After one and one half years of VRBO I have had a few situations you are not told about in the contract. You have no control over the reviews which are written about your property and the guest is more important to VRBO than your business. This itself may not mean a lot since we have had 38 five star and one four star review. The four star was an excellent review with the exception of the hide-a-bed mattress which we replace the following week. We were able to response to the review with the fact had you simply called us we would have replaced the mattress the next day. Quest don't understand a homeowner cannot read their mind and fix anything until they are told. We recently had a family of eight with six children who created some damage which required less than a thousand dollars to repair.
We require the damage protection policy through CSA and filed a claim both with photos and invoices to back up the damage. The claim was denied with the explanation, "Insured denies damage." That is only half what you should know about dealing with VRBO. The Quest gave us a five star review which in itself sounds great. However, The Quest has the right to pull the review and write a vindictive damaging review about our home and there is nothing we can do to prevent this from happening. We are offer the opportunity to respond to the review and somehow that gives me little comfort. So, in my opinion require a damage deposit if you use VRBO. The CSA insurance isn't worth the paper it is written on and is a money machine for VRBO. The most important thing to remember is the first review may not be the last review and there is nothing to protect the homeowner in their system.