Vacation Rentals by Owners (VRBO) is an Expedia subsidiary and a member of the HomeAway family of services. Currently, Vrbo.com has more than one million listings offering the same benefits as renting directly from a property owner. That’s the main thing that makes their service unique in the worldwide vacation property rental market. VRBO can be found at www.vrbo.com as well as in social media on Facebook, Google+, and Twitter.
The original website was created in Aurora, Colorado in 1995 by David Clouse. He created it to rent out his ski resort condo in Breckenridge. His website later morphed into a service for homeowners listing their short-term accommodation rentals. In those long-ago days before the Internet, vacation rental services had to be offered using management services, classified ads, and rental property compilations that were simply based on a variety of destinations. During the first ten years, Vrbo.com gradually grew to where it was listing more than 65,000 rentals.
What is vrbo.com?
It’s a rental property listing site that matches people looking for vacation rentals with an extensive list of property owners with vacation homes for rent. It began with an annual subscription model for homeowners to list a beach house, cabin, or condo, on the Vrbo.com website. Later, when it became a division of Expedia.com Group, an option with a simple per-rental fee option (and no annual fee) was introduced.
Listings on Vrbo.com can get a property posted on all the company’s affiliated sites, which can seriously increase the overall exposure. Vrbo.com was acquired in 2006 by HomeAway, and then both companies were acquired in December 2015 by Expedia Group. In July 2020, the HomeAway and VRBO.com websites became one single VRBO.com website.
What are the different home rental property types?
Unlike one of its major competitors, Airbnb.com, VRBO.com only rents out entire properties, including beach houses, cabins, and condos. They don’t rent out rooms or any partial properties. In fact, of their two million properties located in more than 190 countries, everyone is an entire home with no single-room-sharing inside of any homes available whatsoever.
What are the VRBO Payment Options?
With the Vrbo.com payment system, you can pay for your entire reservation via the online platform using:
~ American Express,
~ Checks (for some properties),
~ Mastercard,
~ Paypal (with InstantBook in certain cases)
~ Visa.
Bookings that you pay for outside of their checkout process will not be covered by their “Book with Confidence Guarantee”. And remember that you shouldn’t ever send a payment via money services such as Western Union or MoneyGram. And much like many vacation property rental sites today, the Vrbo.com prices can often be negotiable.
Do they have an app?
Yes, VRBO.com has an excellent mobile app for travelers, however, it’s only currently available for iPhone and iPad in the App Store. With it, you can book securely from your tablet or phone and search from more than two million unique accommodations worldwide in more than 190 countries as well as collaborate with family and friends via the VRBO.com Trip Boards. The app is available in the following languages:
– English,
– Danish,
– Dutch,
– Finnish,
– French,
– German,
– Italian,
– Japanese,
– Norwegian (Bokmål),
– Portuguese,
– Spanish,
– Swedish.
Can you become a host/rent your house on vrbo?
Yes, if you have multiple available properties, there’s a two-step process for becoming what they call “a VRBO.com Premier Partner. First, you must start by allowing online bookings and enabling online payments. Also, at least ten percent of your listings need to have five or more bookings and at least three guest reviews within a one-year period. You can control the availability of your accommodation rentals, your chosen pricing, and even who stays there. VRBO can get your vacation property rental in front of literally millions of savvy travelers looking for the best place to stay, thereby boosting your overall revenue and increasing your bottom line exponentially.
Customer Service & Refunds
For contacting VRBO.com Corporate, simply call their toll-free phone number 1-303-680-9280 24/7 at their headquarters at Suite 300, 1011 W. Fifth Street, Austin, TX 78703. You can also contact support via their email address, support@vrbo.com.
If you must cancel your booking with Vrbo.com booking and request a refund, you can complete the entire process via the VRBO.com website by:
- Logging in to your VRBO account,
- Clicking on “My Trips”,
- Choosing the booking you want to cancel,
- Selecting “Manage your booking” in the “Details” tab,
- Hitting “Cancel booking”.
To contact a vacation property rental, proceed by:
- Locating the listing,
- Click the “Ask a host a question” link (on the right-hand side of the “listing details” page,
- Logging in or creating a new account (if not already logged in),
- Filling out the online form for sending a message to a host,
- Clicking “Send”.
You can also find help here or by writing a letter to the VRBO CEO Brian Sharples at VRBO, 1011 West 5th Street, Ste. 300, Austin, TX 78703. Also, the corporate phone number is 512-684-1100.
Final Thoughts on our VRBO.com Reviews 2021
There are obviously some similarities between VRBO.com and Airbnb.com, so here are some of those plus some vast differences as well. All in all, VRBO.com is all about comfortable family stays, which is why the site only accepts entire properties and never allows anyone to advertise a shared space of any kind. When comparing VRBO.com to Airbnb.com, although both are in the business of providing short-term rental accommodations, VRBO.com is much better suited for longer stays than Airbnb.com. In addition, VRBO.com offers not only a Trust & Safety page but also an excellent Book with Confidence Guarantee. On the other hand, Airbnb.com only has a Trust & Safety page. It’s important to note, however, that VRBO.com does charge a “refundable security deposit” (at the time of your booking) to the credit card that you’re using. This is certainly good news for hosts but perhaps not so much if you’re a traveler.
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