Vrbo Owner

This app and overall website is not good or user friendly for Owners. When you receive an inquiry and go to read it you have to log in every time, there is no user id memory function. It also takes you to screens of the latest tools rather than taking your directly to the inquiry. Lastly VRBO does NOT let the owner communicate directly with the potential renter. I want to vet my potential renters and see if they are good people and/or validate they have as many guests coming that they message through VRBO. VRBO does absolutely no background check. The site also gives the person, making the inquiry, the impression that they’ve locked in the property. Again, we want to make sure that our home will be in good hands. I’ve tried sending my phone number and email address and VRBO xxx it out. Earlier this summer I was on holiday and did not respond to an inquiry. Without notification, VRBO put my account on inactive status so potential renters could not see it. Even though I paid my $500 annual fee and I lost 3 months of active advertising. This site is unethical. The fees are ridiculous for the service rendered. If I were a website developer I would definitely create some competition for VRBO & Home Away.

Periodic glitches (can’t accept inquiries or pages time out while loading), spams messages galore and the response time for tech to address your case is unbearably sloowwwwwwwwww!!!!!!! Remember those old dial-up commercials where you could bake a cake while waiting for your computer to connect to the internet ? Well…that’s LIGHTENING FAST compared to techs ability to ”swiftly” resolve case issues. SEVENTEEN times my property was randomly deactivated and it took FOUR MONTHS for tech to FINALLY resolve the issue (I am NOT exaggerating). And yes all SEVENTEEN times during this painstaking long four months that I called VRBO, EACH rep confirmed all required information was stated on my listing (that had already been established for almost a year when these random deactivations started happening). And there’s no way to actually speak to tech…you just have to sit back and wait for them to email you. Also, they provide the option to sync your calendar from other platforms, but it’s doesn’t always work…so a rep said to still MANUALLY block your dates even if you have your calendar synced. What’s the point of having that option for hosts if it’s not reliable?! I have a love/hate relationship with VRBO. Im really cheering for them but COME ON GET IT TOGETHER WE’RE TRYING TO RUN A BUSINESS HERE AND SEND SOME PROFITS YOUR WAY!! Yes this review isn’t entirely about the app but about VRBO in general.

I’ve used the owner app for a couple years and I generally like it however my one complaint is that it ghosts all forms of contact information from being shared with people. You can’t send anyone your phone number because VRBO doesn’t want us communication outside of the app. While I understand the business reasoning for this, it frustrates me because some renters want to be able to speak with you over the phone. I’ve had inquiries from Europeans who are interested in visiting the Chesapeake region for the first time and they would like to talk to a person rather than the impersonal messaging in the app. I would like to be treated like an adult by VRBO. If I want to share a phone number so that a potential guest can call me and get a better feeling about their vacation planning, I should be able to do that. If VRBO is so afraid of losing business they should come up with better incentives to keep people willingly using their system, not force the issue by treating us like children. Claire Homeowner

*Update* I’ve dropped this app from 3 to 2 star. I do not like the constant “Rate Me” pop up. I also tried to edit a future client’s booking request (drop the cleaning fee) and could not do so. I was able to before this new update. If I keep having to go to my browser...why have this thing on my phone? And this “You lost a potential booking?” Most of the time the “lost” booking was to a home unlike mine: twice as big, lake view, an unattached house, etc. Theyre not comparable. *Update end* This app works well in a variety of situations. The operation is simple and effective. However, I have needed the ability to edit my rates, etc., and all the app does (for the 11 months I've been using it) is to promise that these features are "coming soon." With all the money being taken in during the year (between hefty fees for owners--and now renters, too), there should be more than enough tech support in place to make doing all my VRBO business from my phone a reality. I just spent almost 20 minutes on the phone only to be told what I already know--that I can not edit my rates via my VRBO app or Safari. I must use my computer. I don't want to carry my computer every time I travel and I certainly don't want to use a public/hotel computer when I'm accessing such things. It is a security risk. Very disappointing in this day and age...and unaccountable when one considers how much VRBO is now gaining from its users.

No exaggeration, it’s just plain terrible. I need this for my business but it’s painfully slow, not user friendly, and the layout is abysmal. Has to be closed and re-loaded about half the time I use it. Push notifications arrive sometimes if not ever at all. Last week I was locked out and had to call customer service to get back in. They gave no explanation. Viewing reservations is an exercise in patience. Finding a reservation to communicate with the guest is cumbersome. To view and track financials… well that isn’t going to happen for you at all on this app. Just to see one payout your are forced to wade through multiple screens that load slowly or sometimes not at all. I like Vrbo service but this app is my main interface and leaves me angry and frustrated when I use it. Several years ago when I started my business I thought maybe it was just a glitch or an oversight, maybe Vrbo would fix this mess of an app but nothing has changed at all. I have actually just raised my nightly rates on this app and lowered them on the competition just to lesson the amount of time I am forced to use it. They should just throw the whole thing out and start over.

I’ve had some great guests through here but WOW is the site a pain to use! From minor things like not being able to delete old bank accounts that aren’t used any more to major ones of not being able to remove a booking approval once sent to a guest who decides they no longer want to book and having it block the calendar FOR THREE FULL DAYS & they give the guest no other option but to “cancel “ and lose a portion based on cancellation policy (and remember- nothing was actually booked so don’t ever send that unless your certain they will book!) it’s a super frustrating site if your used to the ease of Air platform. If the guest selects insurance in the request to book they can’t get out of that either unless they lose money and “cancel” if they change their mind about booking. The message system is so dated as well. Guests can start multiple threads & their own requests on one block them from booking on another. Communication with them guests buried in the thread by date instead of most recent being brought up to the top. Its crazy it’s so behind the times with as big as the company is but I get a few bookings so I just keep pushing through and using it.

This app and the entire VRBO platform is the least user friendly in the STR market. I have had repeated double bookings due to the calendar not syncing properly despite being set up correctly. It will work okay for weeks and then suddenly “un-sync” and there is no warning before you have bookings for the same dates on multiple platforms. It also prompted me to “offer guests the option” to purchase damage protection, and I clicked yes. Went a month with no bookings before a prospective guest messaged me to tell me she was being *required* to buy the damage protection. I could not locate the page to remove that “option” and had to contact support, which was not a smooth experience in itself. VRBO deliberately made it seem the protection was optional when it was not optional. The only “option” is to the owner as to whether or not to enable it, but the verbiage is completely incorrect/misleading. I don’t know if it was intentional and malicious of VRBO or if they are just incompetent. Either way, this platform has cost me more money than it’s helped me make. The fees and commissions are much higher while the level of protection and customer service is almost non existent.

The exposure you get is great. My property stays rented out consistently. The website is good, sometimes a little confusing. The app on the other hand is extremely quirky with a lot of bugs. Most of the time you’ll have to refresh it multiple times trying to accomplish one single task. Also, when you need to call customer service the agents try to be as helpful as they possibly can. But they are very limited as to what they can do and the information they can give to you regarding your account. I’ve been waiting for an answer on a payout that is being held by the accounting department as to how much or why for three days now. Every time I call they say you have to wait for an email from the accounting department for the answer to your question. Well I’ve been waiting for three days. And I cannot talk to the accounting department personally. And this is not the first time this is happened. Also the customer service representatives can be a little difficult to understand as all of them have a foreign accent. Some of them too strong of an accent to understand.

VRBO has definitely not kept up with the times of technology. This app can barely do anything for me as an owner. I have 3 listings on this site, I could potentially have 6 but I don’t even want to take the time to create a listing bc I try and push all my business to Airbnb. In order to do what I can do with a push of a button on Airbnb apps I have to log onto the main browser for VRBO. I can’t do the 2 main things that I do as an active STR owner which is add/remove blocked dates or adjust rates. This app is worthless to me. Maybe I’m missing some steps, but bc Airbnb is so user friendly as an app I set all my listings to “book now” on Airbnb and only “request to book” on vrbo. Plus the way vrbo pays you out as an owner is not straight forward. They don’t collect or pay any of the taxes on my behalf which is also a nice perk that Airbnb does. Regardless, I’ll keep my listings on here but have to jack up the price an additional 10% of my Airbnb listing price since they charge a higher commissions as well as charge me back the credit card transaction fee if the guest pays with a credit card! Sorry VRBO, you are not my first choice!!

I recently decided to try home away along with Airbnb. I was excited to get my first booking and expecting it to be similar to Airbnb but Nooooo, The first guest I had with this platform robbed and trashed my place. When i reported the situation to them and filed my claim I was informed they won’t provide compensation for any of my stolen items or any malicious damages. To make matters worse they don’t verify the identities of the renters and put me and you as owner holding all the risk, so filing a police report is almost useless. You would think this would be the worst thing but no. To add insult to injury they still haven’t released the money that was paid by the robber to rob me and destroy my place, their reason for holding the money is to prove that I’m a legit renter. you would think after being robbed and my place destroyed by someone who booked my place through their platform they would make concessions considering the circumstances, but they were so callus that one of the many people that they forwarded me too was laughing on the phone. I couldn’t believe this when it’s all said and done HOMEAWAY Doesn’t care about the homeowners who list the homes on the platform. I would strongly advice not using this platform if you don’t want to be robbed and mistreated

Constantly the calendar doesn’t load, you have to refresh over and over before it loads all of your bookings and at times you have to log onto the web browser to access anything and still get refresh issues. For the last few days I haven’t been able to log in to the app at all. I’ve uninstalled it multiple times and it won’t let me log in. When I click on “forgot password” and enter my email it says “cannot connect to the network”. All of my other apps are working just fine and there is nothing wrong with my internet connection. Even the actual website won’t let me make changes to our calendar blocking and booking rates and when I called into customer support and sent them a screen recording of what was happening they didn’t have an answer for me and just suggested for me to tell them what changes to make and they could do it. What is the point of having an app and website for owners if we can’t actually even use them and have to call into customer support to make changes to our account. They charge a lot of extra customer fees for bookings compared to Airbnb to not even have a working app and website for vrbo owners.

I guess vrbo thinks I want to know every time someone books with another owner. It’s interesting but not actionable information. I mean I can’t change my view, add another room, or change how many people I can accommodate. When I go into the app, it’s usually to respond to a guest, or look at the calendar. But no, vrbo wants me to look at the market feed. Stop trying to make the Marketfeed happen. Why so much prominence on mobile and web site and why are you burying the operational aspects of my business? Inbox, calendar, rates, revenue. When I do want market data, the info I need is not available. The area my house is in is VERY seasonal, so the last 3 months doesn’t do me any good. I want last Summer’s data so I can manage my pricing. I think vrbo needs to do more research with users to understand needs regarding market data.

The vrbo app works smooth and does what it is designed to do. It’s very user friendly and I can use it for all of my hosting needs. I’m just not as happy with the hosting process on vrbo compared to Airbnb. There are a couple of features that I do like about vrbo but overall the hosting process is much better with Airbnb. One feature I really wish was available with vrbo is to only allow well rated guests to “instant book”. I’m not as comfortable letting just anyone “instant book” my place without any prior reviews or knowledge of the person. The other issues are a bit more minor. I like that the calendar syncs between apps. I like the communication process on vrbo, the only thing lacking there is the option to have more automated messages sent to my guests. It saves you a lot of time when Airbnb automatically sends a prepared message to my guests at the times I have set. Keep working on your features vrbo but overall I like the experience on your app.

The new app is greatly flawed. It allowed me inadvertently to up change a reservation that had been fulfilled 5 months ago. It caused me to thing that Home Away had charged those renters for the reservation for 2018. When I called tech support they walked me through how to refund my renters wrong charge and how to submit a quote. When they refunded the money I realized that they had not put the money into my account to begin with. Now after 2 hours on the phone they are liking into but don’t think they are willing to help me. The funds were sent to my past renters and Home Away says I need to reach out to them to get my money back. That is a huge flaw in the their system and they are not taking responsibility for. Now this morning I have someone trying to rent another week but the Home Away app won’t let me add a pet fee. Since they up graded their app recently it is riddle with flaws and very confusing. Worst of all Home Away takes no responsibility for the horribly upgrade which may cost $1,650!!!! HORRIBLY!!!!

It is mind boggling how much money Vrbo will spend on TV advertising, but when it comes to actually using their App, it’s like they’ve never listened to their customer. This platform is wrought with spam users. I am inundated at least weekly with fake accounts messaging me to book my place, asking for my mailing address so they can “mail me a company check”. The App is coded so unbelievably poorly for iPhone users. (Can you not hire someone that actually knows C++ please??) It redirects you to the “web” version all the time, does not sync with their email notifications, and makes you re-sign-in every time, many times unsuccessfully, causing users to have to change their password all the time (and no, I’m not forgetting my password, it’s an App coding glitch). The App has very basic, limited property management capability, so you’ll need to be at a PC to get most things done anyway. The AirBnb app on the other hand is extremely user friendly, they takes less of a commission fee, and very very rarely experiences issues with spam accounts.

The reason I gave them a one star is the fact that I tried three times for them to fix their issue and I get an email saying they did, however the issue remains. The issue below. I downloaded this app and even the VRBO owner and I immediately try to activate my account on both. Every singe time I try to log on it would say “Error, invalid log in credentials please try again.” I call the call center and they tell me I have to get a new email. When I tried that the same happens. Then they send the case to their support technician and I was told they would solve the issue and “contact me.” Then I get an email a day later saying “ We have resolved the issue and your account and any associated property listing(s) have been reactivated. We apologize for any inconvenience. Sincerely, Vrbo Account & Supplier Risk Team.” So I am excited that I finally get to use this awesome website! Nope!!! Not today! I call again and same thing happens, I call a third time and then they want to see the email that “THEY” sent. I sent them their own email, and same thing happens. To this day I can not log in! So yea, one star is all they get!

Poor customer service experience and a lot of hidden fees if booking date was modified. I’m traveling out of the states and can’t make international calls so I used the chat function about my recent payout amount. Vrbo owes me $360 to my payout due to a check in date change. I heard from the customer service person in the chat that there are fees when you change the booking dates and that amount “varies” (which means as much as the platform would like to take). The change was a request from the guest and I was being flexible (later on the guest requested to revert it back to original dates), but Vrbo took additional $360 just for the changing back and forth (which was not marked in their payout and somehow they took $360 just for changing the dates from and back to the original). This is unreasonable and I want that amount back (unable to do so in the chat and couldn’t call either due to internal traveling. There is no customer service email to handle payment situation). I’m not going to list my property on this platform anymore and will go just for Airbnb. Not worth the money and time for this platform. :(

I have had one legit booking, and that was good. She didn’t get the address from Vrbo before check in and I had to message it to her on the day of arrival. I just received my third fraud inquiry like this but they all end with the numbers being typed out funny, trying to reduce the price, and getting off the site for payment (claiming cashier’s check). This reminds me of the scams that used to be on Craigslist. Owners BEWARE! Vrbo, please fix. They select our days and if we are connected to other platforms then they are selected until their non payment kicks them off. Here’s my recent scam that was in my inbox: “ Hello, Thanks for your response, I have discuss with my wife and we are both interested in your property. I will be coming with my wife, no kids and no pet for the vacation. It seems there a glitch with the vrbo app because the dates I inquired was June 2 through June 20 pls correct that and confirm the availability. My company will be taking care of the vacation so I can only make the payment by sending you a cashier check for it due to unsecured use of credit cards and other online payments, kindly get back to me with the mailing information and total quote for the night via my direct email onepeterhawkins G mail and you can also send the mailing information to my cell phone at #four #one #four #five #zero #two #nine #six #six #two, so we can further discuss this Thanks “

We’re long time property owners on VRBO and I’ve reported this before — The current version of the app simply does not work on iPhone 10. What gives? We can’t reliably work from this app, which means we cannot continue doing business here, as we depend on mobile support. And we’ve certainly paid for it, what with 11 property listings. The inbox often does not load, the calendar spins and fails not load nearly every time, when we’re finally able to access a message thread, we receive “bad request” when we attempt to send a response. This has been going on for well over a year now. For more years, it’s not been possible to remove/change transient occupancy tax setting when quoting stays greater than 30 days — must be done via browser! VRBO has just made it impossible for us to function as mobile users. Even the browser application has been moving downhill, release after release — there’s nothing intuitive or simple about it. Invest in a UX team, and mobile support. If you can’t support new/recent iPhones, what the heck are you doing?

This app doesn’t allow templates to be created through the app to have pocketed quick responses to inquiries, and doesn’t have an auto-reply feature, etc like Airbnb does. This is VERY important to me since I manage so many properties. The calendar view is nice bc it shows the prices for each day without having to click on the actual days, but the calendar it’s doesn’t work at least 30% of the time I try to open it on my iPhone XS. The calendar functions are extremely limited along with many features on the VRBO app that are available on Airbnb. VRBO also charges higher commissions for bookings and therefore I increase my price roughly 15% on VRBO and charge more fees simply because I don’t want to do business very frequently with VRBO. You would think with them charging much higher fees that they would have a premium product/ functionality over Airbnb, but that is FAR from the case.

It’s a little clunky and hard to navigate, sometimes it boots you out and you have to sign back in, and it’s generally pretty slow to load, as well as notify you of inquiry’s/bookings/guest questions (which you’re graded on by response time)... but, overall, it’s improving in all of these areas. You’re also able to do more and more from the app w/o having to go to the website, which is nice, thanks for updating those features. Generally you’re able to manage your property from the app w/o having to be tied to a computer, which is pretty remarkable. Please bring back the owner payout breakdown and make it easier to modify guest length of stay. It now shows the total that the guest is paying but not how much goes to the owner, which is a pain and somewhat misleading. Also, please change the font for “price change suggestions” when in night mode (iPhone), it’s currently unreadable at night.

Forget that Airbnb is bigger and better in every way. This is about this app and the lack of experience anyone part of the product team has with being a host on either platform. When I open the app, I should see every current or upcom de ing guest stay. There should be an overview/all view or a filtered view by property. I should be able to easily toggle into editing each property an viewing the listing for each live INSIDE the app. Financial reporting is atrocious and not easy sto understand or filter by property or see everything overall. I normally just export the raw data to a CSV database file because the insights and reporting in the app don’t exist and when I’m on desktop they’re not useful at all. The inbox is wildly confusing and slow with response time. Overall VRBO gives no incentive to guests to review properties after their stay to help build trust in the properties new guests are researching. Conversely I can’t see any reviews of guests from past hosts and it’s not really helpful the info provided to me overall.

I had 13 stays from 2021 through now that VRBO held the money for. They are calling it a glitch on their billing side. I have called for several issues since renting my property and am never able to speak with a manager or supervisor. Nothing is ever resolved. I called to give them a heads up about a party being planned at my rental, they did nothing to stop it. They never reached out to the renter to stop it and never charged the customer extra for trashing my property. They do not have email addresses, direct phone numbers and will not give last names. The person served in my civil suit is the one person who has emailed me when they wanted to sign me up. How is the company able to get away with egregious breaches in contract? I guess we will find out. I filed a civil suit against them today. This company is trash. Don’t waste your time and just post your property with Airbnb. Better payouts and you are able to get actual help with any issues. Take it from someone who has had $6,600 held for the past year.

I just want to make you aware as I’m sure you are I receive a lot of fraudulent request for reservations they want me to take a check their company check because the company does not have a credit card all kinds of nonsense!! I know it’s fake as I’ve been working with Vrbo for a long time and I’m surprised you are not able to get rid of these fraudulent request. I work with the other short term rental companies and I never get any fraud request such a large company can have better filters it’s really annoying!!! I am sure people have been taken advantage of . I enjoy hosting the real ones please please try to get rid of all these fake reservations it’s just a waste of time and energy for everyone. Thank you please Sarah

I am an owner/manager and love VRBO as a service, but the app is incredibly glitchy and annoying to use. It’s been glitchy for a while now and not getting any better, hence the review. Often, parts of the app simply won’t load- whether it’s the inbox, calendar, reviews, or reservation details. Sometimes I just go to the website in my phone’s browser so I can actually conduct business and it works way better than the app. The notifications seem unreliable as I have gone to the app and found a message sitting there, unbeknownst to me. I am also randomly logged out of the app without me knowing so I definitely miss notifications and messages in those cases. I have taken to just manually going to the app daily to make sure I’m logged in and didn’t miss any messages. Owners should not have to do that. In addition to the fixing the constant glitches, it would be nice if the app was a little more user friendly and effective for owners. The calendar is cumbersome to edit. It would also be nice if there was a quick way to see a list of upcoming reservations in chronological order. And a quick way to check reviews, or notifications of reviews within the app. I’ve seen other similar reviews and hope the company works out these kinks- you are too big of a company with too many users to have a crappy app. We love being hosts but the technology needs an overhaul!

I like the functionality of VRBO, but I hate how it allows property managers to advertise low nightly rates in the ranking search function, then you realize PMs just hide fees in “owner fees.” I could advertise my condo for $1 a night, then slap on $200 a night in owner fees, and vacation searchers would click thinking they found an amazing deal. This keeps renters from being able to find rentable units at their desired price points. And renters probably get annoyed with deceiving hidden owner fees and give up at times, hurting the entire secondary home rental market.... I feel like VRBO should be ambassadors of pricing transparency and matching owners to renters, instead VRBO helps PMs hide and deceive. Please take out owner fees and make it part of the nightly rate!

We have mostly had 5 star ratings from tenants. But because we will not automatically accept a booking, vrbo has downgraded us and our bookings have come to almost nothing. I call that vrbo “cutting off their nose to spite their face” - it’s cost us bookings and income on both our parts. Our home is in a family neighborhood and we respect our neighbors / so we ask additional questions before we accept a booking. Vrbo may not care that tenants disturb neighbors and possibly trash an owner’s property, we’re not going to do business that way - we will screen potential tenants before we accept. In addition, many we have been turning down appear to be scams whose “company is paying for their vacation and will be paying by check - totally cutting out vrbo. Yet because we don’t automatically accept them, we get dinged for it. Not very happy w how vrbo does business - it must be a win/win for both parties. Vrbo has in essence destroyed our bookings by taking away our status. Plus your fees are pretty greedy as well.

I listed my home with Homeaway and linked calendars with another popular rental website. On the first day, a Homeaway customer sent a reservation request for dates that were unavailable. I called home away and they apologized seeing that those dates should not have been available to he Homeaway customer. They didn’t have any explanation, but were very apologetic. However, this is a terrible customer experience for me and my customer. So now several weeks later, after my anger subsided, I listed again with home away yesterday. Today I get a request for a one-week rental checking in tomorrow. Sure enough the Homeaway system will not allow me to accept the booking request, on my PC or on my phone app. Just keep getting error messages. I called for support and they see the error and they said they will try to fix it. Two hours later still can’t accept and still have no answers. I called Homeaway and they tell me NO it’s not excepted. Five minutes later I get a call and they assure me it is accepted. I see nothing to prove this. Total chaos.

You break things that work (tax settings) you don’t communicate major changes that drastically impact owner cash flow (payments) and you consistently raise fees that you say the traveler pays (service fee) that should come to us. Furthermore you’ve turned listing position into a game (boost pts) instead of using things that matter like response time over guest experience etc etc. You justify these added fees and costs by stating we’ll have better marketing and feature but I’ve got a market place fees in my app that’s been down for almost two months and we are down 20% in revenue meanwhile still a top listing in the mkt. you also now want to report to the tax man but the figures you have aren’t even close to accurate on your site. You don’t calculate a return accurately. The greed continues as you watch your competition out clas our shine and our feature a software that won’t even allow me to add a decimal pt in for the additional payment request so only while dollars can be charged.

It is a very bad site. Vrbo mixes our house with hundreds of other nearby houses, making it impossible for people to find our property. It now conceals any contact details from prospective renters, so we can not contact them and interview them prior to renting. Vrbo is trying to be like Airbnb, where guests can automatically rent and then destroy your property. It is impossible to get preferred status on vrbo, even though you may have all 5 star ratings. It is highly inaccurate in granting preferred status since they seem to do this based upon how many bookings that you do. Maybe you do not want these bookings. Or maybe you want high quality bookings. Vrbo penalizes you if you reject potentially bad quality renters. They also make it impossible for potential renters to contact you by stripping out your phone number, so potential clients can not contact you. They have increased the annual fee to $500. They also charge huge service fee to both the travelers and owners. Thousands of dollars per year…

If you are a new host and considering STR platforms, turn around and go download Airbnb instead. This app is super glitchy and less user-friendly than Airbnb. When I started writing my unpublished listing before getting my photos done, some support guy kept calling me to try to coerce me to get my listing up as soon as possible, despite me explaining that I could not take my photos until finishing a renovation. I legitimately thought he was was actually a hacker trying to get me to upload more information because I could barely understand what he was saying, and then when I finally understood, it did not make sense considering he wanted me to upload photos of an unfinished property. Additionally, despite the fact that many hosts are property managers for external owners, there is no way to upload a PDF of the required W9 tax form that the owners have filled out. They just tell you to sign the owner’s name on the auto-generated form. How hard is it to add an upload button to avoid forgery??? On top of the unhelpful outsourced customer support, the app randomly logs you out frequently, gives you “something went wrong” errors constantly, and does not let you easily scroll up to reference messages while you are typing a new message to a guest. And finally, the fact that so many of the five star reviews are actually critical makes it seem like these reviews are rigged.

When I am out and about I find the Vrbo app handy in that I can accept a booking request and maybe ask/answer simple questions on current or pending guests. However unfortunately it lacks a lot of features that you can only access on your laptop, desktop or even just accessing the website on your iPhone. The app has been out long enough now that I feel they should’ve had the time to update it with all the same features we get elsewhere. It would make our lives a lot easier as Owners! I also experience the app not working a lot and giving me a message to check back later. That is quite frustrating when you really need to do some work on there ASAP. The app isn’t reliable when you need to adjust quotes, add extra charges, subtract charges, etc. Hopefully VRBO will take the time to update the app very soon.

This app is nice for ease of use but maybe too easy sometimes! When we were new owners and just started booking, I got a booking one night when I was tired and was just checking it. Somehow I accidentally scanned the template that said “sorry, this property is no longer available” without realizing it. The renter started freaking out because she had already paid and was trying to find something during the high season. She ended up canceling her reservation because she thought we canceled on her even though we reassured her that we didn’t cancel. This app needs to disable the templates or make them harder to access. It made us lose this booking! We ended up rebooking other people then Covid hit and they all rebooked anyway, so on the long run it didn’t cost us but still!

There are several features which could make this app easier to use. It would be especially nice to have a "tab" choice for "my bookings". Many people inquire but not all choose my cabin and the list is all mixed up together with the ones who do choose my cabin. If I could click on "my bookings" and just the guests who choose my cabin are there it would be wonderful. Where are they from? Hosting and meeting new folks is fun. The curiosity is there. Guest reviews? Just like I get reviews and also I give them, how do I know how the guest is rated? What if they have been hosted several times and had bad ratings? Would I want to host them? I wonder about these things. Well, the "my bookings" tab is my most primary request for improvement. Obviously I started this before. I would like the people requesting my property to be better vetted. I have receivers many many scams asking me to make arrangements outside the app. Why? I never had that happen on Airbnb or trip advisor. What are they doing they you need to do the make sure it doesn’t happen? Recently, I have to sign in every time. This is an app. If it’s on my phone I want to click to button and it opens. I don’t like that I have to enter my password every time now. No to the newsfeed. It’s not important.

The first glitch I encountered was one that VRBO confirmed they were aware of & that supposedly you were working on. We do not accept “Instant Bookings” yet when corresponding with a potential renter while using the app, it proceeded to do an “Instant Booking”. Because VRBO had to get involved & cancel the reservation & I had to ask the potential guest to resubmit so I could work the reservation from my computer vs the app, it cost me the booking. VRBO did not know when you would get the glitch fixed nor if we would be notified. Therefore, we no longer feel comfortable booking from the app. This week, I had a return guest submit dates for this coming summer. On your 2019 calendar, it showed August 3 as being on a Tuesday, which it is actually a Saturday. Your calendars are all off. VRBO suggested I write you about it. I did but no response. Please get this app more reliable. I have found it useful in the past but recently due to these glitches, not so much & especially when it cost me a summer, high season, booking.

I’ve been an owner with VRBO for 5 years now. Often the system is slow or unresponsive. The biggest challenge is in not being able to credit people for expenses they initially paid for (pet fee or extra person fee) but they didn’t need at check in without completely canceling their reservation and asking them to rebook. There’s an option for the owner to give a fee back but the guest won’t recover taxes or the additional percentage VRBO charges on those fees. Update- VRBO responded to my review about “adding” payment requests! The problem is giving renters money back including the taxes and VRBO fees added to the charge being refunded. Shortened stays or less people should not only get my refund but the taxes and fees they were charged for those days and services they no longer need. VRBO just doesn’t get it.

First of all, we are thankful that VRBO has put in the time to create any platform and we use it frequently to welcome guests. The platform is good enough to communicate and book but doesn’t have us in love with any part of the experience or features. Our chief issues are: 1) We get spammed and/or spoofed often and by many of the same users. We flag these users in the app, they disappear and then return with another booking request in about a week. We get none of these on Airbnb 2) Phantom alerts- My wife and I both manage our rental and often she’ll respond to a guest only for the app to still have an alert for me to respond to a guest. We end up doubling down if we don’t force the app to refresh every time we use it 3) Customer profiles- the app doesn’t share much of anything on the customers coming to stay with us. Our rental is on our property and we like to know who’s joining us for the booking… we don’t need to know PII but we also don’t really trust to platform to know much about the folks staying with us, to note (1) above. 4) Login issues - we get logged out often in same day and lately the text verification hasn’t come through to log back in., forcing us to call. Keep on updating the tool team. Casey

I don’t know what they are doing but every week this app seems to get worse and worse. The current issues are it constantly freezes up, I can’t refund guests a portion of their payments if needed, it takes several minutes just to finally pull up a reservation because it’s so slow and the worst thing is the new look of the calendar with the silly small lines. We now miss several bookings and changeovers because it’s hard to see the very tiny break in lines if you have it synced with Airbnb. The way they had it before was great. Don’t even get me started on the online version. You would think for as big of a company that they are they would have an app that works well.

VRBO does some things well, but it has done a few things lately that are frustrating. First, Texas started requiring VRBO to Remit state hotel taxes instead of having owners do it. Fine. But they stopped collecting the county tax that they previously collected and I remitted. So now I have to send a separate payment request to renters every time asking for the county tax. VRBO said they were working on a fix. But this happened in April and they’ve done nothing and apparently don’t plan to fix it. Why change the collection method? They could have kept it the same and just remitted the state tax and let me remit the county. Instead, they created more work for owners and they clearly don’t care. And now they are keeping my rental payments until the renter checks in instead of disbursing to me immediately. I can get MY money earlier for a 3% fee. Simple money grab. Not pleased at all.

I am impressed with VRBO results so far. I received my first booking within 1 hour of publishing my listing and 10 bookings in the next two days which are still coming in. What has impressed me the most is the level of customer service. As a new person I had a lot of questions and there were a few calls. The pick up time was quick I was not left on hold. Each of the reps helped me through and trained me on use of the function in question until my question was answered. I was also nicely surprised to receive a call two day later from a CS person as VRBO to go through all the layers of my listing to be certain I was getting the full benefit of the site for greater results in bookings. Bravo VRBO for great customer service!

I’ve been using this application for eight years now. In the beginning it was wonderful if you needed anything you picked up the phone when you called and someone answered, someone who could communicate and at least presented the idea that the application was there to serve the best needs of the customers. Lately I do not feel the same way. some months ago I tried to reach out to someone I had concerns and questions about payments bookings and COVID-19. I spent 45 minutes on the phone more than once and every time I spoke with someone communication was difficult and I never felt like I was satisfied with the result. Now this is the application that keeps my calendar in order takes my money and the customers and dispenses it based on VRBO’s metric. The application is only serviceable now and not a stand out and is no longer a leader in the industry. James

Rental for 6, turned into a Memorial Day party for 20 and growing. Neighbors called the police. I called vrbo and asked how to handle the situation, they told me to ask the guests to leave since they broke the house rules. The guest got 100% of their money back and wrote me a 1 star review, wrote that my husband was crazy. I have asked vrbo to take the review down several times and to give me my money back; since I lost the income for Memorial Day weekend: vrbo is not willing to help with the review or the lost income: I have lost thousands and my reputation damaged because my guest threw a wild Memorial Day beach party in my home. What did I do wrong? Trusted that by using the vrbo platform, I would have an advocate to represent me from bad guests.

Over 60% of the communications I receive on this platform are fraudulent in nature. I’m a host/owner on the Homeaway/VRBO platform. Homeaway/VRBO does nothing to protect their marketplace from abuse. The majority of the folks that contact me are trying to engage in check and Wire fraud. All attempts to report fraud and engage customer support go unanswered. Homeowner beware: we are required to reply to “guest” inquires in a timely manner else we are penalized by the Homeaway/VRBO platform yet the platform has no obligation to screen and protect homeowners against the criminal activity that takes pace regularly on the platform. If the fair’s isn’t reason enough to avoid Homeaway/VRBO then take a close look at their variable fees and commissions. Seriously it’s ridiculous. Whereas Airbnb charges hosts a flat 3% commission, Homeaway/VRBO grabs roughly 10-15%: separate fees for credit card processing as well. It’s bonkers. These guys have been arming longer than Airbnb and HomeExchange yet their fees, commissions are higher and their protections are lower. Steer clear of Homeaway.

If zero stars was an option, I would choose it. Unbelievably labyrinthian the number of drill-in drop downs one needs to memorize just to check your live listing. Redundant headings where every conceivable option has been iterated and given its own pages with different formats. And then - as with Adobe suites - the developers seem to think constantly changing the menus and format every few months so there is no hope for consistent usage is helpful “improvement.” Please decide how you want to lay out tools and information, make it intuitively accessible and then leave it alone so people can learn and use it. Constant bugs in your calendar syncs. The lockout feature when changing your password is ridiculous - allow people with a trusted mobile device to reset a password and access their time sensitive account! You are - hands down - the least navigable and least usable application and service out there right now.

VRBO app is constantly glitching with the “oops…” Message. Not only is the app feeble, but the overall technology of this company is constantly failing. We have been a loyal client for over 10 years with multiple properties, and we are plagued with our listings being hidden for no reason for long periods of time, costing us tens of thousands of dollars and lost booking revenue. on top of that there is no real customer service. Sure, you can call the number, and even though we are a premier host, we still just get a regular call-center wrap. No sense to overseas, call centers, and those wraps do their best to speak, clear English and help. However, they are basically a firewall keeping us away from trying to solve actual problems that exist inside the VRBO technology system. We have called multiple times every time this happens. Why it happens repeatedly I can’t understand, and no one will explain it. Mysteriously after several days or in some cases weeks, listing comes back on, and again no explanation. If there was a way to give zero stars and still write a review we would do that instead. Totally disappointing and feeling held hostage by this company. You are a technology company! Deliver the technology!

HomeAway/VRBO basically owns one of the best operating computer programs for the Vacation Rental industry. All of their individual owners they contract with to rent an Owners property. For HomeAway to have any inventory to sell dates to their Guests they need Owner’s to buy, maintain their homes to certain vacation rental program standards for their homes they book. HA/VRBO reservation, calendar, management and operational tools and tips in their computer system is one of the best ever designed. A Vacation Rental Agent’s best and most necessary management tool is their Guest Reservation system and computer programs and HA/VRBO’s is fantastic with no investment for Owners we just pay them a % of the reservations they sell, confirm and collect our money to work with each other. It is a good relationship.

When a guest asks to extend their reservation or stay an extra night, after you “edit” the dates accordingly, you are then taken to a screen where you can create an additional fee. The fee “name” must be selected from a predefined drop down menu. None of these “names” make sense for this situation. There should be a “name” like “Extend Reservation” or “Additional Night(s)” or “Extra Night(s)”. Instead I’m forced to choose and usually pick “Late Departure”. But then I feel it’s necessary to message the guest and explain why they’re getting an extra fee request named “Late Departure” because I’ve had so many question this previously. It would be much simpler if there was a “fee name” that made more sense for this situation”.

Such a shame because I often use VRBO as a renter but as an owner I am totally disappointed in the service and platform. First I was guided to set up the split payment option where the renter pays a 50% deposit upon booking and then the balance due about week prior to check in. I was waiting and waiting and waiting for those deposits, which, shocker, never came. I finally called and was told that the split payment function doesn’t actually disperse the money that way, sorry, they switched payment processors and the new one won’t do it. Ok, so that’s wasn’t great but what can you do. But this last week the PG&E power outages disrupted our guests stay. They stayed 2 days instead of 4. So after the stay I attempted to refund our guests for his 2 missed nights plus tax as guess what? Can’t. Once the money is dispersed it’s out of their hands, nothing that can do and they keep all the fees and commissions. I guess I’ll be renting exclusively through Airbnb from now on.

Your platform is great for host interaction, it is not great for preventing one night stays when the host has authorized two night minimum’s. This has been an ongoing sore point for me with your app and your call-center, which refuses to take accountability and fix this issue. Then Vrbo tells me the host to cancel on the guest and hurt my ratings. Now Verbo comes out with a cancellation policy of $50 when they don’t increase the work on the platform and prevent technology issues like allowing one night stay when a 2 night minimum is required by the host. Please review your app and platform settings and fix the problem to avoid losing hosts with your mistakes and offloading of the problem. Fix it!!!!

Vrbo app is completely unusable. It stopped working after an update and I do not believe that Vrbo actually has tech support. I have called three times and was told all three times after a long time on hold and a long time with an agent that tech support would email me. That was three weeks ago…. Nothing! Two weeks ago I called again and I was assured that I was moved up on the tech support list and would be contacted soon…. Nothing. Called again last week. I was told that I would get a call from tech support as soon as I got off the phone with the agent….. Nope! Nothing. Still can’t use my app to communicate with guests. Vrbo customer support is awful!! Vrbo is also not near as user friendly as Airbnb. I have a friend that inquired twice about using Vrbo for her short term rental back in February. They got back to her in August. She decided she didn’t want to work with a company like that.