One of the largest vacation rental platforms in the industry has just revamped its booking protection policies for travelers.
Vrbo has launched a new suite of consumer-friendly features called VrboCare. The new launch builds upon its existing Book with Confidence Guarantee, which promises to find travelers a new place to stay if their original booking doesn’t go as planned. That guarantee is now part of the new VrboCare, along with numerous new features, too.
The new policies are now in effect, just in time for the busy Thanksgiving and December holiday travel season.
“Over time, we’ve seen the industry drift away from what travellers truly value — a consistent, reliable, high-quality experience,” said Larry Plawsky, general manager of Vrbo. “That’s why Vrbo has made a series of changes to our products, policies, and host programs to clean up the category, build traveller trust, and take the worry out of trip planning.”
Under the new policy, Vrbo agents will help rebook travelers when they have check-in issues or host-initiated cancellations up to 90 days ahead of their stay, an increase of 60 days compared to the former policy. Best of all for travelers, VrboCare is automatically included with every booking for free.
Many of the new VrboCare features help ensure the rental listing is accurate, which is a concern for 69% of travelers, according to the company. Travelers will now see new badges that identify the site’s top-tier properties and most reliable hosts. The new “Loved by Guests” designation highlights rentals with near-perfect ratings of 9.4 and above from travelers who have stayed there.
Additionally, criteria to meet the company’s “Premier Host” designation has gotten stricter. With these new guidelines, Vrbo says travelers can expect an even higher quality stay from Premier Hosts.
Among the new qualifications are a 99% acceptance rate, a cancellation rate of 0%, and an average rating of 9.2 or above. Hosts with multiple listings will now need to meet these standards for each individual property. Travelers can use the “Premier Host” search filter to find properties with the illustrious badge.
Along with the new traveler protection policies, the company is also debuting a host of new shopping tools to help customers choose the best bookings, including AI summaries of guest reviews, AI-curated property highlights, and AI property Q&A feature, which combs reviews for answers to common questions about listings.
Listing reviews will also now include guest photos so travelers can get the most realistic idea of the rental property.
All of the new policies are in place "to reassure guests that Vrbo has their back if problems arise before or during their stay,” Plawsky said.
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