We haven’t even gone on our holiday yet, and this has already been the most stressful and frustrating booking experience I’ve ever had.We booked an apartment in Spain through VRBO and made the full payment on April 8th, as required by the owner's terms and conditions. We received an email confirmation from VRBO, so we believed everything was in order.Then, on May 26th, VRBO unexpectedly called me claiming our payment was 47 days overdue and insisted we pay again. I thought it was a scam. I called my credit card company, who confirmed the original payment had definitely gone through.Soon after, the property owner contacted us to say the payment was showing as overdue on his VRBO dashboard and if we didn't make payment within 24 hours he would have to cancel the booking . He sent us a new quote! The stress this caused was completely unnecessary.I spent almost an hour on the phone with VRBO to find out what was going on , but the advisor was useless . Later that evening , the owner forwarded me an email from VRBO which confirmed it was a system error at their end and confirming the payment had in fact been received. He apologised for the stress caused. That should have been the end of it — but it wasn't!!It’s now May 28th, and the owner has contacted me yet again – his dashboard still shows the payment as overdue. Now VRBO have told him they can’t confirm if the payment has been made and have passed the issue to their “technical team” for investigation, with no timeline for resolution.Meanwhile, we’ve booked flights ( which are non refundable ), taken time off work & booked our hire car — and now our accommodation is at risk because of VRBO’s internal system failure.The owner is clearly stressed too, as he doesn’t get paid until his dashboard shows the payment has been made. We’ve fulfilled our part and paid in full — over seven weeks ago and we have email confirmation of the payment being made.⚠️ This is unacceptable.VRBO is handling people’s holidays and thousands in payments — they have a responsibility to get it right. Their systems are unreliable, their support is ineffective, and they’ve left both the guest and the host in limbo.Avoid VRBO at all costs.There are plenty of other booking platforms that won’t risk your holiday, your money, and your sanity.UPDATE: 30/05/25 : Don’t be misled by the replies VRBO leaves on negative reviews — I have not been contacted by anyone, and this issue remains unresolved.Yesterday, I reached out via their live chat. The advisor I spoke to called me back and said he would transfer me to a supervisor. After being placed on hold for 30 minutes, I was cut off!!The amount of time I’ve spent this week trying to get this resolved is absolutely ridiculous. To make matters worse, the property owner has now said that if the payment does not appear on his dashboard today, he will cancel our booking.This level of service is unacceptable, especially when there’s a real risk of losing our reservation due to VRBO’s failure to process the payment properly. I have never dealt with such an incompetent company, please listen to all the negative reviews on this website and AVOID.UPDATE 19TH JUNE: for anyone reading all these negative reviews I just wanted to provide a further update to say the issue has still not been resolved after nearly a month!!! Customer service is non existent, I have sent countless emails asking for an update, my VRBO account still shows full payment hasn't been made . No one gets back to you, don't be fooled by the comments you see on this site. I have never experienced such awful aftercare **AVOID THIS BOOKING PLATFORM AT ALL COSTS **
