappear awesomeness!!

We are very sorry to hear about this experience. We would like to make sure you get all the help you need. Please contact us at; https://help.vrbo.com/?t=traveler for further assistance.

Downloaded this in hopes it wasn’t as money hungry as AirBnB. It is somehow worse. Didn’t think it was possible. My total went from $495 to $1200 all from “fees.” I know fees are necessary to keep the app running, but come on people. There is no way on God’s green earth I will ever pay for something that is more than doubled from fees like “$125 - management fee” 🤡.

Edit:
After receiving a response from the developers, I’d like to expand just a bit. First off, I respect that you take the time to thoughtfully respond to reviews. I think it is a great idea to incorporate more transparency in your fees. It’s rather jarring seeing your total more than double, but if I knew why it doubled, I might be able to bring myself to buying it. What exactly is a “management fee” and how does that differ from the rest of the *expansive* list of fees? I don’t remember the rest of the fees but adding some type of information as to why those fees exist and what they are would at least be a good step in the right direction. Another thing, if price is solely dictated by the hosts then they need to be regulated. A $125 “management fee” is 25% of a $495 total price. That fee alone has added an additional quarter of what I’m already paying. That is ridiculous. So, hosts either need to be constrained within more reasonable percentages or outright denied from charging outlandish fees like this one —outlandish in my opinion, that is.

We are sorry to hear about your negative experience and appreciate your feedback. Pricing is ultimately left up to the host and while many on our site do not charge additional fees, some do. We are always looking for ways to improve our site and are investigating how we can improve transparency for these fees in the future.