VRBOReviews 2,004

While VRBO's listings tend to be on the high side, pricewise, what really got my dander up was their exorbitant "cleaning and service fees"—$60 and $40, respectively. The cleaning could not have taken more than a half hour to do, as we were expected to do the majority of it ourselves. Besides that, it appeared to be done by the homeowner/renter, and not a outside cleaning service. And $40 as a "service fee"?!?!? For WHAT, may I ask. Taking five minutes or so to hit a few keys on a computer and confirm our reservation? Wow, THAT sure must've been pretty labor intensive.
In addition, the property description neglected to mention that access was by means of a high set of stairs, which would have been disastrous if we were unable to navigate stairs.
Between the high rental prices, the slightly deceptive property description, and the unavoidable and exorbitant fees, I can assure you that *we* will never again be booking with VRBO.

I try book a condo n put in location around Daytona Beach n dates n pull up the one I wanted than put my CC in
A few minutes it said those dates not available, so I booked another, same problem n another n another n another, 5 different condos than after a few minutes they started coming back confirmed, n charge me for all the condos, I was able stop one, n another intime, dn to 2 in the same week, vrbo said it was my problem n call the condo owners n refused to refund either, after 8 agents n 4 to 5 hrs with no support, one person out of 8 said they had this problem before! N pass it on with no recourse!, the book one that was supposed be a 1 month min, luck they canceled me n I did get that money refunded. Still have 2 out of 5! They never would let me talk to a supervisor!

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.

Booked a month rent in 2022 at Billy's Breeze Dock in Carrabelle FL. Unit was paid for, plane tickets booked by family members. Owner Cancelled. Did not get enough money. As they say "words no good, your no good."

I would give them ZERO stars if I could. Some extended family members and I had planned a fun girls weekend getaway. I normally book with airbnb but thought I would try out VRBO. We booked an apartment in SLC for 2 nights more than 3 weeks in advance. Our particular host had a very strict cancellation policy 50% non refundable if cancelled less than 2 weeks in advance, and completely non refundable if cancelled within a week of our arrival. That wasn't a problem for us, we were committed so we made the reservation. Our host confirmed all was good. I didn't hear anything more from him until the day before we were to arrive. I received an e-mail from the host saying our reservation had been cancelled and my money was being refunded! We had less than 24 hours to make new arrangements. I was working and unable to call vrbo to resolve this and because it was Memorial Day weekend, there wasn't much available. We decided to forgo getting a rental and just stay with a family member. I contacted the host to see if he could help me understand why my reservation had been cancelled. No response! I contacted VRBO to see what their policies are or if there are any repercussions to the host to prevent things like this from happening in the future. I left 2 messages with vrbo and NO RESPONSE! Given the strict cancel policy you would think you would have the same guarantee that they would not cancel on you, but NOPE! Renter beware of VRBO. We will never use them again, and word spreads fast believe me!

Avoid. This. Site. They don't really care to make sure that the places being rented are legitimately as they described. Most people will try and advertise house rooms, with complete strangers living in it, as "house rentals." Unless you want to get crammed into a house, where you're stuck with complete strangers, and have it be sprung up on you last second that there's false advertising going on. Avoid this site and save your money. Was a complete and utter waste of my time and money. Will avoid them in the future, that's for certain.

We booked the original stay 2 weeks in advance, flew to our destination, and then at 3:59 pm (1 minute before check-in) our host cancels. We were on the phone with customer support, on hold that is, for over an hour trying to get help with the situation and find another stay.

(YOU CANNOT BOOK THE SAME DAY THROUGH VRBO) So either way, we were screwed for the first night. We thought we lucked out by finding another Vrbo listing and the owner said we could arrive a day early no problem. What a relief... Only to arrive after dinner and find that there were already people staying there, so we left... and the owner wanted to refund only 50% of the $1,300 bill even though we were no longer able to stay there.

My boyfriend and his army vet brother ended up having to get two hotel rooms at a Holiday Inn instead. After the second bad experience, I started writing reviews to warn people and he is still on the phone with support... going on 58 minutes. Not only that, but the refund is not immediate... it will take several days to get the $2,000+ back which will be hindering our overall vacation.

I don't understand how this 'company' is in business at all. Terrible experience. We will stick to hotels in the future. It's not worth the stress of not knowing if you have a place to sleep when you get off the airplane.

I got very bad experience with Vrbo. I have booked a condo 3 month ago in advance but I got the canceled message from the host a day before I get there. We spent a long day on the phone with Vrbo and went nowhere. It ended up with no solution. After a long day I got the email from booking specialist said they will reimburse a night if I can find another condo through Vrbo's website. The price was up to sky because that is the last day to book. After the trip, I sent them a receipt and they said because I can find a condo with cheaper price than original price so they can not reimburse for one night they mentioned before. I can't imagine a company treat their customer like that. Who will pay for our time to deal with the $#*! like this. If I cancel out my trip at the last minute they will still charge me for whole money but if they cancel out my trip at the last minute they are not in charge for anything? My family is from many states come together. We took off work and spent travel time for the trip, who will pay for us if the trip is cancel?

I want to point out the problems with Vrbo.
1. They will get money if you book through their website but they don't have any responsibilities.
2. Their customer service is terrible and helpfulless. They can not do anything except sending message to upper level. You might not get the answers till next couple days.
3. They don't care about customer.

I have already wrote details on other sites, this company has waisted enough of my time and money. Once you book your reservation, good luck. That's all you will get.

My friend and I booked an apartment via VRBO with an agency called City Apartment Stay, allegedly based in Edgewater Complex, London, for 10 days in December 2020. When Covid hit, we tried to cancel, but the agency said they could not refund us and offered us a credit note instead. Then THEY cancelled the booking and refunded us the agency fee, but not the bulk of the 3000 euro payment. A week or so later, they claimed the cancellation was made by mistake and that the booking was still valid for our new dates in December 2021. When circumstances surrounding Covid did not improve at the beginning of 2021, we tried to extend the credit note to April 2022, but the agency refused. They also refused to refund us. We were left in limbo as the agency then stopped responding to our emails. I contacted VRBO, and only after I posted a complaint on social media did they bother to respond. I emailed them all the correspondence between me and the agency, heard nothing for three weeks, and eventually contacted VRBO again. This time I was told there was nothing they could do for us, as the agency has not responded to their approaches and that they could not "force" the agency to refund us. We have been left in the lurch and have lost a lot of money. My advice is NOT to book through VRBO as they are not interested in their customers' issues. In fact, don't book anything anywhere until the whole bloody world is vaccinated, as your chances of getting your money back are zero. I won't ever book through VRBO again - I can't see any benefit in doing so for the consumer.

I booked a vacation rental. My host cancelled my rental for no reason against my will. AND I WAS NEVER REFUNDED. It has now been weeks. I am convinced that I will never get my THOUSANDS of dollars back.

How is this a legal company? These people need to be shut down because they are a literal mob.

There are a lot of hidden fees that are not obvious until after you confirm your booking - I will not be using them again. It looked like the room was $79 per night, but it was actually $212.

I own a vacation property in Florida. VRBO had a technical issue and over rode my rental rates and gave everyone a 55% discount for peak season! Trying to even get a live person through chat or a phone call is impossible. When I asked to speak to a supervisor I was told that the agents are not allowed to transfer calls to a supervisor. VRBO also collected State taxes for a property that is located in a state with NO state taxes! When I attempted to recoup this money; I was told that they would have to investigate the matter and get back to me. This never happened. I think that this company is a sham and is very poorly ran.

VRBO ("verbo") obviously spent a lot of money for Feb 2020 Super Bowl commercials. Based on my experience with this app lately, they should've spent more money on functionality if they were hoping to capitalize on big dollar advertising.
I recently booked a VRBO condo in Jackson Hole. I thought the deal was done but soon I saw that my booking was cancelled (with no communication) and the property was re-listed at $800 more per night. My calls to VRBO Customer Service were frustrating and still no communication three days later.
I booked with AirBNB easily- their app and their service is simply better.

VRBO has the worst customer service I have ever dealt with! They paid our County taxes to the City by mistake and are unwilling to help recover the money so it can go to the County where it belongs. The City allows VRBO to pay them in one non-itemized lump sum so the city has no solid proof that a mistake was made. They (and we) have asked VRBO to provide payment amounts and the check numbers used to make the payments. It's a very simple request but after almost five months of going back and forth we have gotten nowhere! VRBO is one of those companies that seems to prefer stonewalling and prevaricating over actual customer service. They have eliminated email communication and now relay on a call center that is all but useless!

We ended up paying $500 more for our week in Destin using VRBO. If we had booked directly through the property management company we would have saved that money. It's a referral fee VRBO charges which can be completely avoided. FYI, our plane tickets would have been covered by the fee we paid to VRBO. DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY!

Property Address: 2739 3 Peaks Lane Julien, Ca
This is the worst experience we ever had with VRBO. The description of the property amounts to fraud and deception.
Here's a list of the problems:
No toilet paper
No soap in the showers
No paper towels or other towels in the kitchen
Coffee maker was busted.
Bed linens were old and poorly laundered.
Bed liner was a filthy piece of plastic and cotton - never washed.
Towels were old and poorly laundered.
No hot water - the son made some adjustment and then the hot water turned on.
The general condition of the property was very bad. Lawn and garden haven't been attended to for years - one of the adults got poison oak just walking on the rock path.
One of the toilets failed completely and was unusable.
Ceiling fans had an inch of dirt covering them which meant they were unusable.
The deck had a broken fence which would have been dangerous for a child.
An upstairs door led to a shaft area which would have been extremely dangerous for anyone particularly a child who stepped inside.
The curtains were all torn and were hanging by staples.
Pictures of the above problems were taken and will be sent directly to VRBO management.
These are irresponsible property owners. The property should be removed immediately from VRBO as it poses a health hazard as well as a very uncomfortable and miserable environment.

In the post visit email for a review I wrote

" Place was great and everything was as promised. Very expensive though for a short stay, lots of fees racked up the cost. Also the trash rules were weird. Not sure why there is a $250 fee for cleaning if we have to clean up ourselves"

The review was rejected because I quoted prices and I was not allowed to edit even though they asked me too. It was beyond 14 days of arrival. They still send me emails to review.