Updated 1 day ago on . Most recent reply
- Rental Property Investor
- Phoenix, AZ and Rehoboth Beach DE
- 1,090
- Votes |
- 899
- Posts
VRBO's New Penalties
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%.
- Cancel less than 48 hours before check-in: Fee = 50% of booking amount.
- 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.
Most Popular Reply
- Property Manager
- Orlando Kissimmee, Davenport
- 1,318
- Votes |
- 903
- Posts
The basic premise is reasonable.
The policy is not.
Remember, this is a 100% fine ON TOP of a 100% refund. A fine paid not to the guest, but to vrbo, who just pockets it and adds it to their balance sheet.
There is no other business in the world that operates under the threat of those kind of consequences. Because no other business in the world would be dumb enough to accept that. And hosts aren't even necessarily businesses, this may just be a regular person lending out their home, which is actually kind of the intent of the platform. We are a management company with employees so this won't affect us. But it ticks me off for all the regular hosts out there that are doing this casually, as VRBO/Airbnb very much encourage them to do.
But even worse is the vague terminology. Leaving it up to be judged for you by a $2/hr overseas CSR that are known to be complete wildcards.
So you're driving on a family trip to Vegas, and your cell phone cuts out of service for a bit. Then you find out that your guest arrived and tried to enter but instead of putting 1234*, they forgot the * and couldn't get in. So they messaged, but you were driving. So VRBO tells the guest they get a full refund for their incompetency and meanwhile fine you an additional $3000 on top of that, which they then keep for themselves.
Imagine if that was the way business worked. Business would cease to exist.
And more importantly, why are average joe STR hosts held to a standard so much higher than billion dollar corporations with full time support staff?
We had a flight home from Seattle on Alaska Air the other day. It was canceled due to crew logistics issues. We had to wait in line for 3 hours (is that "a reasonable amount of time"?) to try and re-book while our young kids sat in a crowded walkway with our 8 checked bags to finally get re-booked on a flight 29 hours later.
If we accepted that flight, we got no refund, but a $125 travel credit on future bookings, only with Alaska Air of course.
Likewise we had a direct flight we booked on Delta to Puerta Vallarta in October. Delta canceled it because it wasn't filling up and not worth the fuel expense. Did Delta pay a 50% fine for that host initiated cancelation on top of the refund? Of course not.
Sorry, I like you man, but "Reasonable" is not a reasonable word to use. The policy is absurd.
- Ryan Moyer
