VRBO's New Penalties

[Lauren Kormylo]

For everyone who thinks Vrbo is so great, they now have harsher penalties when a guest can't get into your property.  They sent an email this morning to say that if a guest can't access your property and can't reach you within one hour, you'll be charged 100% of the booking fee and may be suspended and future bookings cancelled!  I understand that guests need to get into your property, but in the case of a lock malfunction, one hour to resolve it or else face those penalties is outrageous.  This isn't just when checking in, but during their entire stay.

The email:

"When a guest can’t gain access to a property to complete their stay, it’s more than just a bad experience—it can shake guests’ trust in vacation rentals altogether. To help prevent these situations and boost traveler confidence, we’re introducing an update to the Host-Initiated Cancellation Policy outlining our policy on denied entry, effective October 1, 2025.

Starting in September, if a guest is denied entry to their booked stay or unable to access the property to complete their stay, and we’re unable to reach the host within a reasonable amount of time to find a resolution:

• It will be treated as a host-initiated cancellation due to denied entry.
  
• Hosts may be charged a cancellation fee equal to 100% of the original booking amount for denying entry.
  
• Other fees for host-initiated cancellations remain the same:
  
  • Cancel less than 48 hours before check-in: Fee = 50% of booking amount.
    
  • Cancel more than 48 hours but within 30 days of check-in: Fee = 25% of booking amount.
    
  • Cancel more than 30 days before check-in: Fee = 10%.
    
• The listing may also be suspended and future bookings may be cancelled to prevent other guests from being unable to check in. See our Host-initiated Cancellation policy to learn more or visit help.vrbo.com for assistance."

So I went to their site for their required response times:

Host response timeframes

You must answer guests’ questions about critical stay information in accordance with the timeframe below:

• On the guest’s check-in day and during their stay: answer within one hour for questions received between 8 am and 9 pm in the property’s time zone. For questions received out of hours, answer as soon as reasonably possible and by 9 am the following day at the latest. 
• 
  Note: You must provide a resolution to the specific
  issue/question or inform the guest when it will be resolved. Using an
  ‘automatic reply’ is not sufficient.

As usual, Vrbo even screwed up this email, saying the effective date is Oct. 1 but then saying this starts in September.  

I just had a call from one of their reps a few days ago, trying to get me to switch to instant booking.  I told them no way, because the platforms don't sync immediately and your penalties for double booking are too high!  And here we go with more outrageous penalties. 

[Collin Hays]

Quote from @Jules Aton:

Are there reasonable options other than VRBO and Airbnb? Isn't someone here tech savvy enough to provide an alternative? ;) The Vacasa rentals I have seen as a prospective guest don't seem to be all that nice and reviews aren't great in my opinion. 

Many have been asking this question for a long time.  Is there an alternative to Meta, Google, Apple, or Amazon?  Not really.