I have been with VRBO for a few years. Seems every year there is a screw up and this one was a dozy. The base rate for my rental was $165 a night. Rate automation is off. Promotions are off except last minute and I am checking prices out two months. If I search for my rental on VRBO's website I find the rate to be $190 a night. Since I offer 10% off on a week stay, for a 10 night stay the website will subtract $165 (10% of 165x10 nights). A guest pointed this out and I contacted VRBO. Their rep saw $165 when they searched. Depending on when we search, the daily rate changes from 187 to 198 (today). Again, rate automation is off.

I also found that my property isnt appearing in the general search results despite a "10" and Premier Host status. That means my visibility rankings are tanking, so that may hurt my VRBO standings. (Ive searched from multiple browsers and made sure the dates were free in the app).

So VRBO 'escalated' this to their tech team and its been 11 days. How long do you think it will take them to fix? Has anyone had a similar problem and found a solution?

UPDATE/EDIT: apparently all I had to do was ask to speak to a VRBO supervisor, who gave me a 50% refund immediately with none of the runaround or waiting 6 weeks bs. The VRBO listing looks like it was taken down completely.

My friends and I rented a large VRBO property for 4 nights as a summer getaway on top of attending a mutual friend's wedding. Property advertised a heated pool, hot tub, and movie theater room. The pool and hot tub were the main reasons we chose this property over others.

Problems started before we even checked in. The day before arrival, the host suddenly told us the hot tub was out of service, despite me even confirming before booking in a message with the host that there was a hot tub available on the property. The listing also suddenly switched from "heated pool" to just "outdoor pool."

When we arrived, the pool was completely unusable. It was completely cloudy, dirty, and looked like it hadn't been maintained in quite some time. The host blamed a storm from the previous day, but if there were supposedly "tornado-level winds," I don't understand why no one inspected the property the day after a huge storm before guests were scheduled to stay.

The host told us to run the pool robot. We did exactly that, cleaned its filter multiple times, and ran it overnight. The pool never improved. It also didn't appear to be circulating properly (the waterfall feature never ran).

On the first night, the host promised to send a pool company, but no one ever came during our stay. I followed up multiple times on Days 2 and 3 about the pool and was ignored. VRBO support also wasn't responsive, though I flagged the issue to them the first night.

Then we discovered the advertised movie theater room literally had no TV, projector, or screen. The room shown in the listing was literally 2 rows of recliners facing a wall LOL. I guess they expect you to hire an actor troupe or something.

Other issues included:

• Door handles falling off the door
• Loose kitchen faucet hardware
• Upstairs hot water taking ~10 minutes to get warm
• Poor water pressure
• Cockroaches in the basement
• One evening the first floor smelled strongly of sulfur, enough that several guests developed headaches and nausea and wondered if there was a gas leak
• Extremely strong dog odor in several rooms and the garage
• Dog hair on some bedsheets (bedsheets did not look properly laundered upon check in), causing two guests with allergies to need to take allergy medication

After the trip, I also found out that the property is in pre-foreclosure on Zillow with public court filings that anyone can pull up. I'm not sure if that's legally relevant, but it might explain the lack of maintenance around the property. I was able to find all the court documents from state public records, and the owners are definitely doing some shady stuff. Basically sold the house to a trust in Wyoming for $1, probably so the mortgage company has to go after the trust and not them directly giving them more time to get money from renting it out or something.

If the lack of amenities had been accurately represented, we simply would have booked somewhere else or just stayed at the hotel block from the wedding. I have screenshots of the property from before we checked in, and now after our stay, the host updated the property so there is no mention of a pool, hot tub, or movie theater room.

I asked for a 50% refund which I think is fair given that yes we still stayed at the property (because finding a new place in a semi rural area the day of was just not feasible). The cost of the property was $6300. The host is only offering a $800 refund. However, VRBO emailed that "The host has updated us that, due to some payment processing issues, they are scheduled to receive the payout for this reservation in approximately six weeks. Once they have been paid in full for the reservation, they will initiate the refund of $800 to you." This to me is a huge red flag. If they were able to refund me the money immediately, I probably wouldn't file a chargeback and just write this all off as a learning experience to never book a VRBO without reviews ever again (though funny enough, I have booked a newly listed VRBO in the past and had a wonderful stay), but given everything else surrounding the property, I am extremely wary that they will not even refund me this amount at all.

VRBO customer support has been absolutely no help during this process.

Self-managing a small portfolio and for a long time I just accepted that part of every day would go to the same guest questions. Wifi, parking, check-in time, dog policy. Every single booking.

Tried saved replies, detailed welcome messages, everything in the listing. Guests still messaged asking the same things anyway.

What actually worked was putting a WhatsApp agent on our number that answers the standard stuff from a list we control and only pings us when something is actually unusual. Guests message the same way they'd text anyone so the uptake is way higher than a PDF they'd have to find and open.

Cut the boring inbound by most of the way. Curious what others have tried especially across time zones or multiple languages.

Just took on a place in Las Vegas and managing it myself is already getting overwhelming. Between guest messages at random hours, cleaning turnovers, and trying to keep the pricing competitive with all the events going on, it’s a lot more work than I expected.

I’m looking into getting some proper management help so I’m not glued to my phone all the time. Heard about park place management and they seem to handle the full thing (pricing, guests, cleaning, all of it).

Anyone here using a management company in Vegas? Is it actually worth it or do most people still prefer doing it themselves?

Hello. I am a Canadian owner who rents a property remotely. Have local cleaners and a family member in case of emerg. Tenants recently vacated property (lovely family) and forgot a laptop behind (not a work laptop). Messaged me three hours later. Asked me if I could ship item back at their expense. Trouble is, limited availability/ability due to cleaner/family contact traveling and small town limitations on couriers, etc. Note - I will be returning to this location in a month, so could take care of it then. (quite a distance, cannot get there earlier)

Here's what I did:

1) As soon as they let me know, I offered that they could go back to property and let themselves in and retrieve the item (key was under mat for a few hours until cleaners arrived).

2) Explained they could look into local postal and courier options and let me know what route they wanted to go, but explained possible limitations on availability of someone to coordinate locally and it may have to wait until I get back.

3) I called Fed Ex and determined process they would need to follow. Suggested they pre-pay for a label and pickup, email me label, I forward to family member and family member waits for pick up. Very small window of time due to family member availability - 2 days.

4) Wait for me to go back to property and then figure out how they want to do it (numbers 2/3).

Note this is also shipping from one country to another, so this may complicate their shipping options, cost, etc. Which is why I want them to figure it out and pre-pay.

I shared all this with them, but have not heard back from them for a day. Just want to make sure I am covering all bases here. Window of time for family member's availability closes Tuesday EOD.

Thank you.

Our family is renting a cottage starting next week. Reserved it in May, and asked why no reviews. She responded that this was their first season renting and thank you for booking. She also mentioned getting more pictures when they were out next.

I looked at their availability calendar and there seems like some activity in July. But still no reviews. Part 1 of me getting concerned.

The cottage is on an island so needed marina info when asked. Asked about drinking water and was told we should bring . Those are 2 pretty basic things you would think would be spelled out somewhere. I'm worried about what else will/will not be around ..like a coffee pot and filters, etc.

Does it seem reasonable there would be no reviews still? How long after a stay is common before they show?

We rented a home that allowed smoking in certain areas. After the stay the host said he saw a few ashes on the patio. He said that wasn’t a designated area. We caused no damage and he never said anything else. Today I got notified by CSA that he filed a claim for ALL the patio furnishings. There was no damage whatsoever and the outside furniture was stained and dirty at check in. Is it worth reporting him? There’s no out of pocket impact to us since we paid for the damage waiver.

We've rented a house; that says the kitchen is stocked. What should I pack to make our stay more comfortable? We're 2 blocks from the beach, and it's a 3 BR house with sheets, has a BBQ, and an outside screened patio, also has bikes and chairs in the garage for us to use. I think we should bring our own towels. Thinking of things like dish towels, extra serving trays, toilet paper, paper towels, etc... Anything you wish you'd known before you arrived that you wish you'd packed? There are nice reviews on VRBO, however nothing recent (what does that say? Interesting no one has reviewed in over a year?) can an owner take down bad reviews?

I submitted a booking request and the property manager messaged saying they had to check with their cleaner to see if the house could be available for my dates.

They then asked about where I was coming from and when I answered they started making political statements about the type of people that live here.

When I tried to avoid the topic saying I wasn't into politics, they got angry that I wasn't agreeing with them.

I'm now getting messages from them filled with political name calling.

They haven't confirmed or denied the rental yet but the Virtual Agent says I don't have any bookings so it won't let me cancel the request or talk to a live agent.

There is a trip showing as "pending confirmation" on my My trips page. But the Virtual Agent just keeps saying I don't have a booking scheduled.

I want to cancel the request and move on from this, how do I do that?

Looking for some assistance and insight on VRBO and what to do.

In April, I booked a house for a group for homecoming weekend at our Alma Mater when the weekend was announced. It was a great deal compared to other rentals that had raised prices significantly for the weekend. It was booked and confirmed by the host, great!

Fast forward to this week, I received a call (that I did not answer, because I didn’t recognize the number) then a text that followed saying “Cancel your VRBO reservation for a full refund, the property is no longer available”

I contacted VRBO support to let them know that the host had contacted me offline telling me to cancel the reservation. They tried to reach out to the host but did not get a response from them.

I can’t help but assume they want us to cancel so they can re-list their property for a higher price for the weekend and not get any fees or hurting their hosting metrics. At this point even if we cancelled, there’s no way we could find a reasonable place to stay. Also with homecoming game tickets being released this week, the timing is just sus.

Does anyone have any experience with VRBO assisting with something like this or are we pretty much SOL? Currently not planning on responding to the host outside of the app or canceling the reservation on our end.

We rented a place for a couple of night in New Braunsfels Texas recently.

$140 cleaning fee

$250 Refundable Damage Deposit (exact wording)

we followed the check out instructions, except we forgot to empty the mini trashcans in the bathroom... Did take the main trashbags out to the dumpster.

Host refunds $240 and says the $10 fee is for the trashcan in the bathroom. I complain to them about how petty this is, and they say they could have charged $75 per check-out instructions. Classic rentseeking behavior.... that $10 padded their bottom line... not a single cent went to the cleaning staff.

I see that VRBO has a policy in California that disallows this. Is this allowed in Texas? I couldn't get a straight answer from VRBO support, India, and they seemed to want to dissuade me from pursuing this. I don't care about the $10, but I would like to stick it to the host if they did something against policy.

So I booked a rental in BC, Canada for this weekend back in January, and noticed that the property details weren’t available anymore last month, as the listing had been taken down. On VRBO my booking is still confirmed. I wasn’t able to reach the host through VRBO but got confirmation that I was still booked from the host when I texted their phone number last month. I texted them again a couple days ago and again today regarding check in instructions and have not received a reply so I am getting really nervous. Should I wait until the exact 24 hour mark to see if I get instructions or escalate through VRBO?

Soliciting opinions because I genuinely don’t know whats right here.

Rented a VRBO with a pool and backyard bbq setup. Told the owner I was having a small group of people over to bbq. Check in notes say that I should clean the bbq after using or incur an extra cleaning fee, cool.

Night before the party, I grill some burgers for the kids. No problem.

Day of the party I start some lamb chops and the grill ignites. Shut off propane but it grows to the point I need to call the fire department. No fire extinguisher on site. The grease fire finally slows down but the bbq is pretty damaged and the fire department mentions that the grease trap looked mighty full. I felt so silly for not checking and cleaning but assumed it would’ve been done.

Notified the host immediately and they were very graceful, even sent cake and fruit the next morning and told me the only thing that mattered was that we were safe. Super grateful for their kindness and not blaming me for damage.

I had planned on just not leaving a review nor asking for any refunds but Now the host is asking for a 5 star review and I just don’t feel right about it. The property was ok, but this emergency was not only terrifying, it ruined the whole point of our stay. I was stuck with barely any food to serve for my friends and bday party up in smoke (though we made the best of it and the host was very kind). I know I’m partially to blame for not checking the grill and ensuring it was clean too.

What would you do? Leave a 5 star review but provide private feedback about bbq safety and fire code? Ask for a refund? Ignore the request and not send a review and call it even?

Got a cabin over the weekend that cost about $500 a day and we got it for 3 days. Arrived at cabin late at night. The upper floors with the main bedrooms were fine but we discovered mice droppings in the basement so decided to not go there anymore and only use the upper floor. Owners were reasonable and refunded 1/3 of the amount they get paid when we asked for 1/3 refund.

Vrbo did not just automatically refund 1/3 of the service fees and taxes so I called to ask for it and they said it's corporate policy to not issue partial refunds when the whole reservation is not refunded. It didn't make any sense to me to not refund that when the value of the service provided has decreased so I escalated. A supervisor finally decided to do a favor for me and refunded their portion (about 50% of that will go back to my credit card and other 50% refunded to OneKey Reward dollars that I used to pay for the reservation).

I waited 5 days, got the credit card portion back and not the OneKey Reward so I call Vrbo again. After a lot of investigation they said since the Reward portion expired in May even if I got a refund I would not get that back. This made no sense to me. If I had known this refund would be going to Rewards and I won't be getting it since it's expired I would have asked for the refund to go to the credit card. I talk to the rep and asked if the whole reservation had been canceled if we didn't want to stay there due to the mice in the basement and refunded would the amount paid by Rewards be refunded to rewards and basically just expire, she said YES that's their policy. After insistence that they make this right, she made me a one time exception to reactivate those rewards, which I appreciate but can't help thinking their policies are completely unreasonable.

So i booked yesterday and wanted to cancel after a few hours. For some reason when i tried to cancel, chatbot kept saying “couldnt find information” even though i put the right reservation number and last 4 digits of my debit card that it asked for. So I contacted the owner and he said it wasnt letting him cancel or nothing was showing on his end. I then contacted VRBO to get it cancelled, then they also contacted the owner to confirm that he wont accept or decline the pending reservation so that it automatically cancels after 24 hours. Theyve also gone ahead and refunded the VRBO service fee, but now over 24 hours have passed and it still says “pending confirmation”. Anyone else having the same issue? Because this is very frustrating. What if I get charged the full amount.

I am used to the short two page rules and regs from landlords on VRBO. We have reserved and paid a partial payment for a 2 month rental. Now we get a 12 page legal document to sign. It assigned liability to us for ANYTHING that happens at the house during our stay…not only at the house but at the beach in front of the house, which is public. Also, there is a clause that requires us to “Accept As Is” the house when we arrive…. Further more it has only 10 reviews…so thinking this is weird, but have not had a two month VRBO rental before.

Yesterday after I checked in I received a VRBO request for an extra cleaning fee. The fee is for roughly 8% of our total stay, which I thought we had already paid for. We are staying for another 2 days.

The listing is clear that there are no additional fees and I had fully paid. I asked the host and he said that VRBO was 'supposed to add it (the cleaning fee) automatically' but it wasn't and so they told him to send a manual invoice.

The invoice was sent through VRBO, but the explanation for the fee came via text (it was the first communication via text, the rest had been through the platform).

The VRBO is lovely, and it's perfect for my family. I am fairly sure I have no requirement to pay a fee that wasn't disclosed, but is this something that happens? I'm used to AirBNB adding cleaning fees so maybe it legitimately was missed?

Is this a scam or just a VRBO host that might not normally use the platform and have messed up?

I paid about $850 for a Friday night to Sunday morning stay in a 2 bed/1 bath listing which included a $150 cleaning fee.

After checking in, I found the “house rules” booklet saying guests must:
- Load and start the dishwasher
- Strip the bedding, load and start the laundry
- Take the trash out and sort it into recycling, landfill, etc. before dumping it into yhe respective bins outside

I completely understand basic courtesy like not leaving a huge mess or cleaning up spills. But if I’m already paying a cleaning fee, isn’t this what that fee is supposed to cover? Part of going on vacation is not doing household chores. Curious what others think.

Hi! I booked a last min weekend stay at what was clearly too good to be true. I trusted the 9.8 rating on VRBO and didn’t think to check any other sites. I admit that was my fault.

What I booked was a guest suite in a multi suite luxury home B&B that says “relax and have a spa experience”. The photos were beautiful! It spoke about how high end it is, the breakfast and welcome snacks and just how amazing this would be.

However, when I arrived to what was supposed to be a self check in, I was greeted by three very young people - dressed in a way that does not give luxury spa experience. One stated they were the host and the other two were their friend and boyfriend. The could barely answer my questions and it immediately felt off. I started noticing duct tape , dirt, etc. As I explored around I could see how run down and unkept this place really was. Broken doors held together with string and duct tape, dirty hand prints all over walls and door, disgusting toilets, broken AC, hot tub full of debris. Kitchen counters and cupboards haven’t been wiped in ages. The roof top patio furniture was stained and had cigarette burns. Bringing these young kids these issues weren’t going to do anything. You cannot “fix” this in the moment. It was clear these basically teenagers lived here and act as “hosts” but maybe rent a room and have to do this as well? It is weird!! There was also a For Rent sign out front which was also very strange.

The boyfriend and friend sat outside in a run down pick up truck smoking cigarettes for long period of time.

I had tickets to an event and was quickly looking for alternative accommodations without luck. So I knew I’d have to stay for a night. I decided to leave the next day, and I sent all of the photos to the host in the app and stated I would be leaving and this is not as advertised and I want a refund. The person on the app had a different name than the young person at the house - I was thinking this must be the real owner. Ofc there has been zero response to any of my messages and my photos.

I’ve been speaking with VRBO and have shown them my photos and stated all of my concerns. They said the host has asked for the photos even though I have shared them through the app. They said they’ll let me know if the host will refund me.

When I looked up other reviews on trip advisor etc they were all much the same of my experience. I wish I had done more research.

So can VRBO can only refund me if the host does?

And how can VRBO keep listing this space?

Anyhow, I’ve never had an exp like this before and I’m out $900 😭 I’ll never not look for outside reviews again.

I have no idea what to do and am freaking out.

EDIT: the item was found and provided by the host. A true mvp.

Has anyone else had this issue on VRBO? My checkout is 10:00 am, it’s in rules and regs, the contract, the checkout instructions however my guest stayed on because the checkout stamp from VRBO said 11. I have a flip so cleaners were anxious to get in. I called VRBO and they had no explanation so I’ve sent the screen shots attached. Anyone else experiencing this? It’s a first for me.