VRBOReviews 2,004

I have a reservation with Turnkey Vacation Rentals (VRBO) on 3/22/20 - 3/28/20 in Park City, Utah and have been trying to cancel for 3 days after the Governor of Utah closed the slopes and restaurants in Park City. Turnkey Vacation Rentals (TVR) has not responded to multiple emails and I have been receiving busy signals on their phone line. I was able to text with a customer service representative, who told me that they would not provide a refund. My only option was to rebook in the same house for next year. Although Airbnb is refunding folks (I'll use them next time), I provided the TVR representative with a time next year to reschedule the reservation. After texting back and forth for a day and a half, he/she texted me that he/she can't cancel the reservation and that I had to call the customer service number. Why was he/she wasting my time with all the texting? Then I called VRBO customer service to get help and the customer service rep ("Cat") was more than worthless. She kept repeating that I needed to call TVR. This level of incompetent and deceptive behavior is unacceptable. I'll use Airbnb next time!

Booking with Vrbo was the worst choice we could have made. We booked a trip to Florida back in October for the last weekend in March. We attempted to cancel due to the COVID-19 outbreak, as many of our travelers work in healthcare and school, or have recently lost restaurants job. In addition, a few of us have immuno-compromised family members who are at extremely high risk if they contact the disease.

We reached out to our host who was extremely vague, but said no refunds.

Then they closed all the beaches, restaurants, and bars while all the grocery stores are picked dry.

Then we asked for even a partial refund and got a hard no.

It's a greedy, money hungry company that would rather risk the infection of hundreds of others than refund a little money.

Had a separate trip booked (a month later than this), and was offered a full refund with 0 hassle and 100% kindness. This was my first and only attempt to use VRBO and I will be damn sure that no one else I know gives money to this company.

DON'T book with VRBO! If you have to cancel, even if it is prior to the 100% full refund time frame, you have to FIGHT to get all your money back. They only issued me partial refund, short by over $1,000. I had to make several phone calls back and forth as homeowner and VRBO pointed the finger at each other. 1st phone call was 58 minutes long... on hold now with this one for 42 minutes with still no answer. YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE TO FIGHT THIS HARD TO GET YOUR MONEY BACK! STAY AWAY!

First of all, they are the only rental agencies that allows hosts to have a "no refund policy under any circumstances". Unlike AirBnB and Sublet.com they do NOT prominently display cancellation policy so this is usually a surprise. Even if you book 6 months in advance and cancel the next day you're out of luck.

Furthermore, if you bought insurance from them it would not have covered your flight being cancelled due to COVID-19. Because it's a "health crisis". How that is a qualifier is anyone's guess but considering that one normally gets insurance to protect yourself from problems that are out of your control this is the height of sleazery. Worse, their blog post implies insurance will cover cancellations due to the crisis but the insurance details explicitly says they do not.
I have had problems with them before imposing very unusual rules about bookings but this is definitely the worst. They are nothing short of taking Adavantage if this crises for their profit by simply being deceitful. I would never rent from them under any circumstances and I would encourage letting friends and family about their predatory practices.
My family rented a house 90 days in advance for a reunion, well before the virus hit and still were 50 days out, and since airlines were saying flights would be cancelled we wanted to cancel in before we missed out chance only to find that they are using this crisis as a way to profit. IMHO this is worse than people hoarding Purell because they are not charging people who buy marked up products of their free will, they are ripping off people who rented in good faith only to be taken advantage of.

BEWARE! After an emotional postponement of my daughter's wedding and my husbands health issues due to the CORONAVIRUS, Mr. Cassidy won't refund or credit us to another date. Documentation was provided by the doctor that my husband shouldn't travel.

He had the nerve when my husband called about our situation to congratulate him on the wedding that wasn't going to happen! SHAMEFUL MR. CASSIDY LOOKS LIKE YOU ARE RIDING PRETTY HIGH!

My first cancellation of 4-night stay that guest booked thru vrbo in my FL home stay due to coronavirus. Shocked that of guest's $110 upfront booking payment, VRBO claims it refunded guest $58, but then pocketed $32 in "fees" and sent me only $20 as homeowner. I'd sooner guests get a full refund than VRBO +as Airbnb is doing) than for VRBO to make more than homeowners in this emergency. I depend on this guest income during high season to pay property taxes, utilities and house upkeep for a nice listing. When I called VRBO about it's keeping fees despite guest cancellation, the service rep Moses based in Costa Rica actually had nerve to laugh and then sound impatient w my complsint.
His supervisor Valerie refused to get on the phone. Travelers, I am only listing w Airbnb going forward, and please never book thru VRBO again.

I find this company ruthless. They won't refund our trip to Nashville but we can't even travel with corona! I will never use them again. I should have known Airbnb is the best. Half of the group of girls I was going with are now out of work and need that money to live and feed their families during this pandemic. I am shocked that VRBO is not refunding people that cannot make their trips. I will let everyone I know to never use them.

I understand that VRBO is a business and they have their business to run, but when they are not going to offer refunds to travelers who have spent $1000s on reservations and tell them to take it up with the property owner, I have to say that is BAD BUSINESS! I cannot believe they are handling things in this manner. I guess I should be happy that I did not plan my whole vacation through VRBO and am only losing 1/3 of the total of our plans. Kudos to Allegiant Air, Expedia, StubHub and NCAA for fully refunding all monies for the other 2/3 of our plans. VRBO... I hope you get what you deserve and quickly lose all your customers. As for the property owners that are "encouraged" to offer a full refund, if you don't, shame on you for this. And rescheduling dates is not good enough. Nobody knows how long this will be in an issue. Nobody wants to trade a highest expense premium spring break week for some days in the heat of summer that are worth half the cost while you sit and collect their hard earned money. I just cant say how disgusted I am.

My daughter and i had planned the trip of a lifetime to Ireland and Switzerland. She was scheduled to go to Ireland ahead of me and I was meeting her there a few days later and then we were headed to Switzerland. We booked an apartment in Wengen, Switzerland. The booking indicated it was non-refundable but we were so certain that we were traveling that we booked anyway. If we had changed our minds, I would 100% understand getting nothing back but a global crisis should be an exception. So, the $1,000 we just lost will likely prevent us from being able to reschedule once the crisis has subsided. Shame on Vrbo for not being a more customer concerned company. Lesson learned and message will be spread as far as I can spread it.