u/Forsaken-Run7725

I decided to stop taking new reservations on VRBO after 10/28 (last checkout Nov. 1st), but requests keep coming in. The guests I'm getting are really something else though.

"Are you sure no one smoked in your condo?" That's what no smoking means, sir.

"I heard the weather might be bad. Is this true?" Yes, we sometimes have bad weather, sir.

"Why are you renting your place in the off-season? There's nothing OPEN!" -Why did *you* book then, sir?

For context, my condos are on a mountaintop at a MTB/ski resort. My VRBO guests skew older and they are by far the worst people I deal with. They do zero research before deciding to come here and it's just not a good destination for the ancient and infirm.

It can be cold in the middle of summer. It starts snowing in October. Nothing is handicap accessible and there's very little to do if you have mobility issues and your typical vaca is on a cruise ship. Yet they keep coming and wanting to book...the end of October can't get here soon enough 😩

Just posted an announcement on all my listings that I won't be taking any new reservations on VRBO after Oct. 28th.

I'm so happy to finally be free of this horrible company. My relief is immeasurable!

UPDATE: My decision seems wiser by the day. Just found out the new VRBO TOS contains rules about not charging more on their site than on others, and also about off-platform bookings that they will charge you commission for if they believe the booking "lead" came from VRBO but you took the guest's payment somewhere else.

If you plan to remain on VRBO, you better dig into all those new TOS clauses they've added or you might have problems down the road. Here's one to start with: https://www.reddit.com/r/vrbo/comments/1wtj1p9/comment/pcxvm3l/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

I've offered NR option all this past summer and it was working fine: for check in dates from 14-60 days out, guest was shown the option. Less than 14 days out or more than 60 days out, they were not eligible. I verified this myself by checking incognito. I have a firm cancellation policy normally, and that's what determines the dates guests are eligible for NR.

Today, a guest booked for 10/2-10/4. He was given my last minute discount AND he was offered the non-refundable discount which he took. Nothing against the guest. I'd take that too when my reservation was already non-refundable. But that's not how it was working right up until last night. I know because I had another last minute booking yesterday and that guy wasn't offered the extra discount.

CS is useless as usual. But here's the funny part: I read the policy again on Airbnb and it seems to have changed. Now it says the NR option is only available until 14 days before check in, which makes no sense at all. So I asked AI to explain the policy like I was five and I will post its answers below. Spoiler: AI agreed that it had to be a glitch that allowed the guest to stack those two discounts.

UPDATE: They've opted to pay me off without acknowledging the glitch, let alone committing to fix it. Farewell NR option. It was nice while it worked :(

As a 5 year premier host, I have finally reached my breaking point with this company.

All our worst guests are VRBO bookers. They don't read or respond to any messages we send them or know how to find their check in instructions, so we often get angry phone calls on check in day and post-stay reviews blaming us for not helping enough. For context, we post to their inbox, post in the access instructions box, send a text to their phone number on record, and if we hear nothing back, we send an email as well. Short of hiring carrier pigeons, I don't know what more could be expected of us.

Virtually any problem with a VRBO booking requires one or more long phone calls with "customer service" who yammer 1000s of words of barely comprehensible nonsense in your ear while accomplishing nothing. Your inability to get any help for your guest despite your best efforts will also be blamed on you. Things I could fix on Airbnb in minutes are intractable issues for VRBO. The only solutions offered will cost you money, even when the problem is 100% on the guest.

The final straw was a guy who booked last week for this coming week when he meant to book for today. 9am I get a message in my inbox: 'please confirm that you got my request to change dates to today through Wednesday' plus his email address he wanted to be contacted at which VRBO blanked out (lmfao)

I then spent 90 of the most frustrating minutes of my life trying to help the guy move his check in to today. Long story short, guest proceeded to book a different place and then VRBO's rep tried to help him defraud us by asking for a date change far enough in the future that he could then cancel for free. This was particularly infuriating since that same rep insisted he couldn't help change the guests stay to the dates he meant to book in the first place!

When even the VRBO rep, whose salary you pay, is working against you, it's time to call it quits. I just blocked all my availability for this coming winter, the season VRBO makes the most money from me. Congrats to Airbnb on being the least bad option. You're going to make a lot more off my listings this winter than you usually do.

UPDATE: It's 6PM. I'm just sitting down to dinner. Receive email from VRBO:

"This is Jamila from Vrbo Technical Support, following up on your Technical Support Case

I want to start by sincerely apologizing for the delay in getting back to you. I understand how important it is to resolve reservation issues quickly, and I’m truly sorry for any inconvenience or frustration this may have caused, especially when you were unable to modify the dates of your reservation.

I’m following up regarding reservation HA-25GS4F and your request to modify the dates. I’ve now updated the reservation from Mon, Sep 21 – Wed, Sep 23 to Mon, Sep 14 – Wed, Sep 16. "

WTAFFFFFFF!!!!!

I just kinda lost it at that point. Another 2 hours on the phone, berating one idiot after another, getting hung up on, berating them some more. Repeating over and over: "You did this! You fix it!"

And it worked. They finally agreed to cancel the reservation, refund the guest, and I still get my payout. My VRBO calendar will remain closed. I will never trust those clowns with my business again.

The end.

Go look in incognito mode. You'll see what I mean.

EDIT: Thanks all for the tip on going full screen. That's the only thing that fixed it for me. Which sucks because I exclusively use smaller screens on my Mac. Oh well :(

I have 4 properties listed and 3 are showing pictures I didn't choose as my cover/thumbnail in search. One shows the view out the window, one shows our newly half-completed back deck, and one shows the kitchen. None of these are great choices for the main photo people see when browsing places to stay.

But when I look at my competitors in the same search, it seems I got off easy. They show, in no particular order, photos of the local Starbucks, the golf club several miles away, a public swimming pool, common areas of their condo complex, a dimly lit hallway, a bank of elevators in their building, a coffee maker?

This is what VRBO meant when they said they were going to rearrange our photos for us. Yikes

https://preview.redd.it/8bxbjwiwq8ih1.png?width=406&format=png&auto=webp&s=d7332492c21d66500542bd49f9f5db756ce4889b

https://preview.redd.it/cvzs9wiwq8ih1.png?width=406&format=png&auto=webp&s=dcf3865e2cb71ced8f89b1e25b9b93a9545a146c

https://preview.redd.it/evofnwiwq8ih1.png?width=406&format=png&auto=webp&s=fdfec9d8704c64559201740254ef9496cad6fb75

https://preview.redd.it/bh5l1xiwq8ih1.png?width=406&format=png&auto=webp&s=76515bc58b7de2904355a8f0ed7a4f70c4ad0e19

I do VRBO searches incognito every day to see how my pricing looks next to competitors. It's wild some of the stuff you see from a guest's point of view.

Yesterday morning I noticed a lot of the listing titles were oddly short--5-6 words long max. Then I saw mine and knew VRBO had changed it.

I can see the title I wrote but only by scrolling all the way down past VRBO's AI generated "highlights." Anyone else seeing this?