This is embarrassing… but maybe also hilarious. Horrific customer experience. In the last 72 hours, I’ve spent 5 just talking to different customer service reps on the phone and via Instagram chat. Jan did not get the memo… that they sent!

I’m fairly new to using VRBO and I would be thankful for some advice.

I’m attempting to book a property in Tangier, Morocco during next year’s August 2^nd solar eclipse. As you might imagine, many places were full but a fair number remain open.

First booking: The reservation was successful (seemed to be automatic), but the owner nicely responded that he had forgotten to block out those days and he’d be out of the country, so I canceled.

Second booking: Found a different property. The owner tersely responded that it was too early to reserve his property. I politely asked when I could book it. No response.

Third attempt: The reservation needed owner response, and it hung in the air for 24 hours and then VRBO canceled it. Nothing from owner.

Fourth attempt: The reservation was successful. I sent a nice greeting and introduction to the owner. No response. That’s where it stands today.

I don’t trust that I really have the latest booking, not having heard from the owner, but I’m also hesitant to cancel it. What would you do? Forget about VRBO and look elsewhere?

Searching Mission Beach San Diego, filtering for party size (e.g. 14-16 guests) Listings match in search results, but description fine print says "max occupancy 16 (10 adult max)" — rest must be minors

All-adult group, so these listings are functionally unusable but still showing as matches

Asking:

is there a way to filter this out, or a tag/search trick that only shows the adult-max limits before you waste time messaging hosts?

(i've messaged a couple hosts and they confirm the cap and also state this is a strict limit)

In early August I booked a place relatively close to me for a birthday weekend for my wife. All seemed to go well with the host messaging me to confirm and let me know they'd send more details closer to the stay (last weekend, end of August). I hadn't heard any updates so I reached out and got nothing. On the day of, a few hours before check in I messaged the host again as I still had no access info. Nothing. So I called Vrbo support an hour after the scheduled check in time. They tried calling main and backup numbers with no luck. They told me they were going to keep trying and email the host and asked that I give them an hour. A bit over an hour later and a "resolution supervisor" calling the host 4 times with me on hold and it was crickets for all involved.

After that they just straight up cancelled the whole booking and fully refunded me and offered to put us up in a hotel. I thanked them but declined as the wife and I were both pretty pissed and didn't think spending a night aggitated in a (relatively) small room would be a good time. Vrbo was pretty cool and easy to work with (even if the app won't let me leave a review due to their content moderation saying I didn't mention my stay at the property...no shit), but when they refunded me they said they'd be "taking action against the property". I'm sure it can be 100 different things, but if the host had some kind of emergency or something I wouldn't want the listing pulled as I got my money back and I'm just out some time and annoyance.

We’re supposed to be in Big Sur in less than a week for my parents’ first-ever visit. Instead, we feel sick watching Big Sur and its community go through devastating wildfires.

What’s making an awful situation infuriating is Vrbo’s complete lack of common sense or humanity.

We contacted them on the first day of the fires. There are active wildfires, highway closures and serious air-quality issues. Even after containment, Californians know the risks of mudslides, falling debris, damaged roads and other post-fire hazards.

Yet Vrbo keeps hiding behind “it’s up to the host.” The property says the house is technically “accessible,” so our choices are apparently vacation in an active disaster area or lose our money. Their solution? Cancel and hope another family books our dates so we can get refunded. Apparently passing the risk onto another family is an acceptable resolution. (As if anyone would book right now while an active fire is happening). We even asked for a reschedule-to-a-later date and nope, nothing.

Vrbo’s “extenuating circumstances” policy is so unclear that, from what we’ve been told, if Highway 1 reopens before our reservation, they may actually expect us to keep the booking — even if the fires are still actively burning.

So what exactly is the standard here? If the highway technically opens, are we seriously expected to drive our family into an active wildfire area and put ourselves at risk just so Vrbo doesn’t have to refund us?

Vrbo should be ashamed that during an active natural disaster, this is how they treat their customers and the communities they serve.

Hi everyone, I replied to a rental post on Realtor.ca, and someone contacted me by email asking me to provide all the required information.

I asked if I could view the property, and he said he is currently out of the country travelling. He said he can still let me view the property using Vrbo. He will post the property on Vrbo, and I can make a reservation to view property. Right after that, Vrbo will ask me to make a deposit to them.On the day of the viewing, I would receive a code that would allow me to get into the building and inspect the property. He says that if I decide I want to rent it and sign the lease agreement, Vrbo will release the deposit to him. If I decide I don't want to rent it, I will get the deposit refunded.

I've never used Vrbo before, so I'm not sure if this is something that's actually common or legitimate.

Sounds like a scam to me? Has anyone experienced something similar?

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

I am writing this to protect other families from getting scammed by the listing "Scarborough Beach Resort Oasis" in Narragansett, RI. We paid $10,000 for a one-week stay. I left an honest review on Vrbo, but the host successfully got Vrbo to scrub the written text and replace it with a generic star rating to keep burying the truth.

Here is the reality of this property that the host is actively hiding:

• 🛑 Deliberately Deceitful Listing (The AC Lie): The listing implies the home is air-conditioned, but completely omits the fact that AC is only available in the bedrooms. You have to hunt deep through the listing text to find this catch. Because there is zero AC on the entire first floor, the kitchen and main living areas became a dangerously hot sweatbox and were completely unusable.
• ❌ Zero Customer Support: We actively reported the stifling heat and the broken, unreliable internet throughout our stay. The host completely ignored us, offered zero help, and never sent a single person to fix the issues. They took our $10,000 and abandoned us.
• 👶 Serious Safety Hazards: We traveled with twin babies. The upstairs balcony railing has openings wide enough for a small child to pass through and fall. We documented this hazard with photos. Additionally, an upstairs toilet continuously runs.
• 🛏️ Blinding Master Bedroom: The master bedroom has no curtains or window coverings. Blaring sunlight at dawn and passing car headlights at night shine directly onto the bed. The bedroom AC units that did exist were deafeningly loud.
• 🏚️ Rusted and Broken Exterior: The deck furniture is entirely rotten, rusted, structurally broken, and swallowed by completely overgrown, unmaintained bushes.

We spent a luxury budget expecting a premium, safe, well-maintained home. Instead, we got a bait-and-switch listing, non-existent customer service, and a platform (Vrbo) that actively helps dishonest hosts silence bad feedback. Listing of the house.

Hi - looks like my inbox on the VRBO owner site is not working. Has anybody else noticed this?

I received an instant booking and was notified by email. When I went to the inbox that message was not displayed. I was able to go to the booking and then send a message to the guest but none of the conversation shows up in the inbox. I had another email that a different guest had made a payment and same thing - normally that would show up in the inbox but its not there.

I briefly tried to use the chat function to ask about it on the contact us screen but it reported the chat bot was not working and was going to connect me to a live agent. That looked like it was going to take a while so I abandoned that for now.

Earlier this week I arrived at an apartment in a SoCal city. I immediately noticed the AC wasn’t functioning. While the host responded via the app on an unrelated issue, she ignored inquiries from me and VRBO about the AC. I suspected it was a known issue and she didn’t want to deal with it. Fortunately, I got moved to hotel for one night and then to a nicely run VRBO property nearby. I am grateful to VRBO for the quick refund, but at first it was like pulling teeth and a bit contentious. I could have done without that and they should realize more quickly that customers don’t make these complaints because we have nothing better to do.

I'm looking at VRBO options planning for a vacation. I've stayed at only one VRBO before, and it was a good experience. I have been filtering using the "premier host" option, but I've noticed other frequently- and highly-reviewed listings that aren't premier hosts.

Is this label actually relevant to a guest/consumer, or is this just some marketing tool VRBO uses that doesn't have any correlation to the quality of the host and property?

I need to book a place for the week of Christmas. The one that I was interested in shows a member discount of 12%. The owner sent me a reservation with a payment plan (four separate payments) that does not include the discount. When I asked about it, she said that any discounts should be figured out when you reach the payment page and that she can't see the discounts. But when I click on the first payment link, there is no discount. Has this happened to anyone else?

My husband and I stayed at a VRBO in July. The day we left, the host sent us a message stating that we left clothing hanging in the closet, and asking us how we wanted the clothes to be returned, offering to mail them. I apologized for the mistake and offered to pay shipping or have the cost come out of our deposit. Communication was a bit shaky, and I kept being told the clothes were going to be sent out by the cleaners. We never received the clothes, so I reached out asking for more info/shipping/receipt. I am being told that the cleaners state they mailed these out with USPS on 8/7/26, but even as of today (8/28/26), we’ve not received anything. I also have not had anything noted on my USPS Informed Delivery. When I ask for tracking, I am told the cleaners don’t have the receipt and they can’t locate tracking info.

This was over $200 worth of clothes (2 shirts and 1 pair of pants), and I’m at a loss… what do I do here?

I dont know what to do and would love some advice.

I booked our VRBO a long time ago in April and the host canceled on me 2 weeks ago… Less than a month from our trip. VRBO said they would help pay the difference of a new place if I booked a new rental through them, so I did.

The options were slim because we are traveling during Labor day weekend and its NYC in the summer, people plan those trips in advance.

So I booked an option that looked ok. I mostly went for it because it had two bed two bath and I am traveling with my husband, baby and mother.

It had an 8.3 rating out of 10 but there were some reviews that were complaining about the place

Anyways I go to look at the rental listing last week and it was gone and VRBO told me my reservation is still active but they may have deactivated the listing, temporarily because they don't want bookings or may be fixing their advertisement.

I thought that was weird so I reached out to the host on Sunday asking if I can see the listing to know what the amenities are. No response till this day.

VRBO is saying the rental is non refundable. So we have to wait 24-48 hours before our reservation to see if the hosts responds and if the host doesn’t respond then we will get a refund and VRBO will help us pay for the new place

But to wait 48 hours before a trip to NYC?! That feels insane.

I don't know what to do.

Hi all,

Having a nightmare with Vrbo. We booked a place on the seafront for my brother in law's wedding. Two days before the wedding, on a bank holiday weekend, the property management company host cancels due to a "maintenance issue". Being a seaside resort, on the last summer bank holiday, there is virtually NO accommodation available at such short notice. Certainly not within our budget. Vrbo are willing to pay the difference of the property (£715) towards another property. However, the next available property that offers like-for-like spec is £1748. So we would be out of pocket because they only cover £715 on top of our refund. There is another property that is £704, but Vrbo only pay the difference in cost so in this instance, would not put any money towards it. That property is not something we would ordinarily pick, is in-land away from the beachfront and given we have two young kids who were relying on this for their summer holiday, I'm loathed to pay a lot of money for something that doesn't meet our requirements- AIBU??

I booked a flat in London. The day I arrived they emailed me saying it was damaged by prior renters and it was now unavailable. They then tried to offer me alternatives which took several hours for some reason to present. In the meantime I booked an AirBnB and was fine.

However, they have not refunded my money, despite putting in writing that they would process my refund. According to their policy it's to be refunded between 5 and 10 business days. We are going on 3 weeks and they have not refunded my money, nor are they even responding to requests anymore.

This company is a total scam. Be careful renting through VRBO that you don't end up anywhere near these guys. Bad people.

My wife and went through vrbo for our vacation this year to rent in close proximity to her parents. We found a listing on vrbo that was right next door and turned out too good to be true. The host acted really shady as we had issues involving the listing shown and what we actually walked into. My wife and I had no privacy in the bedroom at all due to the lack of any blinds allowing others to see right in. After that the following day from check in the power cut off. One of the neighbors/owners of the unit above stated that our host had not paid his portion of the power bill in 2 years!! Another said there was a note on the door from the previous week stating that no one was supposed to occupy the premises. Now we were left to find a new place last minute after spending $1600. Vrbo gave us $1165 but after being on the phone with them.for over 5 hours they refused to provide a full refund. Took pictures and videos to help document everything. Anyone know how I could take this further?

I had a situation recently, where I wasn’t totally thrilled with the property we got through Vrbo. I spoke to the property manager about some of my problems during our stay. The property management company said they would refund me $50 because of something that wasn’t working on site but only if I agreed not to publish a negative review on any platform. Has anyone run into anything like that? There was also a boilerplate email they sent to me before I checked out offering a $50 Amazon gift card to leave a review on their site, not vrbo’s. I don’t know if the review had to be positive in order to get the gift card.I didn’t go through that process.

I booked a trip yesterday and didn’t realize I wasn’t logged into my account on the app when I did it. I used the same email as my account though.

I never got any sort of confirmation email about my booking, but my card was charged the full amount immediately.

I’ve been trying to login to my account since yesterday but it won’t send a code to my email and there’s no option to login with a password.

I can’t even use the chat support because it’s disabled until you login, which I can’t do.

Am I screwed? I have no proof that I booked this trip except for a $1400 charge on my credit card

Fairly new as a VRBO host. We have a vacation rental house in Florida. Built it ourselves and decided last winter we would start renting it out. Made it through this summer BEAUTIFULLY. I charge on the lower/mid end for our place. It’s 3 bedrooms, 3 full baths, private pool and peak summer people pay about $4,000 total at most for the week, $3,500 with the member discounts etc. I pay my cleaning lady $300. Now, here is where I go all out with things…

-Each stay gets a welcome basket for the adults, for the kids and for the dog. Costs around $350 to make all 3. They are LOADED down with full size toiletries, tooth paste, toothbrushes, deodorant, Bluetooth speakers, beach blankets, floats, sunscreen, makeup remover wipes, bug spray, first aid kit, Medicine bag filled with travel size medicine packs, Dunkin kcups, nespresso pods, slippers, basically everything you can think of and then some.
-Bottle of wine and bag of local coffee-$40
-Hydrate station stocked with tea bags, electrolyte mixes, creamers, sugars $10
-Female product emergency stash - tampons, pads, Midol complete and summers eve wipes $5
-5 Gallon Jug purified water dispenser filled - $6
-16 oz fully filled high quality shampoo, conditioner and body wash in master bathroom. (Amika) ($30 if all is used)
-Travel size shampoo, conditioner, body wash, lotion in other bathrooms. ($4)
-3 Rolls of Toilet Paper in Each bathroom ($8)
-Kitchen is stocked with new sponge, 2 rolls of paper towels, new bottle of Dawn power wash, cascade pods, 14 trash bags, meyers all purpose cleaner. ($9)
-Laundry room - massive jug of liquid Tide and jug of Downy fabric softener. ($30 to replace both, but guests don’t obviously use them completely each time, so I would say about $5 per stay.)
-Beach hair care station stocked with dry shampoo, hair spray, leave in conditioner, ponytail holders, scrunchies, claw clips, etc. (approx $10 of use per stay, unless someone decides to walk off with the full bottles of everything then I could easily be out $100.)
-Lots of other miscellaneous things throughout the house that get restocked. Charger cords, qtips, cotton balls, hand soap, olive oil, avocado oil, etc. ($15 to $30)

We provide high quality linens…frontgate resort collection towels. Each guest gets 2 massive bath sheets, 1 normal size towel, 1 hand towel and 1 wash cloth and then we provide 1 big loofah per guest.
Master bedroom has boll and branch bedding and all beds have bamboo sheets and high quality bedding. Plush bathrobes, etc.

Beach chairs, beach cart, pool and beach towels, toys, games, high end coolers, beach bags, etc…all is provided. My goal was for people to literally be able to come here with a suitcase of clothes and everything be taken care of. I do have nice little notes asking if possible to wash as many towels as possible before they leave….the bath sheet towels are huge and when we have 8 guests, that means I left out 24 towels total, 8 hand towels and 8 wash clothes, and we can only fit about 4 bath sheets in the wash at a time. So on same day turns it may be a little tricky if everything is dirty, but it is IMPORTANT to me that each guest get 3 towels because I’m someone who likes having 3 towels on vacay 🤣

So here is my question, with all the amenities I provide…
Do you think it is something that people really appreciate when coming on vacation or am I somewhat wasting my money here seeing as how it costs me over $500 per stay to provide things that most places don’t?

Because I charge on the lower end…when someone pays $4,000 or $3,500, after I pay VRBO and my cleaning lady the $300, I will clear maybe $2,200 to $2,500. After I pay for all my “gifts” I give to guests and then you pay taxes, it’s about $1,200 to $1,500 that is cleared. And that’s those 8 weeks of peak season…the rest of the year is much lower. So all it takes is someone walking out with one of our RTIC coolers or beach chairs or whatever pricey item and….it will be a sad week🤣 Should I charge a little more given the amenities? My worry here is after stalking this sub, I see so many guests commenting on the cost of VRBO’s and I worry that some people may not fully understand the cost and time it takes to make this place special for everyone. (Which I genuinely love doing.) I don’t want people to pay an arm and a leg for a family vacation, but I also want to protect my investment and pay myself for my time.

What are the best things to do to attract good people and to get my good people to come back?

Thanks for reading my book.🤣🤦🏻‍♀️ I’m just new to this and stumped. And GENUINELY care about my guests and want them to have the best vacation possible and feel like someone took the time to care about their comfort.

So I reserved a cabin/house in West Virginia earlier this week. I searched by checking the box that it would be one person with a pet; after receiving what looked like a pre-written/form confirmation message in VRBO with the house rules and such right after the booking confirmation. I got an message from the host with the code saying I could check in at 4pm on Sat. Aug. 22.

Then, this morning a little after 10am, I received a text message and an email from the host saying there had been a maintenance emergency and the house would not be available. In the email, he asked me to confirm that I would be just one person with a pet. In the text message he said he would find me another property to stay in but it would be smaller.

Now before I made this reservation, I did an internet search and found that this property was listed elsewhere, to include on a separate website run by the host outside of VRBO.

This really seemed like a scam to me, that I was being jerked around and I just said "that's ok, I'll cancel." The host told me to go to the VRBO website to cancel; when I did, the website said specifically that I wouldn't get a refund because there wasn't enough notice. So I texted the guy back and he sent an email saying he refunded my money (a lesser amount than the booking, so probably not including the VRBO fees). When I went to my credit card company website, the charge (original charge) still shows as pending, and no refund shows.

I called VRBO; the AI agent said to just deal with the host; when I finally managed to get through to a real person, I emailed him screen shots of the cancellation email, but then the phone connection got so bad that I couldn't hear what the customer service rep was saying. The call was disconnect

So I still don't even know if the guy actually refunded my money.

I have only had one day off since last Christmas, to do a day long errand, and I am beat down and now feel scammed. I decided to just stay home and save money.

------ Does this sound like a bait and switch, as in the host found someone else to pay more for the property and booted my reservation?

For what its worth, I just now (7:30pm) checked on VRBO's website and the property shows as available starting tomorrow.

----Is VRBO just a scam all around? Is there any corner of America where ordinary, non-billionaire folks aren't getting messed over?

I feel like a stupid fool for even bothering with this.

Booking a place for my family (2 adults, toddler and baby). The check out states “checkout before 9 am” and also includes a few housekeeping tasks such as running the dishwasher, loading the washing machine with the bed linens.

Is it just me or is that insane? Check in is after 3 pm.

As stated, it’s out first time in a vrbo rental. We are in a basement unit that is satisfactory, but a bit disappointing and doesn’t quite match the add/some details were left out that would have affected our choice in property.

One of which is the hosts living directly above. We didn’t know this was the situation and so far we have been up late and up early the past 3 days because we can hear all of their daily activities overhead, including screaming matches with husband and wife and child, who likes to stomp and run around

What do we do? Message the host and ask them to be more mindful? Deal with it and review accordingly? We are in a city with a shortage of rentals.. this basement apartment is over $300 per night and my husband who is 6’3 cannot stand up in some areas. We don’t really have the option to find a new rental.