Find a different rental company...
Similar experience to the previous poster. Also tried to rent a vacation cabin from this company through VRBO for this upcoming holiday season (3 nights, one night being a holiday), and was forcefully cancelled by the property manager, for unstated, false policies.
A week after receiving confirmation of our booking, the property management company contacted us by email (not VRBO), stating that to keep our confirmation we would need to:
- stay an additional night (4 nights now), because of a holiday
- would need to pay an additional cleaning fee ($49), for the number of individuals in our party (which was below the capacity listed for the property.)
This was on top of the original fees already charged when the property was booked consisting of $150 for cleaning and $49 for a pet. The additional night and fees for this change would have totaled close to $500. This does not include the price to change other reservations (flights, rental cars, etc.) These additional night policies are not listed anywhere, nor are the additional cleaning fees for filling the place to capacity.
Contact to this company was initiated many times by email, phone, VRBO reps, etc., but there was a severe lack of response from the property manager or anyone else.
- Selective emails were responded to (none to/from VRBO), phone calls normally would go straight to voicemail, or might be answered once and then voicemail. A request for a phone call was made multiple times by me and VRBO regarding this issue to the property manager and none was ever received.
- The first email, the property manager tried to blame VRBO for the issue at first (not being able to set a minimum stay requirement - https://help.vrbo.com/articles/How-do-I-set-a-minimum-stay-requirement). As the reason for being able book the 3 days instead of 4.
- VRBO was contacted regarding the policy for the listing posted, and every VRBO rep that I spoke with (which totaled well over 8) confirmed that we were well within the minimum stay requirements and could not be cancelled by the property manager for not accepting night 4.
- This company then stated their own policies are "per the homeowner" (4-day minimum, etc.), yet are still not available anywhere on any travel website, or their own.
Throughout the minimal correspondence, I was never able to find out who truly manages any of their vacation properties, a non-existent person named Maggie would send the emails, an Elizabeth answered the phone once (real, but not listed on this company's website as an employ), or the son John (who is listed on this company's website and vacation property manager but never able talked to). Everything was handled by this company through external email, and not the internal messaging system provided by these internet travel sites. My assumption is that is their way to add these additional fees without VRBO or likewise having a record of what they are exactly for.
Regardless if they upheld the reservation or not, we would have found a different property to rent for the holidays, feeling as our refundable security deposit would never be returned. To be extorted to pay more money or be cancelled is a very inappropriate business practice and unethical. I would not recommend doing any business with this company at all. read more