Teething problems with vrbo

1

I’m a non US user and am having a “host” of issues trying to get going with vrbo.

Top three:

  1. vrbo will only allow me to enter a US bank account, which I dont have. I chatted with customer services and they didnt know how to resolve. They have noted the issue but cant give me any timeframe to resolve.

  2. Vrbo is using USD as the currency for my villa. It wont allow me to change to local currency. This will make it impossible to align to airbnb and booking.com pricing due to currency movements.

  3. vrbo asks for a whole bunch of info (such as introduction to the hosts) which I spent time writing but this doesn’t actually seem to feature on the listing.

Any help appreciated - thanks!

2

I can only help with the third one. If you give me your Vrbo listing number, I can see what it looks like compared to the other ones (for #3)

3

I’d suspect #1 and #2 are tied to each other. If you can figure out how to resolve #1, #2 will also change. But I’ve never used VRBO, so can’t give you any pointers. Does VRBO not have a"region" setting you can change, like Airbnb does?

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4

I’m just wondering why you specifically want to list with VRBO?

You seem to be having problems because of your location - doesn’t this indicate that your location might not be suitable for that particular platform?

5

Not the case. In Phuket vrbo is the third largest platform after booking and airbnb - you basically want to be on all three. airbnb was a breeze to set up, booking had some issues as I was flagged as duplicating a listing with the previous manager (and this took a lot of pushing to resolve). Now I have the first two platforms up and running it makes sense to get vrbo. Vrbo makes a play of its international presence in nearly 200 countries and is definitely not just US-centric.

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6

VRBO purchased the Stayz platform in Australia and that is who I am listed with.
Did they do something similar in Thailand?

7

Yes I suspect the first two are tied. I actually prefer the look and feel of the vrbo interface/dashboard versus booking and airbnb, and they do what should be a nice quick setup for you based on your listing on the other platforms. You need to call them to get this sorted.

I suspect it was the operator I spoke with set something wrong. She was so very friendly but seemed to need everything repeating 5 times and kept repeating things back to me that were wrong . She even set my home address to Hong Kong in Thailand!

8

It’s just Expedia/vrbo in Thailand. They say vrbo works in 190 countries. Some years ago, I had a beach house with Stayz in Aus! Didn’t know this is now vrbo. Stayz taught me the value of repeat customers.

9

Thank you for the explanation. Your opening words

and your reference to VRBO only allowing US banks, plus the fact that it won’t allow you to list in your local currency, made me think that your location was an issue. Apologies.

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10

I am a US citizen who has lived as an Expat. One of the issues I had was making purchases and other business while living in South America but without a residence in USA. There are locations in the USA that you may rent to allow you a USA postal code. They are called Virtual Mailboxes, I used EarthClass Mail. They are located in Portland, Oregon. Basically it is a brick and mortar location with a street address with an “apartment number” that in reality is just a PO Box number. You may need to have a reliable banking institution (one that is solid, does business with USA) to rent the space.

Looking at Earth Class regarding banking setting up a new account may be a challenge though:
If you don’t already have a U.S. bank account and are already living overseas, you can set up your bank account with a relative’s address, then update your mailing address to your virtual address later on.

I also loved that they would scan mail for me and I could read it online and decide if it was worth forwarding to me in Chile. They would then shred items I didn’t want.

11

But the OP isn’t trying to get their payouts to a US account. There are plenty of listings in Thailand on VRBO/Stayz, or whatever they call themselves there. I’m sure all the hosts in Thailand don’t have US bank accounts, so there must be a way for the OP to change region and currency, he just doesn’t know how yet.

12

@ lagunafairway Are you listed on the USA version/side of VRBO or are you listed on the Thailand? If your’s is USA based that may be your issue. If you are Thailand based (look for the code in your URL) that may resolve the issue.

When I first signed up I was listed on a foreign country’s version (had no idea how). I ended up having to cancel /delete that listing and redo it for a USA.

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13

Hi there. I’m not from the US and a non-US citizen absolutely doesn’t want a US bank account for a whole variety of tax and FATCA reasons related. Vrbo is international and it is not their intention to Americanize your banking. They have a great international platform in 190 countries and a great user interface, but the problem is their support is inadequate when something goes wrong.

Most users don’t expect immediate resolution, but at least to know that they will be dealt with in, say, a week. With vrbo it’s all very vague, their chat operators don’t understand the platform, and their policy is to decline to give you any indication of when they will get around to solving your problem. Their chat operator said “My advice to you is to wait and see what happens”. If anyone has ever sought help from airbnb it’s a completely different experience where they seem to be able to click buttons and immediately solve any problem.

14

what? LOL.
firstly, you can’t see all your listings’ calendars on one page (this is fine if you have only one listing),
the way the reservations are portrayed is so confusing, it’s taken me 6 months to get used to it, and I still don’t like it.
starting the week on Monday, sure, that makes sense, except that abb have Sunday first and so does my paper calendar that I use as my “old school need to write stuff on paper for it to be real” system.
extra clicks for everything.
and very, very limited scheduled messaging.

but I digress. I’m non-US and I managed to get it all set up just fine. did you maybe register with the USA version instead of a local version?

15

You’ve been extremely lucky then, or only had very simple straightforward problems.

While I’ve had a few instances where Airbnb CS was appropriately responsive, in general the front line reps aren’t fully aware of Airbnb policies, give out erroneous or incomplete advice, and it often requires 5 back and forths before you can even get them to understand the issue. They are famous for sending rote replies with links to Help pages that don’t apply to the issue at hand.

Luckily I don’t have to contact them very often.

16

I understand. So far airbnb have been immediately helpful on everything. Booking have been unhelpful sometimes, but eventually help you when you persist. vrbo dreadful. And I guess all vrbo needs to do to help me is flip a switch to say I’m not in the US and need non-US banking. vrbo refuse to acknowledge anything is wrong, won’t give any timeframe for fixing an issue, and simply leave you parked.