VRBOReviews 2,004

As with others who have posted here, I have listed 2 homes on VRBO/Homeaway for 4 years at a cost of $1500. 00/property, per year. Apparently that's not enough for VRBO/Expedia, as they are now getting greedy and wanting income from both homeowners AND guests. Even worse, if you elect not to use the booking system to avoid the service fee, they drop your listing position! That seems like extortion! Either use our system and gouge your guests, or turn off the booking option and lose your site ranking/position! Also, if you are consistently declining the bookings, or letting them expire, you will also be penalized by have your ranking/position negatively affected. They think they have us over a barrel, but I'm glad to read that plenty of other homeowners and guests are fed up and looking for alternatives!

I changed my listing description to explain how guests should not use the Book It function, and instead should use the "send email" button to avoid fees. That only works if a customer will pay with a check, which plenty of my guests are choosing to do. It's very unfortunate to see a site that was so useful and user friendly go completely sideways after being acquired by another company. Oh well, I'm off to look for other rental sites and alternatives.

We joined with VRBO in August of 2015 and went with the annual model to avoid individual booking fees. Without notice they have started charging our prospective guest a large service fee. They state that they had carefully considered this before implementation; however, when I called they indicate that it will be changing in April. I told them to change it now by removing the fee to align with the agreement is singed up for. Our recent inquiries have not booked since the added fee was imposed. I see that Flip Key does not impose a fee on their annual model, I will be joining them this weekend.

As a rental owner I'm extremely frustrated with the new service fee that VRBO has enacted, completely disregarding any agreements that were in place with existing owners and renters. If you are as frustrated as me, there is a new option, "home escape". Created by a former VRBO employee, its is everything that VRBO used to be and is growing. The site is setup just like VRBO so it is extremely easy to cut and paste everything from VRBO.

I am a homeowner with two VRBO listings. I am appalled by this new service fee being charged to my guests. They describe it as a "small fee" that has equated to hundreds of dollars for my guests! This is on top of a hefty annual subscription fee that I am paying. This greediness from the Expedia company needs to change right away! What is the point of bringing more revenues for more advertising if we are loosing customers by the masses who will refuse to pay this fee. On the flip side, I have used vrbo for my personal travel and I will look elsewhere to avoid paying such an awful fee.

Well i M getting requests for summer but the length of stay instead of a week is 3-4 days on average. I believe that the new service fee is greatly impacting what a guest is willing to pay. I am sending out quotes but not getting as many back. Additionally the quantity of guests is increasing per request. You can only put so many in a one bedroom condo. I have also had a guest decide to delete a day and to that you have to delete the booking and refund the deposit and then create another one and request a new deposit and that is before the final payment is even due. So the whole service fee is gumming up my listing and I have decided to sell my unit. I think that this is only the beginning and believe that the advertising cost will also go up this year. It will be interesting to see if enough people are upset enough to impact Expedia's bottom line. Lets hope so.

I quess Expedia purchased VRBO and their greed kicked in as they are screwing loyal customers with a large booking fee. I agreed to pay an annual fee of over $1200 and then they changed rule to screw vacationers with a new 10% fee. They sent an email and buried the information so no one would notice. I do not understand how they can change terms when I have an annual contract.
I will be looking for other alternatives as this fee is not warranted as they do not manage anything or work with clients to rent out properties.
Please unchecked auto renewal on the Web site so they get the message that we are going to walk and not tolerate unethical greedy business practices.

As a new owner to VRBO, I have great concerns regarding the new service fees. First, I didn't know anything about these fees and learned thru a booking. I was completely shocked and had to do the research myself. Where is the professional courtesy to your business customers? Secondly, you went from charging no service fees to a whooping 4-9%. That is an outrageous jump. I have two potential bookings, one with a service fee of $469 (52 days) and the other $499 (84 days). This is a significant service fee! I would imagine that I will not get these bookings, thank you VRBO! I am in Florida where the winter is peak season and customers book 1-3 months at a time. Customers will certainly think twice on making these long term bookings. Consideration on reducing these outrageous fees for long term guests must be considered or we will loose these valuable bookings. We are smart, savvy business entrepreneurs who will either go to a new competitor or find ways to overcome these ridiculous fees. Where are the programmers for a new start-up company, step forward, here is the opportunity!

We rented a cottage for April 2016 in Indian Rocks Beach from J. Goss. We paid 50% down. Six weeks from our arrival date the people who own the property canceled on us with no explanation whatsoever. They refunded our money and would not answer my first two emails. Eventually they did respond and said that they had decided to renovate their property instead of rent to us. 90% of the rentals in that area are already rented for spring break and we could not find anything in our price range. I called the office of homeaway.com and VRBO, but they did absolutely nothing to help us and had me file a complaint but in the end that it was up to the rental property owners as to whether or not they would do anything to help us with our situation. I will not use the VRBO again.

But I did not think it would be so swift or so blatant. Expedia has mentioned a reduction in fee's based on the new gouging policy they have implemented. I have always had the pay now payment option. I have yet to see an decrease. We still pay a yearly fee and 3% of booking. Apparently this is to benefit the owners, but I have yet to see how any indication on how. They can say it all they want - but that are not able to show us.
I am sure as they pointed out research was done on the impact of this added fee. It would not have been based on impact to the owners - no way. The research conducted was on how it would impact Expedia. Would Expedia damage there revenue streams by adding this fee. Would the increased revenue form this fee offset the owners who move to other booking site options (airbnb) and will the decline in bookings that the owners will surely see have a negative impact of booking revenue. The answer is no - no negative revenue impact to Expedia based on reduced bookings to clients. Expedia in no way are concerned with the owners line of business. I know that for me - on a 2 day booking the new fee charged see's an additional $30 into Expedia's pockets. Thats a huge increase for them. They can easily absorb the negative impact. For Expedia to make this level of return from my property. Based the old fee base - they would need my apartment to book 6 - 2 day bookings. This is much easier money for them - they do not care about owners.
I will start telling my booking inquiries to book through Airbnb and save some money.

VRBO and Brian Sharples, Business 101, never try to fool your customers. Without them, you don't have a business. Shame on you for hiding a fee and expecting that your customers wouldn't notice. Your VRBO customers already agree to pay you an annual fee and allow you to charge a fee per transaction? Poor, poor business ethics! Business is born from necessity and competition and I'm looking forward to doing business with a company that doesn't think its customers are too ignorant to notice or care. DISGUSTED!