Would you prefer to book through Vrbo or Booking.com?

[Saracen]

The house we want to book for next month is available through both sites. Any opinions on which has better T&Cs or is better at dealing with problems?

Mostly I am concerned about the possibility of having the booking cancelled by the owner at short notice.

Vrbo actually makes me nervous because they don't seem to want any money whatsoever until a week before the holiday, so I feel like the owner might not see it as a firm commitment to book.

Owners don’t get money from booking either until after you leave. We have rental, booking makes guests pay them potentially months in advance, but we only get paid approximately 14 days after guests have left.

Both have pretty severe penalties for people who cancel bookings, as does Air BnB.

Booking.com are rubbish. We had a holiday booked months in advance, host sold the flat and we were told about a month before our holiday that the accommodation no longer existed and they had no obligation to find us anything. Luckily we got somewhere with a different company.

It's not really a fair comparison because I've never had a complaint about Vrbo so there's never been the potential for them to handle it badly but I will never book with booking.com again it's too much of a risk for the holiday being ruined and I'd be a fool to risk it with the again.

We use Booking . Com six times a year and never ever had a problem. Always villas.

Always use booking.com, the only time there was an issue (owner cancelled on us) they found a replacement

Vrbo has topcashback and booking.com doesn't, that would tip it for me if no other reasons!

Booking.com charged me twice for a hotel stay, wouldn't speak to me, wouldn't give me my money back, wouldn't speak to hotel who tried the times to tell them they'd made a mistake... In the end my credit card had to intervene and take the money back from them, but I had three weeks off hell with them denying to the card company they'd taken the payments twice even though I could prove it! I will never, ever book anything with them again.

I much prefer booking though as owner, and we use a lot for own holidays with no issues. Never really heard of vrbo tbh

Air band b make it really complicated. They also had awkward fee system that either guests have to pay, or if owners opt to pay it just makes our daily fee higher, rather than showing our fee includes all booking and cleaning, so no extras.

Really? Oh, that is very reassuring.

Me too. I haven't been able to find anything suitable on this occasion, however. I tried searching that particular house to see if the owners had direct booking, but they don't seem to.

Oh wow, I didn't know that. It seems like a money-spinner for Booking.com in these days of high interest rates!

@Saracen - indeed. Many of our guests book a year in advance. So booking if guests opt for the pay now option then booking could have the money in their account for a year gaining interest.
Where as hosts have to pay for new replacement items, upgrades etc before they have actually been paid.

TBF if the owner sells the property there's not a lot any agency can do about it . We had this happen with an apartment we had booked through VRBO. The managing agents for the apartment who marketed through VRBO offered us another apartment which they managed but it was in Alcudia whereas we wanted Puerto Pollenca so we got our deposit back and booked somewhere else . Cost us a fortune as there was limited availability by that time .

We have had a few problems when we've booked hotel accommodation in the UK through Booking - and costs advised by the hotel haven't matched what we paid on Booking but haven't really used for booking accommodation abroad apart from when it was very short notice (same day booking and the apartment manager met us within two hours!)

It certainly pays to look at the different agencies though - if only to get a bigger overview of reviews .

Be aware that individual owners will have their own cancellation policies rather than an overarching one through the agency . And also that you will get other companies such as Interhome or Sykes cottages which use VRBO for marketing but neither are the actual property owner .

That's not quite true - it depends on the individual property . Some offer free cancellation up until a couple of weeks before the holiday date /. Others offer no cancellation notice at all . Depends on the owner .

You misunderstood me. I was replying to the OP who was worried about the owner cancelling, I wasn't talking about guest cancellation as this wasn't the question I was answering.

All 3 have penalties for owners who cancel bookings, so it shouldn't be a common thing for owners to cancel. I've honoured bookings where I made a mistake with pricing ( the bookings were 12 months away) for example as I didn't want a huge fine from booking.com

Yes owners just can’t cancel bookings easily. We have min 5 night stay, Air b and b somehow allowed a 1 night booking. It took me about 3 hrs on the phone to them with them saying we had 5 nights on system and they couldn’t understand how it went through ( neither did we hence calling). Hosts/ owners can’t just cancel bookings without a valid reason, otherwise they can be fined or removed from platform.

@Movinghouseatlast yes sorry I did misunderstand. I thought this was about someone renting a property for their holiday .

Used VRBO several times for villas with no problems at all. I like that their site has lots of filters so you can find exactly what you need.

Thanks everyone, you have really put my mind at rest.

Booking.com took an unauthorised payment of over £600 from my account and it took me 6 weeks to finally get it back. They first insinuated that I was lying and no payment had been taken, then finally admitted it but wouldn't process a refund and I had to go through my bank which took weeks.

I literally begged booking.com to help me as I couldn't afford to pay my mortgage without the refund and nobody gave a shit. I was in tears everytime i spoke on the phone to them. The whole situation made me really unwell.