Just completed a VRBO rental. Would not recommend. It was very pricey -- mostly fees that go to the cleaning service and platform. The photos looked great, and all the reviews looked great, but now I know why. There's a lot of pressure now to leave positive reviews.
Ours was an owner managed property in a more rural lake area, which I believe led to some of our issues:
1. VRBO owners review the renters. But as a renter, you can't see what the host rated you as until you post a review of your own. VRBO keeps hounding you with emails, "you won't see what they said about you, until you post a review!" Nightmare.
2. I wasn't going to post a review, because I didn't believe our negative experience was all the fault of the owner. But VRBO kept hounding me, with emails. So yeah, I wrote a fair review, not the glowing 5 star review that everyone else before me had left.
3. The description of the property, which was fairly rural, stated that there were several restaurants open for use in the area. Actually, that wasn't true. A lot of them were closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. Too bad, that was when we were staying there. So we were stuck with only a Pilot type large gas station to go to in order to get supplies for dinner.
4. Finally, the manager warned that there were lots of cameras on the property so "don't even try to bring a pet, or smoke on the property." Well, we weren't planning on doing either. What I didn't realize was the the owner lived within just a few feet of the property and I was pretty sure watched us like a hawk. She warned us that she worked near by, but not to worry, she wouldn't come over without letting us know. Well, when we left early, just because there was nothing to do in the area (closed restaurants on Monday etc.), I got a text from the owner within 5 minutes of pulling out of the driveway. "Hey, is everything okay? Just checking in!" -- So yeah, she was watching us. Super creepy.
5. Then she questioned my review of the property which was very positive, except for the lack of restaurants in the area open, contrary to the description, and the trains that come very close by all night. The owner sent me an email through the platform, "what restaurants are you talking about?" as if I had been lying. When I told her that the Lake view restaurants were the ones closed, and those were the ones we wanted to go to, because the house was on a Lake, she just responded, "oh. okay."
My impression of VRBO? If it's owner managed, I won't touch it. Something is up with their review pressure process. Maybe resort managed is okay.
I used to be a VRBO host and don't remember this kind of ridiculousness every happening. Things have changed.
