Vrbo host canceled 24 hours before I arrived

Expensive Journey TROUBLESHOOTER: Our Vrbo host canceled our reservation significantly less than 24 hours just before our arrival, resulting in missing airfare for my spouse and daughter. I have to have your aid having a refund for our resulting lodge monthly bill.

I reserved a rental in El Paso, Texas, and paid for it in whole. At 9:30 p.m. the evening prior to my family’s flights to El Paso, I received a information from the host stating: “The home is not available. It’s now been booked.” Then an additional concept that she canceled our reservation and initiated a refund.

I sent her panicked messages expressing there have to be some blunder — that we booked and compensated in entire more than 6 months before. I reported we had flights and had been arriving the subsequent working day. She didn’t reply. No enable, no apology, no practically nothing. I discovered her cell cellular phone selection and termed 3 periods: every went straight to voicemail.

Vrbo mentioned there were no other rentals readily available. So rather, they booked us a single evening in a double space at a hotel. We would be left on our possess to locate a spot for the other two nights. I cannot alert other Vrbo renters to the host’s unscrupulous habits, and I would like a refund for all of the evenings we experienced to remain in a hotel. Can you aid me?

— Jim LoScalzo, Washington, D.C.

Solution: The host was completely wrong to terminate just right before your arrival, but that is not the worst of it. When you looked into your account, it turns out the host had offered you a a person-star assessment, even although you in no way stayed in the rental. (This could affect your capacity to lease from Vrbo once more.) Vrbo need to have uncovered a replacement rental for you and lined any added charge. As an alternative, the organization refunded your rental and paid for 1 night time in a hotel.

Vrbo has a “book with confidence” ensure that protects you from a last-minute cancellation. It claims visitors rebooking assistance or unexpected emergency lodging if their reservation is “wrongfully canceled” at the last minute by the host.

It wasn’t right away clear why Vrbo paid out for only one particular evening in the new lodge. You referred to as and emailed the corporation fifty percent a dozen instances, but it wouldn’t explain to you. By the way, I listing the names, quantities and e-mails of the Vrbo executives on my customer advocacy website at www.elliott.org/company-contacts/vrbo-customer-service-contacts. A quick, well mannered email to a single of them may have served.

I contacted Vrbo about your circumstance. Its data clearly show that Vrbo protected unexpected emergency lodging for the initially night time.

“For the relaxation of his keep, Mr. LoScalzo was asked to book a resort through 1 of our web sites and post receipts for reimbursement only if the price of his lodge keep exceeded the charge of his first booking,” a representative mentioned. “Because the total price of his lodge reservation did not exceed the charge of his authentic booking, he is not qualified for reimbursement.”