A traveler booked a Los Angeles rental on Vrbo specifically because of where it was located. The neighborhood mattered. The proximity to a specific destination mattered. The address on the listing mattered enough that it was the deciding factor. Then the payment cleared — and the check-in instructions revealed the property was over two miles away, in a different neighborhood entirely.
What followed was more alarming than the booking mistake itself. When the traveler escalated the dispute to Vrbo, a supervisor reportedly acknowledged an internal policy permitting address discrepancies of up to three miles between a listed location and the actual property — but refused to provide the policy in writing and stated it was not publicly available. The account, shared on r/travel, has since sparked widespread concern among frequent short-term rental users.
"Then it cannot be considered a term I agreed to," the traveler wrote, identifying the core legal tension: if a policy is never disclosed, it cannot form part of a binding agreement.
Vrbo's own publicly available listing guidelines state that hosts must present properties "transparently and accurately" so that "travelers can make informed decisions." That standard is documented in Vrbo's official listing policy page. A three-mile buffer appears to contradict it directly.
The stakes are not trivial. For a traveler without a car in a sprawling city like Los Angeles — where neighborhoods separated by two miles can mean different transit access, safety profiles, walkability scores, and proximity to attractions — the distinction between a listed address and an actual address is the difference between a functional booking and an unusable one. What the traveler described as a 10–15 minute walk became a one-hour journey on foot.
This is not merely a complaint about one bad booking. If the alleged internal policy is real and applies broadly, it creates a structural vulnerability for any traveler using short-term rental platforms who selects a property based on neighborhood proximity. Location filters on Vrbo's platform allow users to search within specific neighborhoods and radii. A policy permitting three-mile discrepancies would render those filters functionally meaningless.
The incident raises two separate concerns. The first is operational: hosts or platform systems may be misrepresenting or failing to accurately capture property locations in listings. The second is worse: a company policy exists that accommodates this error without requiring disclosure to affected guests.
Travel consumer advocates have long warned that short-term rental platforms operate in a regulatory grey zone compared to hotels, which face stricter truth-in-advertising requirements. The refusal to provide the alleged policy in writing — even to a customer directly harmed by it — represents an accountability gap that hotel guests do not face.
For travelers booking through Vrbo or similar platforms, the practical takeaways are clear:
Screenshot the map pin and listed address before paying. Save the listing's exact neighborhood designation as it appeared at the time of booking. Use Google Street View or satellite imagery to verify the property's real location against the pin. For urban bookings where walkability or proximity is essential, consider contacting the host directly to confirm the precise address before completing payment — many will share it.
Vrbo did not respond publicly to the traveler's documented complaint. The traveler reported making multiple good-faith attempts to resolve the issue before considering a chargeback — the consumer protection mechanism that, in the absence of platform accountability, remains the most reliable recourse available.
"This was my first experience with Vrbo," the traveler wrote. "Based on how it was handled, it will likely be my last."
