Connecting to Vrbo in new design

Minimum requirements to connect

In order to connect the Property Manager’s (PM’s) property to the Vrbo, the following requirements must be met:

  • Company profile in Rentals United needs to be filled in (phone number, email address and so on).

    Tip: First of all, make sure that you filled in the Merchant name and the Company name in the Company Profile. If the information are missing, you will not be able to connect to Vrbo.

  • Address (Street name and number, Post code) and Location (Geo-coordinates) need to be complete;

  • Licence number must be provided;

  • Description: minimum 400 characters, maximum 10,000 characters;

  • Bathroom: At least 1 bathroom. The bathroom in Rentals United needs to have at least a toilet as an amenity and one of the following: shower, bathtub, bath with shower. Only then the additional amenities for the bathroom will be displayed in Vrbo.

  • Kitchen: There must be a kitchen at the property.

  • Photos: minimum 6 photos (minimum width: 1024 px; minimum height: 768 px) are uploaded and the number of photos cannot exceed 50;

  • Bedding composition across rooms needs to be provided;

  • Prices and availability are provided for some seasons;

  • Cancellation Policy: Cancellation Policy is selected;

  • Arrival information, Normal check-in and check-out times, as well as Arrival instructions are provided.

Establishing connection

In order to start advertising on Vrbo, you need to establish the connection with this sales channel. You can do this by adding it to the list of services in your account. Follow the below steps in order to get connected.

  1. In Rentals United platform, go to the Services tab.

  2. Click the Find Services tab.

  3. Type the Vrbo name in the search box or scroll down through the list of available channels.

  4. Unfold the Vrbo section by clicking the Down arrow button.

  5. Click the Get connected button.

  1. Your connection is now being validated in the background. If the validation is passed successfully, the Connection Wizard is launched and you can go to the next step. If you are not eligible to connect to Vrbo, an error is displayed.

    Eligibility errors indicate violating initial channel requirements that need to be met before you establish the connection. You will not be able to go to the next step and finish the connection process unless the eligibility error is cleared away. In order to resolve it, follow the instructions displayed on the screen. Please, see an exemplary eligibility error below.

  2. You are presented with a brief description on how the Vrbo works. Read it carefully and confirm that you agree with it by ticking the checkbox below. Do not worry, once all the steps of the Connection Wizard are completed, you will still be able to view the How it works content again. Click the Save & Next button on the bottom of the page to move to the next step.

    Tip: On the top of the page, you can view the progress of the Connection Wizard. Depending on the channel, the number of steps may differ. You can stop anywhere along the process. Upon next time you open the Connection Wizard, you will continue at the last completed step.

  3. Follow the next steps displayed in Rentals United.

  1. Select the currency in which your prices will be sent to Vrbo. The list of currencies is limited and you can see it here.

  2. Set up the mark-up for your rates in Vrbo. Read more here.

  3. Select a cancellation policy from the available options. Read more here.

  4. Choose whether you want to charge a down payment at the time of booking and select the amount to be charged. Read more here.

  5. Select the minimum age of guests that you will accept at your property. Read more here.

Once you complete the Connection Wizard, you will seemlessly enter the process of adding new properties to Vrbo. Move to the next chapters in this article.

Add new properties

Follow the below procedure if you already have some properties created in Rentals United and you want to connect them to Vrbo.

  1. In Rentals United platform, go to the Services tab.

  2. Select the proper list to search for Vrbo.

    • Find Services lists the channels you are not yet connected to,

    • My Services lists the channels which you have already established connection with and channels that are in the process of being connected.

  3. Type the Vrbo name in the search box or scroll down through the list of available channels.

  4. Unfold the Vrbo section by clicking the Down arrow button.

  5. Click the Property Settings button.

  1. Connect the property.

    Depending on whether you already have some properties connected to the Vrbo or not, you are presented with two different options.

    • If it is the first property to be connected, click the Connect your first property button.

    • If it is the next property to be connected, click the Add property button.

  2. Choose the properties to connect to the channel. You can read about the different ways of filtering and selecting properties here..

  3. Click Next. You will see here the summary of all selected properties. Review the list and check if all properties that you wish to connect are included.

    4. Click Next to proceed.

  4. The content quality is analysed. The process should take up to a few minutes.

  5. The summary of properties’ content is displayed.

    1. Check the content quality by unfolding the section with warning.

      Verify if any data is missing or incorrect. It is possible to display the errors by unfolding the section. For more detailed summary of errors, download the XLSX report by clicking the Download Quality Check button.

    2. Click the Improve button. The Edit property page is opened in a new tab.

    3. Correct the content indicated in the report in the Edit property page.

    4. Go back to the Property List and click the Re-check button. If no further errors are displayed, the property is ready to publish.

  6. If the properties are ready to publish, adjust the mark-up for each of them. You can adjust the mark-up for each property one by one or apply the same mark-up value for all at once. For Vrbo, it is also possible to specify Down payment at this point.

  7. Click the Publish properties button.

  8. The published properties enter the Pending status.

    Tip: If you are in the middle of the onboarding process with the Vrbo team, your properties will not go live automatically. Vrbo will publish them after they have completed the on-boarding process.

    Note: It is possible to check the listing status after the property is connected to Vrbo. Please, read Vrbo listing statuses.

    Tip: If only Vrbo provides this information, the URLs directing to the listing published in the Vrbo website are filled in automatically in Rentals United.

  9. The property status changes to Active and you can receive reservations now.

Mapping properties to existing listings

Vrbo will take you through the property mapping process in case you have existing listings in Vrbo. Please, contact the channel.

Vrbo listing statuses

After connecting the property to the channel, you may look up its connection status any time you want. The connection status page clearly indicates if your property is successfully connected to Vrbo or requires your action to clear away anything that may prevent it from being listed on the Vrbo website.

  • Pending - This is the default status the property enters after connection to Vrbo. You need to wait until Vrbo completes all the necessary steps on their side in order to successfully connect your property. Usually, it may be signing a contract, completing the account set-up and so on. The status will change after the live link to your property listed in the Vrbo website appear. You may wait up to few days for the status to change, and if you do not hear from the channel, you should contact them.

  • Active - The property has been successfully connected and is listed on the Sales Channel website. You can receive reservations at this point.

  • Not connected - An error occurred while connecting to Vrbo, which prevents the property from being listed.

    This status may indicate that the property is missing some descriptive content, for example the photos are to big or the description is too short. You can check the summary of the invalid content that caused this status by clicking the Check notifications button and review the areas needing improvement. Please, edit the property content according to the mentioned suggestions and wait until the Vrbo attempts to reconnect the property upon the next synchronization time - see Static content.

Editing rates

The information in this chapter is useful when you already have properties connected or mapped, but you want to introduce changes to rates that will affect only Sales Channel.

Quick editing data for single rates

With these settings, you can override the property data you have in the Edit property page. Before the property data is sent to Vrbo, it is modified with additional configuration you can apply now. Note that whatever you set right now will apply only to this channel.

  1. Click the Manage button.

  2. The Management page opens.

    You can configure the following settings for Vrbo:

    • Mark-up - indicates the value that the prices in should be adjusted by;

    • Down payment - indicates the amount to be paid upon booking to confirm the reservation

  3. Click the Save changes button.

    Note: Changes introduced here will not affect any other channel than Vrbo and will only apply to this rate.

Manual options for all rates in a group

Manual options are not available for Vrbo.

Updating listings

After the property content is changed in the Edit property page in Rentals United, your listing will be automatically updated on the Vrbowebsite.

Deactivating properties

In this section, you can find more information on how to stop renting your properties on the Vrbo channel.

  1. In Rentals United platform, go to the Services tab.

  2. Select the proper list to search for Vrbo.

    • Find Services lists the channels you are not yet connected to,

    • My Services lists the channels which you have already established connection with and channels that are in the process of being connected.

  3. Type the Vrbo name in the search box or scroll down through the list of available channels.

  4. Unfold the Vrbo section by clicking the Down arrow button.

  5. Click the Property Settings button.

  1. Search for the property you want to deactivate by scrolling down or filtering the property out.

  2. Click the Manage button.

  3. A property management page is opened.

  4. Click the Disconnect button.

  5. A pop-up window is displayed. Confirm the action by clicking the Yes, disconnect button.

Note: At this stage, no bookings can be made for this property through the Vrbo channel, but the connection with Vrbo remains intact. Still, the availability can be re-opened by clicking the Activate button next to the property. In case you want to stop advertising a property on the Vrbo website, send a request to Vrbo using the information in Contact details.

Bulk actions

  1. In Rentals United platform, go to the Services tab.

  2. Select the proper list to search for Vrbo.

    • Find Services lists the channels you are not yet connected to,

    • My Services lists the channels which you have already established connection with and channels that are in the process of being connected.

  3. Type the Vrbo name in the search box or scroll down through the list of available channels.

  4. Unfold the Vrbo section by clicking the Down arrow button.

  5. Click the Property Settings button.

  1. Click the Bulk actions button on top of the page.

  2. You entered the bulk flow and you can update all your listings at once. Bulk actions may vary across the channels. Bear in mind that some options that are available for Vrbo may not be available for other channels.

    You can read more about bulk actions:

  3. Select the option and follow the steps displayed on the screen.

  4. After the operation is finished, you will be prompted that it was successful. Click the OK button and you will be moved to the Property Settings.

    Note: If any process fails for some properties, you will be presented information which properties were not updated and you can try again.