Vrbo Reviews 119,042

their relationship with the host is more important with the guest. they do not back their listings. have no actual power to issue a refund. will not take down bad reviews even if you can prove it was a lie and guests do not have the option to comment on a bad review but hosts can comment on their bad reviews. kept me up till 3am on the promise they will fix things only to find out they actually have no power or plan to fix things. VRBOcare is a joke and means nothing. will not ever rent off VRBO again.

Terrible service. Been locked out of the platform for two weeks. No one can solve it. Terrible customer service. Taking my property down as soon as i can access my account.

The VRBO customer service is the worst of any company I've ever had to deal with.
IT WOULD BE BETTER IF THERE WAS NOBODY THERE AT THE END OF THE PHONE LINE INSTEAD OF SOMEONE WHO DOESN'T KNOW WHAT THEY'RE TALKING ABOUT. THEY CAN'T SPEAK ENGLISH. I CAN'T UNDERSTAND THEM AND THEY CAN'T UNDERSTAND ME.
The customer service is obviously outsourced in many other countries. These people are not properly trained , nor do they know the system or the questions that I was asking.
I was on the phone for forty five minutes and got absolutely nowhere.
All I heard over and over was not to worry, not to worry , not too worry.
Well, when it involves the IRS and tax purposes You tend to worry when you're givin the wrong information by over 15k.
Even after I addressed the wrong information and wrong numbers , I was continually told not to worry.
That was the only thing she could say perfectly well in english.
My parents are immigrants and my husband is an immigrant. If you're going to work for a company as big as vrbo , and you're going to handle other people's financials , you better learn the language.
Evidently, you can work for VR BO with no training whatsoever and get a job.
Beware and check your facts from vrbo customer support.

In January we booked and paid in full for a property for 8 people for 3 nights over Easter weekend. We found out by chance on the Thursday the property was a scam. Vrbo stated they would remove it from their site - they haven't. They undertake no due diligence on this property even though I phoned them in February as the 'property owner' asked me for a £250 damage deposit via an invoice outside of the Expedia/Vrbo platform, and Vrbo said I needed to pay it. If I hadn't phoned them on the Thursday to enquire about check in details, we would have arrived in Belfast hoping to check in to Pettingers Quay to find it either didn't exist or wasn't available for us. Impossible to leave a review on the site as they cancelled my booking meaning a review is not possible. We have booked several properties in the past via Expedia / Vrbo but have now seen their true colours!

Edit 11 May 2026 Despite a response here from Expedia/Vrbo, it is still available to book via the Expedia site, 5.5 weeks after I identified it as a scam. They email me regularly to say they are removing it. I have no idea how we trust the booking process...

Trust the low ratings given to VRBO. With their merging with "Air B&B" both companies are complacent, unhelpful when problems occur and their loyalty is only for the $$ they steal from both Hosts and Renters. Customer service comes from "India"; that should tell you something. Their "terms and conditions" border on usuary and abuse of any trust you might rely on. The lack of oversight by authorities encourages them to flaunt the legal actions one could take to obtain any refunds for their shoddy vetting process of Hosts or properties they represent. Attorney fees far exceed any justice one can expect to obtain for their lack of support. Pictures can no longer be trusted with the use of A.I., Photoshop, and Digital manipulation available today. The continued negative reviews are the only way to lessen their ability to "scam" others like yourself. They provided us with a unclean, mold ridden, dark, and dismal interior and an equally run down building, pool, and surroundings where trash bins were not emptied, rusted doors, paint, missing concrete from foundations and noisy tenants. Even a homeless person would consider it a "dump". Pictures document this review. As a "Vacation Rental" it didn't deserve a 1 star rating. Rugs were not cleaned, mold was painted over, and personal property of others was strewn around the outside of 15 units. Hours on the phone resulted in long hold times, false promises, and poor communication skills of alleged customer service. We left after 3 days, but did not cancel to keep them from renting to someone else for the month we paid for. The Host was never identified or able to be contacted. Any poor ratings others have given should not be dismissed, let alone the numerous ones you've seen here. Their reviews are FALSE. They won't let you review the 1 star properties. 1 review.....run away. Beachfront? False. Customer Care? Forget it.

If I could give negative stars, I would. The worst customer service and they don’t care about the reviews either I guess. I canceled my rental before the cancellation period so all within the policy. VRBO refuses to refund the money and pointed to the rental management company. Why is it my problem to now call the rental management company, I had no idea who they are. Anyhow, I did but they never returned my calls. So, now I am stuck. VRBO next explanation to me is that I should contact my credit card company and ask them to get the money back. OMG…..no accountability, no help. Never using VRBO again.

The information on this site is inaccurate and misleading. There appears to be no reliable process in place to prevent fraud or verify property ownership. I was able to make a reservation and pay in full, only to arrive at the location and be informed by the host that they no longer owned the unit. This is completely unacceptable and reflects a serious lack of oversight and accountability. I would strongly caution others before using this platform.

I was forced to use the Vrbo app because the host for a specific location I wanted to use would only allow bookings through Vrbo. The app is useless, I was unable to see any details relating to my booking once I paid the deposit, I was therefore unable to obtain any information relating to the booking or amend dates etc. The app seems to be a way of making any changes to bookings impossible. Forced to initiate a chargeback with my credit card provider. Avoid at all possible costs.

First - and last - time using VRBO.

We booked a 2BR for four nights in Maui. Instead, our reservation was split into three different rooms across the stay - meaning we were expected to move rooms three times. Completely unacceptable and not what we booked.

To make matters worse, the reservation wasn’t even under my name. We lost an entire day of our trip dealing with this while Marriott and the host blamed each other and took zero accountability.

VRBO support was equally useless: hours on hold, multiple transfers, dropped calls, and no real help or follow-through, i.e., too many empty promises from VRBO “supervisors”…

Total failure all around. Do yourself a favor: think twice before using VRBO to book your next vacation; after all, a vacation should be fun and stress free and VRBO just added to the stress.

Zero stars if I could.

My wife and I chose to stay in a 2 bedroom property advertised on VRBO and booked this from the 3rd to the 5th April, in Seville Spain. I paid the property partner as instructed on the VRBO website, although when the system transferred us to their booking system, VRBOs property partner charged us more than we had agreed on the VRBO website. Your property partner then changed the dates on the contract from 3rd to the 5th April to 4th until the 6th and having paid the VRBO property they refused to let us into the property.

My wife and I spent 7 hours on the telephone to VRBOs customer services department until 2am in the morning, yet they were incapable of sorting out the mess that VRBO and your property provider had created. The representative merely promised to pay us the amount that we had paid to the VRBO property partner in Seville.

Your customer services department having failed to resolve the problem, that VRBO had created, did nothing to provide any alternative accomodation but at 1.30am stated that we should find somewhere else to stay and that VRBO would pay for it. With all hotels either closed or fully booked it took us until 4.45am in the morning to find a room in a hotel. This was incredibly stressful and completely ruined our holiday in Seville as we spent the majority of our time on the telephone with the VRBO office who promised everything, yet delivered nothing.

VRBO have all proof of our payments for the old booking to the VRBO property partner and my wife's bank details which they stated would be reimbursed, yet they have still failed to do so.

Furthermore they have my bank details, as they stated VRBO would reimburse me for the cost of the hotel room we found independently, as they failed to organise the accomodation for which we had paid.

Needless to say, even VRBOs promises to repay the money paid by my wife, to the VRBO partner, has not been reimbursed. And of course the promise to reimburse me for the room we booked has not been reimbursed either.

The moral is to avoid VRBO at all costs as they are incompetent and crooks

Host cancelled with less than 24 hours to go to checkin... leaving me and a group of 15 people stranded. VRBO did not find a solution to help....

I advise against renting through this company. I suspect the 'hosts' can upload photos of some gite that may or may not exist, but vrbo does not verify this, eg by going there. Our 'host' never responded. When vrbo called her she was 'on holiday'. We cancelled and got a 100% refund, no problem, but a refund MINUS a booking fee which was not mentioned before. So if the company has hundreds of such non-existent properties on its books, this fee becomes a nice little earner for doing nothing.

Update on the above: the shortfall of £50 in our refund was not a booking fee but due to currency exchange rates. vrbo is a US company so they convert my payment into dollars, then the refund from dollars back to pounds, so we lose both ways. I have made a complaint and the vrbo accounts dept is looking into it. I would still avoid this company.

Booked an apartment in Tenerife based on star rating , pictures and description. Misrepresentation of the truth with cleanliness, broken items, non-existent, or unusable items being only part of problem. Contacted host who did supply a few items that were missing but he was quite dismissive citing that the apt had had a full refurb in last two months.
Contacted Vrbo following day to voice concerns and sent several photos. They offered some small compensation which we were not happy with. This got escalated up to a senior who offered slightly more. We are still not happy with this figure as it does not represent what was essentially a spoiled holiday. Vrbo appear to have blocked all further emails and have deemed the matter closed. Doubt we will ever use Vrbo again or recommend to anyone. Add on to review following the Vrbo reply message below which looks good, again they did not grasp what the customer reported back in a detailed letter and Photograph's. In the end we had no choice but to accept the compensation amount being offered which was 480 euro's.. This does not change our advice to all looking at booking through Vrbo. DONT DO IT. The false apartment information and photo's that conned us is still on their website. Shame on them and the Host who advertise a five star apartment which was at best a 2-3 star and certainly not worth the 2377 Euro's paid.

This complaint is in regards to VRBO not holding their host accountable for an owed refund. We originally booked a property April 3rd-10th in Panama City Beach. A few weeks before our trip, we added 2 days, now the reservation being April 1st-10th. What should have been the first red flag is the host charging an extra person fee, when the home sleeps 8 and we have 5 guests. The host did refund the $21.21 before we arrived, after noticing. No where in the listing is this extra person fee listed for 5 guests. We arrived the evening of the 1st. Upon arrival, the only complaint was the smell of cigarette smoke coming from another unit and the lack of drinkware. That wasn't a huge issue. In the middle of the night, my grandmother went to the kitchen for a glass of water and killed 4 cockroaches. The next morning, when it was light and we were able to see, we noticed 2 different dead cockroaches and that the home had black mold in the vents, windows, and bathrooms. Between the mold and roaches, I reached out to the host. She offered a $300 refund. I declined and stated that we wanted to vacate the property, due to it being inhabitable. The host then tells me to contact VRBO directly. I do so. This agent speaks with the host and informs the agent that she will charge us for one night and the cleaning fee. Unfortunately I agree to this and the agent informs me that I will be refunded $1,630.76. The next day I am refunded a random amount of $1,151.00. This doesn't make sense, so I reach out on VRBO chat again and was told once again that they will take care of being refunded the correct and agreed upon amount. 5 days later I use the chat feature on VRBO again to check up on the remaining $ that is owed. I informed the agent that I have the original screenshots of the daily amount being $144. In the refund description, the host has stated that the nightly price was over $600, resulting in a lower refund to be provided. The agent stated that this was great evidence and the "smoking gun" for my case. The chat agent calls me and transfers me to another agent in a different department. This new agent contacts the host and she is unwilling to uphold her end of the agreement. VRBO just flat out doesn't care, offers me the service fee of $165 refunded and a $100 One Key credit. I declined and let him know that I will be contacting the attorney general and the health department and will now be requesting the full refund, due to the headache of all of this and having to find a rental in extreme short notice, during spring break. After this, I now know that VRBO does not care about their customers and will let their hosts scam people, even when the host is in the wrong and has mold and cockroaches in the home. After this mess is rectified, I will be deleting my VRBO account and warning everyone that I know to stay away from this company for not upholding their "Book of Confidence Agreement."

Don’t recommend them, they don’t hold themselves accountable and they do not care about their customers. Being a customer I lost thousands of dollars on their platform and they said it’s not them. Liars! Avoid VRBO at all cost

Just the worst vacation ever! Rented a home in Crown Pointe, Naples, FL. Older home. Checked in to find no internet at all! Host response, internet outage out of my control. Exterior Front Door frame completely rotted and door was about to fall out. Host response, be careful door might fall out! Next problem, pool green, low on water day 4. Pool equipment and hot tub equipment no longer works and needs to be repaired! No warning about repair from Host or how long it would take. It took 1.5 days to fix. VRBO made no attempt to try and fix or even deal with the problem. I will never ever use VRBO again!

2/2: continuation: Called vrbo again, agent said needs his supervisor (not again!) to solve it. I was put on hold waiting for the supervisor for about 40 mins!! After a very long conversation on trying to solve it, supervisor trying to call anyone in Jeeves, he finally got a QR code that we can use in the gate. I told the vrbo supervisor his name is Muhammad to call me around 10:40pm because that’s our eta in the property just to make sure all of us can get in using the QR code. He promised he will, but he NEVER did! 2 cars were able to use QR code (mine and another 1 of my guests) because the guard was occupied. Unfortunately when my guests’ last 2 cars tried, they were stopped by the guard and that was just the start of the second nightmare! Apparently, this community-Champions Gate (where the property is) have very strict rules that all drivers must be listed and given to them and they said the owner only sent my name to them which allows me to enter with 1 car! We offered so many temporary and considerable solutions because it was freaking almost 1am and we were all tired! We even told them we will leave all the drivers licenses, vrbo spoke to them as well (yes I called vrbo again because they did not call me!) but to no success! They want all the other cars to park OUTSIDE the premises! There was no safe place to park nearby!! They said to park them by the Publix store, they said they won’t be towed. But we cannot take the risk! We rented these cars and we are responsible for them. There was long and frustrating conversation to the community’s security supervisor, he only folded when my sister in law demanded a written statement that they (the community-Champions Gate) will be responsible to anything that will happen to our rented cars when parked outside the premises. That was when they let us all in but still didn’t give the 3 cars parking pass! That was 1:57am!!! Imagine that long hours of nonsense, preventable waste of time! And then I told the vrbo agent that I had been talking to that night that they need to solve the problem the moment Jeeves’ cs opens which is 8am because although we were allowed to get in and park by the property’s parking, the guard said the 3 cars can still get towed because they don’t have parking pass that should be displayed by the dashboard of each cars. He promised they will solve it 8-9am and call me once it’s resolved. Guess what? They never called me!! These people are liars and frankly so hard to understand and they also have hard time understanding everything because they obviously are not in USA (I’m guessing India) and they only learned English to get the job!! I woke up 10:20, checked my vrbo property owner chat, NO ONE replied to all my messages from last night’s nightmare (coz I dis sent a lot of msgs)! Called Jeeves cs, they had no idea of what happened to me and my guests and vrbo didn’t call them! I called and solved the problem, not vrbo, not the property owner!

I am writing to file a formal complaint about VRBO’s payout process, high fees, and extremely poor customer service.
I have now completed two bookings on the platform. For the first one, I had to wait the full 30 days as a new host. For this second booking, I was told I would have to wait another 3 to 5 business days after disbursement. When I called my bank today, they confirmed there are no pending deposits from VRBO. If the payment had been sent today, I would have received it today — but nothing is showing up.
VRBO’s standard process is to release payouts approximately one business day after guest check-in, yet the money takes 5–7 business days (or longer) to actually reach my bank. On top of that, hosts are charged a 5% commission fee (on the rental amount plus any mandatory guest fees like cleaning) plus a 3% payment processing fee on the total guest payment (including taxes and refundable damage deposits). This adds up to roughly 8% in total fees per booking, plus whatever service/booking fees the guest pays. These extra fees just to receive my own money feel ridiculous and excessive.
When I ask representatives or supervisors why the payouts take so long and why VRBO cannot match Airbnb’s next-day payment model, they dance around the question and never provide a clear or satisfactory answer. It really seems like VRBO has very little respect for hosts. We put in significant time, energy, cleaning, preparation, and effort to welcome guests and maintain our homes, yet the platform does not honor us with timely payments or transparent support.
This has been a complete nightmare, especially for hosts who need reliable and fast access to their earnings. As a direct result of these ongoing issues — slow payouts, high additional fees, lack of transparency, and unhelpful customer service — I have already blocked all of my dates for the rest of 2026 and 2027. As soon as my current guests check out on April 13, I will be canceling my entire VRBO account and will not be returning.
I would not recommend VRBO to any other host who is looking for timely payments or good support. Airbnb pays hosts the very next day with far fewer complications, and VRBO should be striving to do better instead of making the experience more difficult.
Please escalate this complaint immediately to your leadership or executive team for review.
Thank you,

My mom rented a property and when got there the nightmare started. From not being able to get into the property and on. The first thing was that the host was not responding to her emails until we contacted VRBO directly and it was past the check in time. After he gave my mom the lock box code, we went to the property and couldn't get in. He eventually sent his dad and the nightmare continued to unfold, he opened the door and all you smelled was mold. The house was nothing like it looked in the photos posted online; tape was all over the light switches, old dirty furniture inside of home it wasn't cleaned it was awful. Immediately we asked the man to contact his son he did, and we let him know that we would not be staying at the property especially in the condition it's in. Afterwards my mom contacted VRBO for a refund they stayed they could only give her $144 credit to her account after she spent $1500 for the rental. Vrbo contacted the host and he stated that he wouldn't be giving her a refund. I don't think that is right not only is the host wrong for taking someone's money fraudulently, but Vrbo should offer some kind of refund or compensation when this happens.

Terrible customer service on the chat site and directly talking to customer service