mike7

Has anyone used vrbo to rent in Italy. I may use them to rent an apartment in Florence for 5 nights and Rome for 5 nights. I am just concerned because you pay 50% before you get to see the place. Thanks for your help.

janisj

You do not rent from vrbo. It is just a listing site. You are dealing w/ individual owners, who each have their own deposit/payment requirement.

vrbo has a rental guarantee feature to give you some peace of mind.

BTW - for a lot of rentals you have to pay the <u>entire</u> amount before 'seeing the place'.

TPAYT

I don't know about Italy, but we have rented from VRBO and www.homeaway.com in France and the Caribbean many times with great success.

janisj is correct in that they are all individual owners so payment may be different, but all of the owners we have dealt with have gone out of the way to make our stays memorable. Some leave bottles of wine, wonderful fresh food items, cell phones with local calls available, etc. And all have been available to answer any questions we had before and during our trips. We will definitely use them again.

julies

We too have rented from a number of VRBO owners in different places in the world. The only bad experience we had wasn't terrible; it was just that the place was dirty.

Mimar

I prefer renting through agencies. There's a degree of guarantee. After all, they're out of business if they disappoint too many customers. And, with an agency, you can usually charge the deposit on your credit card, giving you another way to get your money back if the place doesn't live up to its pictures, etc.

But I have rented from individual owners, units that have been stayed in and recommended by other travelers. I rely a lot on www.slowtrav.com, both for the reviews of individual rentals but also of rental agencies.

Mimar

An addendum to my previous post: It's good to have recourse if your unit is dirty or the plumbing's broken or whatever. But it's still a spoiled vacation. I don't have so many trips that I want to chance my precious vacation time and money on an unknown.

maestrette

We rented through a vrbo owner in Rome 2 years ago. We had a great experience with the owner. We paid a 200 euro deposit by Western Union, and the balance was paid in cash once we arrived. Wonderful location near Campo dei Fiori. Our only complaint was a bed that wasn't very comfortable, but we could have found that anywhere. We'd definitely use vrbo again.

namaka

We've used VRBO in in Italy, Portugal and France and have been very fortunate. Like others have mentioned, sometimes there may be issues of cleanliness or uncomfortable beds but that could be anywhere.

charnees

VRBO has worked well for us, too.

markrosy

Over the year we have rented a lot of properties, we avoid hotels when we can.

I don't think you can generalise about this website.

VRBO can be very mixed due to the lack of control over the quality. We usually try to go for well profiled local agencies who actually have something to lose by taking on poor properties.

VRBO brought in their guarantee but I would alwasy follow the simply advice use a credit card and never pay by cash/direct transfer.

Also use google searches to check the address and the owners name. We lost a deposit in The Bahamas using VRBO becuase we failed to use this basic check. The owners had been slaughtered on TA and we simply forgot to check.

Also use google earth. in the past we have been sold the idea of a quiet cottage only to google earth the address and find an Interstate 200 yards from the back door.

bgr8ful

We have rented through VRBO with many good experiences - in the US and in other countries. We only had one negative experience and it was primarily electrical issues. That being said, I was surprised that I was not able to "post" a negative comment on the VRBO site - the owner was able to decide what comments he wanted posted. SO, long story short, I would review other sites for the true comments of a certain vacation rental.

slo31260

we used VRBO for apt in Rome, was great. before you send any money get a few references and check with them if it will help you feel better.
I also booked a hotel for a few nights , same trip, and it was not good at all...just have to make the best decision you can with information you have.

colleen61

I have rented through VRBO twice-one good experience and one not so good. I made the mistake of renting before checking for reviews on trip advisor. I would never rent an apt. again without seeing some positive feedback first on an independent website.