I recently booked a 4 night stay in a privately owned apartment in Sitges through Expedia. We were due to arrive at the property on the 12th of April 2025. I had not received any check-in information by the day before we were due to arrive, so I followed the instructions on my booking confirmation which was to contact the host directly. I tried but there was no reply. There had still been no reply by the time we had arrived in Sitges. The additional information emails referred to in a confirmation email, including the ‘’link to a Vrbo account’ that I was supposed to receive, had not arrived.I then tried to get help using the Vrbo live chat function. I was given some phone numbers, all of which were numbers with a +33 code (France). None of the numbers picked up. I left a voicemail. After a number of exchanges and disingenuous promises of help, the second Vrbo agent I communicated with eventually just referred me back to Expedia and then terminated the chat. Meanwhile I was In Sitges, having nowhere to stay despite having paid up front for it.I did eventually manage to get through to a person at Vrbo on the telephone who I explained my situation to (again). They told me that as it was past check-in time (which was 16:00) and neither me or Vrbo could get hold of the host, I could get a full refund and go ahead and book somewhere else. Although I had already provided it, the agent told me to provide them with my Vrbo booking reference again in order to do this. I did not have access to the booking reference as it was on an email on my phone and the battery had drained. I was therefore using my partners’s phone by this time.Because I had been told we could have a refund, we went ahead and booked somewhere else for the rest of our stay.We found a cafe with wifi and I charged my phone. When I called back, I was told I absolutely could NOT have a refund, in complete contradiction to what I had been told before. We asked to speak to a supervisor who said that whilst they had the authority to issue a refund they would not unless the owner agreed to it. They did not...I believe this is misrepresentation: I booked with Expedia, and was told to expect communication from Vrbo and the host, neither of which happened. All of these third parties provided opportunities for one party to blame another. Clearly the host did not receive my messages, either because (by their own admission) their ‘phone didn’t work’ or because they had tried to contact me on the app ‘Abritel’ which I had never heard of and had not at any point been invited to use.I booked with Expedia in good faith. It was reasonable for me to have expected to have been given the information I needed to enable me check in at the published time (16:00). When I reached out for help, this was not forthcoming, instead, the host decided they deserved to keep my money which was (for obvious reasons) a decision fully supported by Vrbo and Expedia.
