VRBOReviews 2,004

VRBO has terrible customer service, even for property hosts. They penalize you for the most ridiculous things. They farm out the customer service call centers to third world countries, with a basic grasp of the English language, which is fine, but makes communication that much more difficult. The fees they charge to both travelers and hosts are exorbitant. The other World Famous vacation home rental business is MUCH better in all aspects: fees, customer service, etc. Don't use VRBO.

Vrbo does not care about the customers, only about making money. Had to pay for double accommodations, as Vrbo place was not liveable. There were health and safety issues with the place. We called Vrbo within 12 hours, per their website and have an email stating they will take care of our refund, if the property manager won't within 48 hours. Now Vrbo are stating we don't fall into fraudulent claim and therefore will not do anything and that we should sue the property owner. They even have let this property manager keep the place on the website for other people to rent. Even though they know the concerns we had, so others will end up falling into the same trap. I also wrote a review of the place and somehow it isn't on the reviews, the place has no reviews.

I had a property booked in AZ to take my daughter for her High School graduation gift. 2 weeks before the trip it was cancelled because it was evidently "double booked". The property had no reviews and when I asked VRBO about leaving a review they told me I couldn't because I didn't actually stay there. They claim I am getting a refund but it hasn't appeared in my account yet. Sounds like others have been scammed too so I highly recommend you use a reputable company.

1st. The site is impossible to navigate! You have to click on the ad 3 times just to get the actual price unlike Airbnb, where it shows on the very 1st page, with all the listings, the nightly rate & your total price so that you can make a decision quickly.

The prices are $300-$550 more than those on Airbnb due to all the fees (which are more than the nightly rate it shows & is false advertising). The property owners are adding on outrageous cleaning fee $150 to $200! + plus administrative fees, service & booking fees etc. Probably because VRBO charges them an outrageous amount.
** I own a Cleaning Service & 1. ALWSYS leave every place cleaner than the actual maids left it & 2. It would only take 1-2 hours to clean a place this small in a messy state! **
(The owners are pocketing this money)
I belong to some Facebook groups for cleaners & a VERY common question from people is:
"I noticed on the Airbnb or VRBO website that the homeowners are charging a lot more for the cleaning than they are paying me, how can I bring this up to them?" So yes, they profit from this "fee"!

As well, the "Customer Service" is really bad and I was even hung up on trying to find a cheaper place as the lady whom I spoke with didn't want to help me AT ALL (only interested in booking, if I already had a property number, but not actually helping me locate a less expensive place!). I only want a small studio. I'm not paying more than $700 for 3 days that's ridiculous! Much less the $881.44 or $1136 & change the one place charges with deposit ($936 + before deposit)

I Will NEVER stay at a VRBO!

I booked a 4-day stay in San Diego through the Vrbo.com website. The next day, I was contacted by the property owner who insisted on obtaining copies of my passport and SSN card, and even inquired about the DOBs for each person in my family, including my three young children, and my employment history. Six-hour (and 5 hang-ups) later, I was told by a supervisor at VRBO/HomeAway that my reservation was canceled. This turned out to be a lie. In fact, the property manager had no record of speaking to anyone at VRBO/HomeAway regarding my reservation. Now VRBO/HomeAway refused to refund the booking fee.

I recently rented a house for a weekend through VRBO. Had to choose between a nonrefunable damage insurance policy or a refundable damage deposit of $1500. I went with the $1500. Stayed the weekend, loved the place and the owner. Looked for my deposit to be returned and saw nothing. I went to VRBO website and read the FAQ's: they claim the owner may hold onto my deposit for two weeks, and then VRBO can hold it another week, just because. I contacted the owner and discussed it with her. I found out she never has the deposit at all, VRBO holds it. So, if you rent two weeks in advance, they draw interest on your deposit from two weeks before the rental until three weeks after, but do not treat it as an escrow account and give you back the interest your money earned. In my case, the owner called them and they grudgingly returned my deposit a little over two weeks later. As this is not mentioned upfront, I regard it as unethical: my deposit should have been returned to me as soon as the owner notified them.

My story is a long one so to make it short and sweet, we rented from a nightmare owner that has refused our deposit refund and even accused us of stealing his property. He has a history of this that we did not unfortunately see until after we had paid for our rental. The place was a nightmare! I immediately contacted the owner. NO response. I decided to go straight to Vrbo and file a case. Nothing has been resolved and we have pretty much been ignored. This is reprehensible from both sides and we decided to file a complaint with the BBB. Lesson learned. We will never use Vrbo again and we hope that at some point others stop falling for their scam as well.

We had baaaaaad experience with VRBO. Customer service does not help to get refund like Airbnb helps by contacting owner or property manager of place. Vrbo gave us phone number of owner and ask to contact him/her. Even we are eligible to get 50% refund we still need to contact owner/property manager. There is no option to cancel reservation through booking webpage. Thats not convenient at all as we need to call Thai number and time difference is not small plus owner does not understand English very well...
Thanks Vrbo for nothing, will not book through your website again.

Booked for Spring Break. VRBO took 3k with no problem. Property manager contacted us, oh the property is Not available but we have your 3k.
Contacted VRBO they said we will call property manager to see if he can accommodate you? No, the dates aren't available put my 3k back so we can go on spring break. Oh sure 7-10 business days? What? You took my 3k and are holding it while not giving me what I paid for and to get my money back I now cannot go on spring break? So, spring break is ruined. Thank you VRBO if anyone ever uses you they are ignorant.

I spent two weeks looking for a vacation home in Mexico for a group of friends. We finally found the perfect house. I told my group the price of the house based on the total VRBO gave me upon check out. When I went to check out it told me my total price and each item had a line item. I paid my deposit and the next day I get an email asking for another $860. There's an additional 16% tax that they are hiding in the fine print and not putting on the estimate on purpose for rentals in Mexico. They said it was impossible to make a line item for that tax which is complete and total nonsense because they're collecting a 3% tax. The homeowner is required to pay this tax and the representative on the phone told me that all the money that I paid goes directly to the homeowner and then they collect their fee. I'm sure they are somehow doing this to make more sales because it's a very easy fix and makes absolutely no sense whatsoever that they are hiding it and not showing it when you are checking out. The homeowners hands are tied because VRBO is refusing to put this on the original bill so the amount can be seen. I finally found the note about the 16% tax once I scrolled past the original house, scroll past the pictures, scroll past the map, scrolled past the calendar and it was in the fine print at the very bottom of the page. Absolutely ridiculous, deceiving and dishonest.

Booked a trip on VRBO, received confirmation, THEN the Property Owner CANCELED the booking via VRBO messaging. All same day. I did not realize until recently that only $100 of the $1352. 25 was refunded. Called VRBO and EVERYONE said no problem, you will get a full refund. To their credit, they got the Property Owner to refund all but the fee and taxes that VRBO charges, $227.95. Just received an email stating I am not entitled to the $ back because it is longer than 6 months since the booking. So to summarize. I booked and was canceled the same day by your Client. You get to keep the $227.95 that you charged for doing? If anyone should have to pay that fee it is the home owner NOT me. I have been embroiled in a divorce for the past year and Yep should have seen this sooner but this should be between VRBO and the Property Owner NOT keeping money from the Person that made the booking and was denied it! How is that good business?

It took me a few days to find a decent condo in a small North Carolina mountain town for me and two dogs to stay while our home is undergoing a renovation. I was all set, paid deposits, including a huge one for the renovation, and started to make other plans. It came to a halt when I received a cancellation notice. VRBO sent out a general message saying the place was unsafe and warned people not to deal with the owner directly. It was just plain weird. It took multiple phone calls and emails, and I got nowhere with the supposed VRBO security person who would tell me nothing. As a former reporter and one who has visited the town where I am staying for the last 15 years, I checked and confirmed that nothing was dangerous in the small town. Furthermore, all I could find was a conviction from 20 years ago for the owner, who long ago paid his debt. It is history.

But the bigger question is how much does this operation vet the properties shown online? When I searched, I found shacks and dumps where I would not stay. How does anyone know who owns these places? Does anyone from VRBO actually inspect the properties? You are better off renting from a reputable company.

When I complained, all I got was a notice telling me I would be removed from the website and be forgotten or some kind of crazy verbiage. It was offensive and insulting. It made me feel like VRBO was judging me as an unfit renter. But then again, I wouldn't want to rent from here. You might end up staying at a criminal enterprise. You might be raped if someone there has a key. I don't think this operation is up to the standards of even an average hotel, and this assessment comes from someone who wrote about travel and hotels for a number of national publications.

I don't know about you, but I want reliability once I book. I did receive a total refund. Then, I called the place that had the condo and rebooked directly, saving myself $250, most of which were the extra fees and commission that VRBO demands. It seems to care about the money, and, even though most of these platforms, say they can't be sued or responsible, VRBO obviously thinks it would be liable if something happened.

Let the buyer beware.

We booked a three night rental in Melbourne Florida. Prior to arrival, one of the owner's property agents advised it was under renovations and unavailable. VRBO confirmed this with the same agent and advised us the agent agreed to process a refund. The owner's agent confirmed by text that they would process a refund. VRBO records all telephone conversations.

Now VRBO won't refund our payment because a different agent for the owner said the unit was in fact available and claimed to have no knowledge of our conversation, their other agent's conversation with VRBO or our text confirming a refund. VRBO denied our claim because the owner didn't cancel the booking and because we didn't travel to the rental to confirm it was being renovated.

""Booking with Confidence" is a promise without substance.

We made an expensive (over $500) reservation on this site. They immediately charged our credit card. We ended up canceling the reservation well in advance of their cancellation policy date and they have never refunded our money, although they acknowledged the cancellation by email. They now claim it's not their responsibility and that we have to pursue this directly with the hotel in Spain, even though the transaction was with them. BE WARNED!

As a property manager, I can say I have never been as frustrated as when I have to call Customer Service at VRBO. Well trained staff will keep you on line (on hold), for
A minimum of 30 minutes in my experience, with absolutely no ability to use their own common sense. They must follow some ridiculous protocol that does NOT appear to have solving your problem as the intended goal.
Their stated fees are very misleading. 8% Pay Per Booking in reality turned out to be a minimum of 9% in the last 5 bookings I had with them. This is AFTER the renter pays them a Service Fee. They also added an "International Card Surcharge Fee" and a "Credit Card Transaction Fee".
One of my payments simply did not show up in my bank account until after waiting a month (yes, thats how much I hate having to call their Customer Service line) I finally got through to someone who could make it happen. I was on the phone for 46 minutes to get this resolved.
Their emphasis seems to be on creating statistics, ever changing ways to limit your involvement with the very people who will be living in your home, and creating boiler plate emails (that get sent out with my name on the signature line) while the simple things I want to do-like see how they came up with the price they charged-are difficult to find on their website. I am elated to be removing my listing today.