Reasons not to use VRBO - Do not use them until you have read this!!

Expedia / VRBO

Firstly I'm going by sharing our disappointing experience with VRBO. 

VBRO is expedia's equivalent to AirBNB. We booked this trip via Expedia who booked a room for us via VRBO. Our experience was a stressful  expensive mistake and one will never make again as we will never use VRBO again, it's not worth the risk. 

We booked this trip in March 2024.

We booked 6 Nights at Magnificent Tyn temple view, city centre apt, 13 Rybná, Hlavní mesto Praha, 110 00  the host was Magdalena Radvanova. We paid £457 (€577)

In August 2024 Magdalena messaged me to say the room is no longer available and requested that I went online and I cancelled the booking and tell them I no longer needed the room. I assumed the reason was to stop them being hit with a penalty from vrbo for cancelling the room. After a length discussion lasting a couple of weeks vrbo eventually stepped in to sort the issue out and refunded us our money. 

We stupidly used vrbo again to book the next apartment on September 3rd:

CHARMING FLAT IN THE CITY CENTRE https://www.vrbo.com/4088332

Due to the time that had passed the room now cost  £590 ($770) so over £130 approximately more than the last room. The apartment looked nice and location looked good. 

On 26 November just 1 month before we was due to travel we got a message from the host saying they was cancelling our booking again!!!!! They refunded our money and left us with no accommodation with just 4 weeks left. 

At this point I literally searched and searched for hours each day looking for rooms, apartments etc to stay in the same area I had previously booked the prices now started at £1100+

I managed to book the ibis Praha Wenceslas Square at a cost of £985. That's right!!!... £528 more than we had originally paid for our apartment on vrbo. The new year trip had became an expensive nightmare before we even went. This was the first time I had used vrbo and having had both bookings called leaving me with a huge extra cost to bear it will be the last time I ever take the risk again.

I have used AirBNB for years and never once had this problem.