The Truth About VRBO Book With Confidence Guarantee

What’s up with VRBO posting all over the internet that they can “guarantee” your booking? This has got to be the biggest crock of bs that I’ve seen in a while. I mean yea, if something goes wrong you get your money back, right? Whoopty do!

As an owner of a vacation property I can tell you straight up that VRBO can guarantee absolutely nothing about my property. I think I speak on behalf of most vacation rental owners that VRBO cannot guarantee anything about their properties either. Without this post getting too long I want to touch on the major points of VRBO’s “Book With Confidence Guarantee“.

• VRBO says, “100% of your security deposit is covered if it’s wrongfully withheld” – Again I say whoopty do! If you pay with your credit card or with paypal your security deposit is also covered by them if it is wrongfully withheld.  Take notice to VRBO’s caveat here: “wrongfully withheld”.  Who gets to decide that?  Something tells me it’s not you!
• VRBO says they, “Protect 100% of your payment against things like listing fraud, phishing, property significantly misrepresented, wrongful denial of entry, or uninhabitable property upon arrival.“ – Um, so does that little 1-800 number on the back of your credit card.  So does Paypal’s dispute process.
• VRBO says, “Find another vacation rental should your booking be cancelled by an owner or manager at the last minute.” – So let me get this straight. If the reservation is cancelled then we’ll have to look for another rental? Isn’t that what we all would do? I’m really not seeing any value in this at all, and certainly not something worth paying over $100 for.

Don’t get me wrong, now. I usually don’t bother other companies when they post their little gimmicks to try to drum up business. Where I do get rustled up is when VRBO makes guarantees about my property and other owners’ properties, none of which have been granted to VRBO. I have never given authorization to VRBO to make guarantees about my property. Only I make guarantees about my property.

VRBO has a lot of vacation rental owners mad at them right now because of the greedy tactics they are employing since they were purchased by Expedia a while back. The owner community has been busy educating the public of VRBO’s tactics over the past year, and it’s paying off. If VRBO knew what was good for them they would focus on being a lead generation website instead of trying to pass themselves off as some sort of online travel agency.

If you take away nothing else from this please know this. There is no possible way VRBO can make guarantees about properties they do not own. Only an owner can do that. Avoid unnecessary VRBO service fees. Book directly with the owner. Protect your purchase by paying with your credit card or Paypal!

Happy Vacationing!