If you search for a property on Vrbo today, you’ll notice the scenery has changed a little.
Badges like “Loved by Guests” and “Premier Host” dominate the first page of results. Click through, and you’ll see a blue box promising, “We’ve planned for the plot twists.” Beneath it, a new AI-powered Q&A feature now answers guest questions instantly.
Vrbo is using these visual cues and AI tools to redefine what it stands for and, more importantly, what it stands against.
What’s New: VrboCare, Loved by Guests, and the New Visibility Hierarchy
VrboCare: the evolved guarantee
VrboCare replaces the Book with Confidence Guarantee and now automatically covers every booking. It broadens guest protection with:
- Rebooking assistance up to 90 days before check-in (previously 30 days).
- Automatic coverage: no need for guests to opt in.
- 24/7 human and AI support before, during, and after the stay.
The VrboCare box, now embedded on every property page, signals a clear message: Vrbo is taking ownership of reliability. Or as Expedia Group’s Larry Ploski put it, “Over time, we’ve seen the industry drift away from what travelers truly value — a consistent, reliable, high-quality experience.”
That quote, though, says as much about Vrbo’s branding as it does about the industry. The short-term rental sector hasn’t “drifted away.” If anything, it’s professionalizing. But Vrbo’s statement is telling: it wants to occupy the space of stability and trustworthiness in an increasingly competitive field.
The new badge: Loved by Guests
Vrbo’s new Loved by Guests badge is the most visible update. It’s awarded to listings with an average score of 9.4 or higher across cleanliness, accuracy, check-in, and location.
What makes it impactful is not just its design, it’s how it shapes visibility:
- Search visibility: Loved by Guests listings appear prominently in search results.
- Filter option: travelers can now filter for Loved by Guests properties both on Vrbo’s website and app.
- Conversion cue: on property pages, the badge appears directly under the title, much like Airbnb’s Guest Favorite tag, but with one critical difference: Where Airbnb markets its label as a discovery tool — helping travelers “find homes they’ll love” — Vrbo’s framing leans on proof over promise.
This badge transforms sentiment into visibility, giving travelers an immediate sense of reliability and giving high-performing managers an edge.
Premier Host: Not new, but newly strict — and now more visible
The Premier Host badge isn’t new, but it’s being restructured and made more visible.
In addition to its new search filter, Premier Host badges now appear directly in search results, similar to Loved by Guests, highlighting listings that consistently meet Vrbo’s quality standards.
Beginning 2026, the program will also shift from a host-level status to a listing-level badge, with requirements getting stricter.
This added visibility, combined with tougher performance thresholds, means travelers will see the Premier Host badge as a more immediate trust signal, and managers will have less room for uneven performance across their portfolios.
Verified reviews, guest photos, and AI features
Vrbo has also overhauled how it presents and interprets guest feedback.
- Every review now carries a verified tooltip clarifying that it comes from a confirmed stay.
- Guests can upload photos directly with their reviews: a feature neither Airbnb nor Booking.com currently offers.
- AI-generated review summaries condense hundreds of reviews into a few key takeaways.
- A new AI Q&A field pulls from both listing details and verified reviews to answer traveler questions instantly.
These tools aren’t entirely new to the wider travel industry, but they’re new to Vrbo — and they’re being packaged in a way that strengthens its core positioning: transparency, consistency, and professionalism.
The Deeper Intent Behind VrboCare and the Redesign
From both the press release and our observations, VrboCare is not just a “guest-protection feature.” It’s a strategic reframing of Vrbo’s marketplace identity around three core goals.
a. Make Vrbo synonymous with “safe to book.”
Vrbo has long catered to families and multi-generational groups, travelers who value reliability over experimentation. The new VrboCare box (“We’ve planned for the plot twists”) puts safety language front and center: “Broken A/C? We’ll make it right.”
That’s Vrbo taking ownership of reliability in the same way Airbnb took ownership of “experience.”
b. Standardize quality without fully centralizing control.
The Loved by Guests and Premier Host labels act as soft certification layers, standardizing expectations while keeping the platform decentralized.
In our searches, these badges consistently appeared among the top results. Vrbo is promoting consistency algorithmically rather than manually, a scalable way to clean up variability without curating supply like a hotel brand.
c. Build trust infrastructure through AI and verification.
Verified reviews, guest photos, AI summaries, and AI Q&A form Vrbo’s new trust infrastructure. The dual AI sources (“From the property” vs “Guests mention”) show how Vrbo blends structured data (from host listings) with organic sentiment (from guest reviews), creating transparency without requiring human mediation.
Together, these choices signal Vrbo’s shift from a booking platform to a guided curation system powered by AI and credibility.
Tangible Impacts for Short-Term Rental Managers: What’s Changing Right Now
a. Search visibility now depends on guest sentiment and AI readability
Loved by Guests listings (with ≥ 9.4 ratings) surface prominently in search.
That means:
- New listings will struggle to rank until they build verified-review volume.
- Managers need to encourage photo-rich reviews and detailed ratings that feed Vrbo’s AI summaries.
Even five-star properties with few reviews may appear below listings with verified photos and strong sentiment data.
b. Reviews are now both content and ranking fuel
Vrbo’s review summaries and verified badges make guest feedback more powerful than ever. AI-generated phrases like “Guests loved the location and spotless interiors” are SEO fuel within Vrbo’s own search system.
Guest photo reviews are likely prioritized for authenticity, further influencing ranking.
c. Listing-level quality accountability
The move to listing-level Premier Host status means every property must hold its own.
Each home must maintain 99% acceptance, 0% cancellation, and 9.2+ ratings.
That requires operational discipline, clear processes for guest communication, backup vendors, and cleaner scheduling to prevent last-minute issues.
d. AI Q&A reduces guest-host pre-booking contact
The new AI Q&A tool instantly answers traveler questions like “Is this property good for children under 5?” using data from listing info and guest reviews.
That means fewer pre-booking inquiries, and fewer chances (and perhaps less need) for managers to “convert” through personalized communication.
E. Verified reviews and guest photos harden the feedback loop
The verified-review tooltip reinforces that every review is from a real guest.
That transparency is great for travelers, but for managers, it raises the stakes.
Reputation management now lives squarely inside the platform.
Vrbo’s Positioning: Familiar Features, Sharper Framing
Vrbo isn’t introducing never-before-seen features. AI summaries, accuracy ratings, and review verification all exist elsewhere. Airbnb and Booking.com each use versions of them. What’s clever here is how Vrbo is packaging and promoting these updates.
It’s leaning into a narrative it has used before, that Vrbo equals professionalism and predictability, while other platforms deliver chaos and surprises. Past Vrbo ads have played on this contrast, showing guests arriving at chaotic short-term rentals with chickens or broken amenities, only to be reassured that Vrbo “doesn’t do that.”
Now, with VrboCare, Loved by Guests, and a stronger AI trust layer, that marketing story is being translated into product design.
And while none of these features are revolutionary, they’re timely. In an industry still grappling with the perception that it needs to “professionalize,” Vrbo’s updates are a smart reinforcement of brand identity. It’s not reinventing trust, it’s codifying it.
Uvika Wahi is the Editor at RSU by PriceLabs, where she leads news coverage and analysis for professional short-term rental managers. She writes on Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo, regulations, and industry trends, helping managers make informed business decisions. Uvika also presents at global industry events such as SCALE, VITUR, and Direct Booking Success Summit.
