VRBOReviews 2,004

DO NOT TRUST THE REVIEWS YOU READ ON VRBO.COM PROPERTIES. Why? Because VRBO does whatever they can to decline negative reviews. Case in point: I rented a beach condo in Santa Barbara (#*******) for our 25th wedding anniversary, which was paid in full at the time of booking. Less than 3 days before our arrival, the owners emailed saying they double-booked the condo, and unilaterally canceled our reservation. This of course ruined our trip as nothing else was available with such short notice. I tried posting a negative review on VRBO, which was declined because we didn't actually stay there. DUH! That's the reason for the review! So, the message here is that the VRBO reviews are heavily filtered and not to be trusted.

Tried to leave a negative feedback on a place "Wren's Nest" in Portsmouth. They asked me to send a copy of my receipt before accepting the negative feedback. I told them that I paid cash and they did not give me a receipt. They refused to let me leave any feedback. (On the 4 places I had visited that week, this one was the only negative feedback...) So, under the appearance of an informative site, this is not. The B&B who pay to be listed in the site are the site's clients and they are much more important than honestly informing the public. I attempted three times to get through them but failed. I then checked on Trip Advisor and was vindicated when I saw that my opinion was pretty much the consensus.

Buyer (renter) beware. I rented a condo in South Padre a week in advance for an excellent price. Signed the agreement and sent the owner a check. The day before I was supposed to leave, the check had not been cashed and the instructions for getting the keys to the condo had not been received. I called the owner and she informed me there was water damage, so the condo wouldn't be available. Thanks for the warning. Geez. I had to scramble and find another place for nearly double the price. It was in the same complex and I could see beach towels hanging from the original rented condo. Guess she found a renter willing to pay more. Not very ethical, but there is nothing I could do about it. Hope I get my check back from her. Still waiting...

If I could give this company no stars I would. We are property owners with a property listed with them via a management. We have a pool which it clearly states is un heated. We had a couple turn up in April and demand that the management company contact us and ask us to turn the pool heat on. We politely told them that we did not have a heater to turn on. They insisted the management company call us again and again over the next few days. In the end the management company representative who lives 5 doors down from us very kindly allowed them to use her pool. Two months later they leave an extremely defamatory review on Vrbo saying how unreasonable we had been to deal with and how unhappy they were our pool was not heated. Hello? Could you not read the description of the property? Vrbo is not interested only stating they don't care what anyone posts good or bad and as long as someone can prove they stayed there then they can say anything they like. What an eye opener and what a waste of time (and money!) for owners and renters alike. Its a lose lose situation. While I totally appreciate from a renters point of view that they are allowing bogus fake 5* reviews it is equally frustrating as an owner that they are allowing inaccurate reviews. Most of these people are just after a reduction in their rent.

I am convinced that this is a fake review site to support bedandbreakfast.com. Instead of taking the amazon approach and letting all reviews stand and letting the consumer decide, its going to make all bed and breakfasts appear to have great reviews. My guess is that those innkeepers that pay and register at their site get protected from bad reviews. The ones that do not pay probably are the only ones that get bad reviews put through. I wanted to provide my proof of stay but they don't even provide a valid address to send it to.

I would give it no stars but I can't
We rented a home in Puerto Rico and the house was ok but it needed a lot of help
Ice box defrosted, ac sometimes worked on bath room was totally not useable and not to mention an exposed electrical panel 3 ft from a pool?
Vrbo let the renting agency rip me to shreds and did not help to defend me at all.

Would I rent another home for vacation yes

Would I use VRBO OH HELL NO

Would I recommend them OH HELL NO

Extreme disorganized. We use VRBO services and rent a property in San Diego, #******* from December to January. Online the pictures looked really good. However, the truth is that the property wasn't properly clean and had broken appliances. The damaged deposit paid was promised several times by Mr. Mark Marple were never refunded. VRBO stated we were protect up to a $1000. 00 and we could buy extra insurance just in case. What a loss that would be then. Nothing but empty promises from VRBO and Mr. Mark Marple.

I've been using vrbo for many years. I use it for business as well as for personal bookings. I would estimate that I've booked about 100 homes throughout the years and 90% have been great experiences. We have never experienced an unscrupulous owner -- in terms of taking our money and the place not being available. We have experienced a few places that could have used a bit more cleaning. Overall we have found it to be a tremendously valuable. We travel extensively so we always rather have a lot more space than a hotel room. When we travel on business we frequently take employees with us so its definitely more cost effective to rent a house or condo than pay for several rooms per night.

2 complaints: 1) The reservation we booked through bedandbreakfast.com was non-refundable, whereas other B&Bs that we booked directly just required a personal check for a deposit and had reasonable cancellation policies.

2) I have been trying to post a negative review of the B&B we stayed at which was grossly overpriced for the accommodations, and they require proof we stayed there. I sent them the receipt that the owner handed me when we arrived, and they still won't consider that as proof we stayed there. They obviously do not want any negative reviews posted.

I registered an inquiry through VRBO for a vacation rental in Sedona, AZ. I received what I thought to be an owner's response inviting us to stay at the rental. After a number of emails back and forth and after sending $645 for the rental fee via Western Union (I learned my lesson!). I found that it was not legit and the owner of the rental property did not have her spam filters set correctly, so her email was hijacked and the whole thing was bogus. If she had responded to my inquiry in the first place, then I would have been alerted that something was wrong, but she choose to disregard the inquiry I sent, allowing me to believe the responding email was from the owner. I will never use this site again if the owners of the properties and the VRBO webmaster have no obligation to help you once you've been scammed while using their site.

I had a paid in full reservation for a year made thru bedandbreakfast.com. They neglected to tell the hotel about my reservation until a couple weeks before the event which was the Super Bowl in New Orleans! Needless to say the hotel was then booked and the only reason I found out I did not have a room was because I called the hotel to find out about parking and they told me bedandbreakfast just let them know about reservation after a year went by and were told they had no more rooms and to take care of it. They of course did nothing and I had to call them several times to get my refund but got no apology, no offer to stay somewhere else, nothing except attitude from a clerk. I asked to speak to manager and of course he was out of town but would call me... Still waiting. I also wrote them a letter and have gotten no response. I do not recommend this site to anyone.

It's very difficult to rate VRBO because I've had good and bad experiences. I think it is a very useful site, but I don't trust the ads any more. I made a last minute reservation and didn't do my homework. I will know if it's true that negative reviews are rejected (I've heard that a lot) after I leave the rental in which I am now staying. What was advertised as a luxury 1 bedroom with a family area and kitchen is basically a motel room with a small cooking area. It's even small for me and I'm alone. It says "sleeps 4-6" See VRBO *******. Trust me. It is not a 1 bedroom. Anyone can say sleeps 6. I can probably pile 6 people in my car. There's a small table for 2 next to the bathroom sink. However, I would just shrug everything off, except I rented it for a month and the walls are paper thin and I can hear everything from the other units. I can't sleep! The people upstairs are running around all night. It was also dirty and had roaches, but I bought pesticide and cleaned the entire unit, since it's so small anyway. The "cleaning fee" would be a joke it I weren't so miserable. I hear snoring through the wall, so I find it very unlikely (impossible really) to read only positive reviews without anyone complaining unless I'm the unluckiest person on the planet. I cannot imagine what 4 or 5 people would do stuck here. Again, it's one room, not even a separate kitchen or sitting area. Very misleading. The beach is beautiful, however. So that wasn't a lie.

Don't waste your time. VBRO doesn't require owners to keep their calendars updated. You may, as I did, spend time searching for an appropriate, seemingly available spot, select it, get an email back from VBRO confirming its price and availability, but that means nothing. This was my experience and when the owner wrote some time later she said that she was unable to accommodate us. Huh? She referred me to another property that I had already ruled out. When I pursued the matter with VBRO, they were not troubled by the experience. They don't require owners to keep their calendars up to date and most don't. They didn't think the bait and switch aspect of the situation was problematic. Also, they really don't allow negative reviews. That policy alone makes them shady to my mind.

Over the years we have rented several condos, houses, and apartments for vacations through VRBO. Their website is a little clunky and sometimes it's hard to search for exactly what you want. But with enough effort, you can find what you need. We've never had any problems with the places we've rented through them and have always been very pleased with the outcomes. I think they are trustworthy and I will continue to use their site.

This is Vacation Rentals By Owners. I hesitate to share this, because I have had good luck booking vacation rentals through this site, and I don't want it to be too popular, or it may be more difficult. This is a great website for booking a vacation rental. Each rental property is independently owned so the prices do differ for property to property. We have been able to stay in a house within a mile or less of Disneyland for less than hotel rooms and had more space and been able to eat in instead of eating out, which made the vacations even more enjoyable.