Vrbo Owner

We have mostly had wonderful guests book our home through VRBO. However, we have had a few bad apples & would not have accepted their booking if VRBO required written responses from hosts instead of just the star rating. The fact that VRBO allows for guests to write a written review for hosts, but hosts just give a star rating, shows how heavily your favor towards guests is. We as owners have a lot more to lose if something goes wrong, it is our property after all. For this reason, we stopped allowing instant booking since we had no ability to filter any potential issues beforehand. Our last guests had no star ratings on VRBO yet they had booked on VRBO before. They ended up arriving 3 hours before check in, had 3 extra guests that they did not pay or book for, & it was a huge hassle to try & resolve it while they were in our home. If VRBO allows hosts to give a detailed, written review for guests, it would allow hosts to have a better idea of who the guests are & we could choose if they were a good fit or not. I can only think VRBO gives more power to the guests as it means more money for VRBO, that’s not good business. Thankfully there are far more wonderful guests than not, giving the owners the ability to give a detailed rating would not harm the amount of bookings VRBO gets, rather it would help filter out the disrespectful guests who owners have the right to be warned about. Keep the system that both owner & guest have to write a review before they are allowed to view their review, it keeps the reviews unbiased. I know many other hosts who have this same grievance with VRBO, it’s a simple fix. Please remember owners are why you have a business

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.

Although I love the idea of it, I am disappointed in the owner app - at least the mobile version. I just spent a half hour trying to figure out how to look at pricing so I could tell a potential guest how much of a discount they get for an extended stay. Finally, I had to look at the quote and multiply it out. Also, I still haven’t found where to change pricing if I need to - even using help! I guess that’s the long way of saying it could be more intuitive - I have a hard time finding what I need to be responsive. I also really dislike the little note that pops up to tell me I lost a booking. Your company works hard to create a community of owners, and then you set us up as competitors who win or lose bookings. Not every property will be appropriate or desirable for every traveler, and a savvy individual will look at a number of properties before selecting one. To tell me I lost a booking makes me angry, when I suspect the intent is to cause me to look at how I could have “won” the booking. Maybe I could lower my price, maybe I could add a bedroom or put in a pool... The fact is, my house is what it is. I can’t change its location or the number of bedrooms. It is well appointed with every amenity I can add. But it will not be perfect for every traveler, so to say that I “lost” a booking to my neighbor implies failure that simply isn’t there. I think there must be a better way to offer helpful comparisons without pitting owners against each other.