VRBOReviews 2,004

Since the Expedia takeover all my worst fears have become reality. I am paying for a gold membership with an additional fee for a featured listing. Last year the results were fantastic.
Since the takeover my inquiries have dropped by at least 75%! Paying more and getting less.
And now they have the gaul to charge the renter an additional fee! Unbelievable! I don't know where to go from here, but I am looking for viable alternatives. I even called to see what was going on and the rep gave me a song and dance about working on my analytics... like it was my fault.

In May I will not renew my subscription with VRBO. I don't like the Service Fee, I don't want to use BIN. I also don't like having only 24 hours to get in touch with the potential renter, to accept or reject them. I rent to families only, that are at least 25 years of age. I turn down about 15 people to every person I book. As a result of this, my listing gets dropped below others that use BIN, and rent to any body that has the money

VRBO is trying to make me sign up for a ridiculous amount to list my properties. There also adding services in to guest without telling owners. I have a problem with a guest not following any of my house rules. VRBO customer service person say Oh Well. The guest was having parties until 4 pm and visit 10 people to the apt. Also was going drugs, smoking in the apt and disturbing the neighbors/other guest. Playing loud music and using vulgar language. I had to call the police at 1 am the second day of the guest stay to escort the group of people out of the apt. VRBO 's said Oh WELL. And the guest can still write me a bad review for me asking them to leave my apt. This is not what I ever expected out of a company like this. It's all about them and money!

Signed on in 2007 for around $350. They then put the squeeze on every year saying you'd lose your place in the search order unless you upgraded your ad to include more pictures. I did this every year for an average increase of 20% per year to hold my place at #32. In 2014 the new squeeze was add online billing for an additional 10% of rent value which is another 56% increase over my now $1400 annual cost for the add. And now their latest squeeze is to charge customer another 10% they say to increase advertising. That's interesting. After my 2nd year of VRBO membership, my rentals stabilized and have never gone up. My rentals actually went down last year because they lowered me to #89 as punishment to a 9 year customer who bought into all their photo squeeeze rate inducements now paying $1400 per year for my VRBO add. Not all markets, probably most markets, will not benefit from their so called increased advertising and promotion. There are market conditions out of their control like competition from other condos, limited rental seasons, and in our case, pressures on spring break rentals due to alcohol limits on beach. I guess they will cancel me since I will not absorb nor am I able to pass on a 20% increase to my renters. I already lose between $8K to $10K per year on rentals. Greed. No customer service. Try talking to anyone at VRBO. They are a near monopoly that needs reigning in.

All you owners on vrbo, too! Info is on this page: https://gethuman.com/contact/HomeAway-com
We are all losing business!

In the media! http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/travel/sc-vrbo-new-fee-travel-*******0323-story.html

Go to facebook, owners, and join our group! We have over 1000 members, and growing. Look under vrbo fees, and there are a couple or so groups. Ours is the bigger one. You can join the group, if you are on vrbo. We are also asking for a boycott of Expedia, and their other companies, Hotels.com, orbitz, travelocity, and others. Check facebook for the details. They are destroying our website! Expedia bought out vrbo and homeaway.

I recently wrote a negative review about VRBO, a company that handles/handled two of our rental properties.

I accidentally either missed the button on the one star rating or hit the wrong one. Luckily, Paul H. Who also wrote a review, caught my error and asked me why I wrote a bad one yet gave them five stars. I rate them one star. You can't get much lower than that.

Our clients have consistently been shocked by this new turn of events.

VRBO, time to hear the voice of your customers.

I have been a property owner and thus VRBO customer for over 3 years! I WAS very satisfied until this February. VRBO without notice to homeowners started charging "a service fee" to the renter. This is a bogus fee... It is NOT a help line, customer service as they claim! I have never received a review lower than a 4. All except one have been 5's for my Solana Beach, CA. Property. I personally meet guests, give them the keys and show them around and answer all questions. I am only a phone or email away if they encounter any problems while in my condo. I also pay $1500 per year in annual subscription fee to VRBO so my tenants don't have to. I am telling potential tenants this fee is wrong and to book directly through me. The fee is 4 to 14% and they are DEFINATELY double dipping. I am currently looking elsewhere to advertise my property. They recently merged with tripadvisor/expedia instead of better service and more bookings and exposure, that they led us owners to believe, it has been very disappointing and I believe the "new" people running the show are responsible!

The new management of VRBO has ruined the business model. I have been a member for just over a year but I noticed an immediate drop in inquiries as soon as the new "service fee" (of which I had no advance warning)went into effect.

April 2016 is the first full month that I have had to compare with last year. It is April 26 and I have 176 inquiries. Last year I had over 1100 inquiries.

Last year I had no history with feedbacks or on line booking so my ad was not placed as favorably as it is this year. I have checked and find the position of my listing is very satisfactory this year.

In spite of my favorable listing position, the inquiries have dropped off dramatically. This clearly means that many people are no longer shopping on VRBO.

Can you believe it? In the midst of all of this, VRBO had the gaul to automatically switch my 2 accounts to Book it Now and Online Payments. Without my permission! I had to go in and manually turn both services off, which sends my algorithm ratings down to the end of the pages, I suppose. I was shocked. How much worse can they be? It is like they are purposefully trying to alienate everybody. I will be switching to another service but don't know which one to go to yet.

I'm thoroughly annoyed to learn of VRBO's new service fee to renters. I didn't find out about this till today - and had been wondering why I hadn't gotten the inquires I usually do by this time of year for my Cape Cod rental.

As a property owner, I never liked the VRBO website. It's glitchy, it isn't intuitive (on the owner side, through the "owner dashboard"), and it's been the cause of a lot of confusion for my renters (repeat/multiple emails being automatically sent requesting payment through the website, for example, when my renters and I had agreed to alternative methods of payment). I only paid to have the VRBO account because of the traffic the website got.

Assessing the renter an additional fee on top of the rate we set I find exploitative and misleading. From the renter's perspective, it feels like they're being taken advantage of, and that's not a nice foot to start off on.

As others have said, VRBO is double-dipping - they already charge the owners a fee (annual subscription); there is no need to assess renters a 4-9% fee as well. A small, flat booking fee I MAYBE could understand. There's been no explanation of why the fee is on a scale and where they came up with the range. It feels arbitrary and, again, exploitative.

I will be canceling our subscription.

UPDATE: VRBO's CEO in a letter said that the new fee hasn't affected homeowners. Please view this photo that shows a total dropoff in page views that led to inquiry after the fees were implemented in February - a complete inverse of prior-year activity patterns (prior year in light blue, current year in dark blue).

They also identify / punish owners who don't accept every inquiry... Unfair as I'm limited by number of guests on permit with county. I always have groups over the limit & have to tell them no or lose my permit. VRBO I out of touch with market & their "research" on service fees is bogus.
Airbnb charges 2.5-2.9% with no subscription fee. Not sure how VRBO justifies 4-10%. Plus 1000. 00 for platinum subscription.
Can't wait for legal action!

Since being taken over by Expedia, VRBO has become a much more negative experience for both owners and guests. After charging up to 10% per rental in addition to yearly fees when they took over, Expedia has ruined what was a good company by degrading both the customer service and the security of booking online. As a property owner, I now constantly have to guard against online scammers who access my VRBO inbox and try to get guests to divert funds to them. Despite changing my security settings several times, this is an ongoing problem. VRBO offers no solution other than to change the settings. Owner and guests need to beware.

I honestly find it to be a breach of contract (besides unethical) the fact that VRBO has suddenly and unilaterally decided to charge a booking fee to guests... which now will deter "food traffic" to the site, a site we have paid for.

I should have known it was time to change when I had money taken from my account after someone decided to call their card charge as fraud (which it wasn't) and VRBO did nothing (read NOTHING) to try help out on the matter. I had to call back and forth to banks, credit cards and, ultimately, the guest itself to try figure out what was going on.

I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt as a "one of"... Needless to say, with this sudden fee "hospitality gesture", VRBO is definitely loosing my business.

VRBO bills both the homeowner and the guest (of course the guest ultimately pays both fees). VRBO went from a cost effective way for a vacation property owner to "put their shingle out" to a corporate ripoff that makes a decent vacation unaffordable for your average person.

Don't support their shady business practices by listing your property with them. There is going to be a mass exodus in 2016 to more cost effective sites. You don't want to be the one closing the door on your way out.

We have a small studio beach condo and have been with VRBO the last three years. We pay $350 per year for their platform to advertise and until now have been fairly happy with the service overall. Without notice, they have implemented a 4-10% service fee - amounting to an extra $160 per month of rental... our inquiries have plummeted. We have already lost 4 months worth of bookings to this fee. Our calendar is near empty for the next 3 months in WAIKIKI HAWAII! Our rates are no longer competitive. Are you serious VRBO? Adding an extra $2000 in fees per year to our clients? We will be leaving VRBO as soon as our subscription expires. Good riddence. Can't wait to join some type of class action lawsuit.