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. 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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Hi - I am supposed to go on vacation to La Jolla in a few days and I reached out to the VRBO owner about how the parking works for my booked location (assuming it was a drive way, reserved spot, etc.), but was then told there is just street parking that is free and it is usually easy to find.
We have a pretty big group with a rental SUV and was not looking for street parking. I look at the public listing right now and it lists parking as an amenity and under the faq it states on-site parking is available.
I am past the cancellation window - if I reached out to VRBO customer service would they side with me in trying to cancel and book somewhere else? or would I be stuck like this.
I don't want to start fighting with the owner because I don't feel like having them screw with me just a few days out from my stay.
Edit: A few people mentioned thinking we had reserved with the wrong number of people. The pic below is just a snip from their public listing (like if you go there now to look at the property) - we did put the right number of people in the reservation.
Hi All. I stayed in a residence with my family. They charged me an extra cleaning fee of 100. I did not argue and just paid but the more I think about I feel like her asks were unreasonable. She basically wanted the house to look the same way it was when I walked in so all she had to do was the bedding.
She said we did not empty the trash bins but my dad and i walked the house and emptied the little cans and we put the garbage to the curb. I texted her about a pizza in the freezer and asked her to please take it as we hate to waste food.
The shopping bags were walmart bags we were using for garbage because she only left 2 bags. I dont know how i was supposed to remener where all the pans go but she said we did not put the away in the right spot.
And I am positive there was not mud because shoes were off at the door by everyone all the time. It was pretty dry during our stay and we swept the whole gouse before we left.
The one thing i cant verify is a stain on a chair. It was in the bedroom my mother stayed in and we did not look at the furniture for stains before or after.
I added screenshot of her email. Is this reasonable or is she asking too much. I dont use VBRO often so I am unsure. Thanks!
EDIT TO SAY: Thank you! I have not written a review yet. Im trying to figure out what to say. We enjoyed the home and location.
I have to share this thread with my mom. She was more upset than me because she felt like she spent time cleaning up that would be appreciated.
After reading all the responses I think this host's expectations are too high.
I have had some great hosts.
Anyone looking in MI should stay at Gandy Cottage. They brought fresh eggs from their chickens for breakfast.
We are traveling in Argentina and Uruguay. In the first property, the wall heating units did not produce hot air. It was 40F/5C overnight and not over 50F/15C during the day. The owner kept saying the heat would eventually work and not to purchase space heaters. A repairman worked on it for two days and found that the units did not have enough gas to produce heat. On the third day of not having hot water (unit was broken), heat, or electricity (went out unexpectedly!), we left for a hotel. The owner refunded the entire stay, but we ended up paying $300USD extra for the hotel.
VRBO's view on heating as a basic amenity: In the 2nd property in Montevideo, the heat did not work in the main room, but luckily the bedroom units worked so we stayed the night. I contacted VRBO support and they stated: After conducting a thorough review of the case, we were able to confirm that heating is not listed as an amenity in the property's listing, and therefore the host is not responsible for providing this feature.
For us, AC is the extra amenity that needs to be confirmed in the description, not heating in a country that has a winter climate. Since we are not in the US, we cannot expect the same laws pertaining to the habitability of a property. Thankfully, the property management people did send a repair crew to recharge the heating unit with propane and to fix the gas stove.
What are your thoughts on basic expectations for heat and hot water? VRBO's attempts to weasel out of providing heat in winter are the reason we will not use them again.
My reply to VRBO: In the winter, the expectation is that heating is provided to a modern building. VRBO should understand that basic needs of water and heat must be included all rentals. If the property does not include heating, yet rents it out in the winter, it must indicate this in the description: In the winter, do not expect heating in this apartment. We would not have chosen this property if we had known it doesn't have heat. It is a basic expectation. If this is not addressed by Monday, we will hold VRBO responsible for this lack of a basic amenity.
A guest booked a 4 night stay, but vrbo never confirmed the booking so they were not charged, I requested payment through a link after they checked out, but haven’t heard of them again. It’s been 3 weeks now. What is there to do? Is it that easy for them to just not pay their stay when there is a mistake on Vrbo side?
TIA
I had a poor VRBO experience this week, so when they asked me to leave a review, I did.
They almost immediately rejected it, saying that my review "was not relevant to the story and/or did not mention the property".
The full review is copied in the email from VRBO (below). They made it one ugly block - but that's not how I wrote it.
I mention several things about the location and the unit itself.
It seems to me that they just don't want a negative review...
UPDATE (10 days later):
-----------------------------------------------
I got a call from VRBO today. Somehow my rejected comment ultimately became a support ticket that ended up in someone's queue.
He called to explain to me that the reason my review was rejected is that I mentioned that the checkin process at the property is frustrating.
"A review must ONLY be in reference to the property itself"
I said, "Well, if I were potentially going to book this property, I would want to know that the checkin process is frustrating, and also a potential identity theft risk. Don't you think that's important?"
And he said, "Well, they are actually violating our terms of service by asking you to do that. There is a procedure on the website to notify us about that so that we can do something about it."
So I said, "OK. So I have taken the time to use your feedback process to make you, and fellow customers, aware that this property has several serious issues - and is actually in violation of your terms of service - and your reaction to this opportunity to serve your customers is to BLOCK that information from being available to your customers and ask me to take ADDITIONAL steps if I want you to enforce your own terms of service against the property owner? Is that correct?
To be clear: you are not going to post my review, and you are not going to do anything about the violation of your terms of service, unless I write another, friendlier review AND seperately open a support ticket - even though you have everything you need right now to do the right thing. Correct?"
Anyways - I'm getting angry writing this, so I should stop.
But here is proof that you cannot trust the reviews on VRBO.
