VRBO

Basics:

VRBO can help you rent out a vacation home, but charges more to hosts than Airbnb and doesn’t deliver better service

Expected pay: You set it

Husl$core: $$$

Commissions & fees: 5%, plus 3% payment processing

Where: Nationwide

Requirements: 18 or older; vacation home to rent out

VRBO Review:

Before there was AirBnb, VRBO and it’s affiliated companies (Home Away and VacationRentals.com), were the only games in town if you wanted to earn a little extra money renting out a vacation home. The services are similar, but Airbnb is better on a variety of fronts.

How it works

Both AirBnb and VRBO allow you to list your rental for free and just pay a service fee when someone books. You plug in where it’s located; bedrooms and baths; number of people this rental can accommodate and plenty of photos. You also set the schedule showing when your rental is available.

Costs

But VRBO, which lists you on all its affiliated sites, charges a bit more than AirBnb.

The VRBO service fee is 5% (vs. AirBnb’s 3%), plus you pay the 3% transaction fee when your guests use a credit card. Notably, this service fee is applied to full booking costs, including cleaning fees, pet fees and any other extra — even when the extra is refundable.

At one point, VRBO offered the option of paying an annual subscription of $499 instead of the per-booking fees, but has since gone back to the pay-per-booking model.

Like Airbnb, VRBO also adds a service fee to traveler’s invoices too. This service fee varies, but can add substantially to the traveler’s costs.

Insurance

AirBnb also covers your home with their insurance policy when it’s rented; VRBO does not. (From the company’s terms and conditions: “Users are solely responsible for obtaining insurance coverage sufficient to protect their properties and guests or their trip, as applicable. Members agree to provide us with copies of relevant proof of coverage upon request.”)

Recommendations

The best place to list a short-term rental is Airbnb. While VRBO isn’t terrible — it scores better than competing rental site RedAwning, for instance — it’s hard for us to find an argument for listing here rather than with Airbnb.

If you want to find longer-term renters, however, there are a variety of better sites. Our favorite is SabbaticalHomes, which charges modest fees and specializes in placing educators in months-long rentals. If you happen to have a Cape Cod rental, we also like WeNeedaVacation.

If you’re an empty-nester looking for a roommate, check out Silvernest.

What their homeowners say: (From Consumer Affairs)

As many of us do, I worked very hard to finally at 57 purchased a condo in Bimini in the Bahamas, I sign up with VRBO thinking I will be protected while renting my home away from home. From time to time we lose water for a few hours, (this is a small island.) The renter left the kitchen spigot on and left to go home, the water came on and flooded my cond. Destroyed everything including my neighbors below. VRBO is refusing responsibilities for this damage. Please review their liability policy before using this company to rent your property. Now I am left with over $30,000 in damage

Used to love this site

“I used to love VRBO, was happy to pay their yearly fee, and have gotten 99% of my guests through them for years. No more! I am going to try other sites like HomeEscape that has the old VRBO model.”

“I used VRBO to advertise my property for 15 years and was very satisfied. As of this past year they have taken control of my home. I am not allowed to talk to my clients before renting nor accept checks or PayPal. My clients are charged an extra fee that amounts to hundreds of dollars.”

No bookings

“We bought a small condo and wanted to rent it out on VRBO and Airbnb. After the first 30 days VRBO had no bookings or inquiries. Airbnb was filling up fast with over 10 books in the first 30 days (same photos same description). A few months later we came to the conclusion that Airbnb met our needs much better so we called to cancel VRBO only to be told we can only cancel in the first 30 days and receive a refund. Not satisfied with the customer service or how I was blamed for them not booking the unit. Never will they have my business.”

“Simply said, VRBO, or Homeaway, and Vacation Rentals.com, want those they “use” to pay for the subscription. There are certain parameters that penalize those, like me, who do not. Basically, if you do not pay for a subscription, they put you in the bottom of the search results. I used to get half my business from Homeaway/VRBO until they changed a while ago to a harsh unequal format, that makes Property Management companies their most important customer, meanwhile leaving me, a owner operating rental, scraping for attention.”

Updated 2/15/2023

7 responses to “VRBO”

EDWIN L JENKINS

January 2, 2020

I agree with all of the negative comments about VRBO. They were great when I first started using them several years ago but they are now home owner and renter unfriendly. I will not renew with them and I will find another way in which to make my vacation rental available. I appreciate the effort made by the unsatisfied VRBO customers who posted their experiences.

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Sherry Taylor

March 30, 2020

VRBO is not doing anything to assist us with a refund due to cancellation of the event we were attending by the resort in Clearwater, FL. We are elderly, was supposed to attend a family wedding March 28, 2020 but the event was cancelled by the resort due to COVID-19, we have made more than 11 attempts to reach the property manager and VRBO by phone calls and emails and no one is responding to us or returning emails or calls. We are out $879.25. Stay away from VRBO, as our family members that booked through AIRBNB got their refunds right away, no hassle. If VRBO won’t do the right thing during a pandemic world crisis why would they work with you with live is business as usual. Dont’ give this company VRBO, Homeaway etc. your money.

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1. William Christensen
  
  April 12, 2020
  
  Same thing happened to us. Stay away from VRBO and Home Away. We lost $1600.00.
  
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Denise Hathorn

December 1, 2020

VRBO is only interested in collecting money. Just last week we arrived to a hone we booked which wasn’t cleaned. The toilets had the sanitized tape but smelled and we found 2 pair of socks in one of the beds. VRBO made us jump through hoops to prove the rental was canceled. They then told us to find another place and due to it being a same day check in we had to reserve the next day online then reach out to the owners to check in same day. They provided the owners number (mgmt co) and while awaiting the code to enter was informed that the home was not available. The website was not updated although we were allowed to reserve and pay. VRBO did absolutely nothing to help us. They ask for your phone number in case the call gets disconnected and when it does they don’t call you back. We were disconnected at least 3 times and after 4 hours of trying to get help from VRBO with no luck one of the mgmt companies helped us to find another (third) home.

I will not use VRBO ever again!!!

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Rayrub Torres

January 3, 2021

Don’t use VRBO. Hello, my name is Rayrub Torres. I made a reservation HA-V56LY8 for 3 nights, in Punta Cana, to go on vacation with my husband, my mother and my 3 children (the youngest a two year old baby). After a stressful trip and I got problems due to the PANDEMIC, we arrived at the Condominium but they did not let us enter, because the owner had not sent the email to allow us access. We wrote several times on the VRBO platform to the owner without success. A couple of hours later and by means other than the one VRBO gave us, we were able to contact the owner and he told us that he never confirmed this property. We called VRBO and told them what was happening to us and after a not very kind discussion, they hosted us in a horrible Hotel, and they asked us 24 hours to solve the problem. The next day, without them contacting us, we decided to call them ourselves, and they told us that in order to find another property we had to pay again and when we asked about the refund, they answered that they did not know when they were going to do it. We had to pay for the second night in the hotel and now we have to go back home without enjoying the vacation we planned. VRBO is a scam.

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Liz

June 11, 2023

I also used to love VRBO, but they are terrible now. I made a reservation in March for a June stay. I canceled on April 7th well before the May 27th full refund cut off and got an email confirmation of request to cancel. They reservation did not cancel so I called customer service and they told me there is nothing they can do, I have to reach out to the property manager, which I had already tried on their messaging system. They tried to call and connect us, but management never picked up. I went through this over and over with VRBO, eventually my only recourse was my credit card company and they billed me in full in June. As I could prove I canceled months before, they flagged it as fraud and I was able to get my money back. Do not use this company and I was glad I had proof. Once the company was sold it started to go downhill. All their money goes to advertising instead of customer service. I have gotten prompt refunds from AirBnB within their written parameters.

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Ivan

July 2, 2023

Avoid liaising on this platform if you don’t want to be scammed
I listed my property on this platform, after hosting my first guests Vrbo never paid me the money. Whenever I contact them they say the case was escalated and have to wait for them to email me. It’s been two months in contact with them but their response doesn’t change for each time. I wonder what is there to investigate, I hosted and the guests paid them but they don’t want to transfer my funds. These people are scammers avoid listing with them.

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