Vrbo host canceled 24 hours before I arrived

Pricey Travel TROUBLESHOOTER: Our Vrbo host canceled our reservation less than 24 hours just before our arrival, ensuing in dropped airfare for my spouse and daughter. I require your help having a refund for our ensuing hotel monthly bill.

I reserved a rental in El Paso, Texas, and compensated for it in whole. At 9:30 p.m. the night just before my family’s flights to El Paso, I got a message from the host saying: “The property is not obtainable. It’s already been booked.” Then a different concept that she canceled our reservation and initiated a refund.

I sent her panicked messages expressing there ought to be some miscalculation — that we booked and paid in total a lot more than 6 months before. I claimed we had flights and ended up arriving the subsequent working day. She did not respond. No help, no apology, no almost nothing. I uncovered her mobile cell phone number and identified as 3 periods: just about every went straight to voicemail.

Vrbo explained there were no other rentals available. So instead, they booked us a solitary evening in a double home at a resort. We would be left on our individual to come across a location for the other two evenings. I simply cannot notify other Vrbo renters to the host’s unscrupulous actions, and I would like a refund for all of the nights we had to continue to be in a hotel. Can you help me?

— Jim LoScalzo, Washington, D.C.

Solution: The host was completely wrong to cancel just before your arrival, but that is not the worst of it. When you seemed into your account, it turns out the host had specified you a a single-star assessment, even while you never stayed in the rental. (This could have an impact on your means to rent from Vrbo yet again.) Vrbo should have identified a substitution rental for you and coated any more charge. Rather, the organization refunded your rental and paid out for one night in a lodge.

Vrbo has a “book with confidence” promise that shields you from a previous-moment cancellation. It promises company rebooking assistance or unexpected emergency lodging if their reservation is “wrongfully canceled” at the past moment by the host.

It was not quickly apparent why Vrbo paid out for only a single night time in the new resort. You known as and emailed the corporation half a dozen periods, but it would not tell you. By the way, I listing the names, figures and email messages of the Vrbo executives on my client advocacy website at www.elliott.org/corporation-contacts/vrbo-consumer-assistance-contacts. A quick, well mannered email to a person of them may possibly have assisted.

I contacted Vrbo about your circumstance. Its documents display that Vrbo protected crisis lodging for the very first evening.

“For the relaxation of his continue to be, Mr. LoScalzo was asked to book a lodge by way of a single of our web sites and post receipts for reimbursement only if the price tag of his lodge stay exceeded the cost of his primary scheduling,” a agent said. “Because the overall cost of his resort reservation did not exceed the expense of his first booking, he is not eligible for reimbursement.”