Online travel agencies, like HomeAway, VRBO, and Airbnb make it easy to search a wide variety of accommodations, but what you gain in convenience you lose in benefits and protections. Even worse is the price you pay for this convenience - 4% to 20% of your total reservation costs.
Oops! VRBO has done it again. They have taken yet another step to rebrand themselves as a booking site straying from their roots as an advertising platform for owners and property managers. In short, they’ve removed external phone numbers, enforced mandatory online bookings, and are transitioning communication with users into a monitored, unbranded dashboard. What’s the reasoning behind it? They say it’s to reduce guest confusion, but it seems like they are playing a dangerous game of copycat, mimicking their once successful model to look like Airbnb’s, their largest competitor.
