Vrbo has quietly begun rolling out an integration with BabyQuip, a baby gear rental platform, enabling travelers to rent cribs, strollers, and other family essentials to be delivered directly to their vacation rental. The update, shared via a July 2025 Host News email, has sparked discussion among short-term rental professionals, not because the service exists, but because of how it’s being implemented.
While framed as a convenience for hosts, it’s already raising concerns about control, liability, and the erosion of upsell opportunities for professional short-term rental managers.
What Is BabyQuip, and Why Is Vrbo Partnering with Them?
BabyQuip is a baby gear rental platform that allows traveling families to rent cribs, car seats, high chairs, toys, and other child-friendly equipment at their destination. The company operates across the U.S. and has positioned itself as a trusted provider for safety-inspected, professionally cleaned gear.
Vrbo and BabyQuip have had an evolving relationship since at least 2022, when BabyQuip listed Vrbo among its strategic hospitality partners. Earlier versions of the partnership included a host referral model, where property managers could suggest BabyQuip services and potentially earn a commission.
What Changed
In its July 2025 Host News email, Vrbo announced that the integration would now be embedded into the guest experience. Here’s how the current setup works:
- After guests book a Vrbo property, they are presented with an option to rent gear through BabyQuip.
- Guests arrange pickup and delivery directly with BabyQuip.
- Vrbo says no action is required from hosts.
The only recommendation from Vrbo to hosts is to review their amenity settings.
What This Means for Guests
For guests, especially those traveling with young children, this change may offer a meaningful upgrade. Rather than relying on chance or messaging back and forth to find a property that offers baby gear, travelers now have a consistent, post-booking option to secure essential items. While some hosts already maintain local partnerships with BabyQuip providers, this integration creates a more uniform and scalable offering across the Vrbo platform.
This, however, raises questions on the host side. Are they supposed to add BabyQuip as an amenity, even though they don’t offer it themselves and don’t benefit financially from it? Is Vrbo suggesting hosts help signal BabyQuip availability to attract family travelers, while the platform, not the host, captures the added value?
A Longstanding Relationship, Evolving Quietly
This isn’t the first time we’ve heard of Vrbo and BabyQuip working together. Since 2022, BabyQuip has publicly cited Vrbo as a strategic partner. Previous iterations included a host referral model, where hosts could suggest BabyQuip services to their guests and potentially earn referral income.
What’s different now is that the integration is platform-controlled and guest-facing. It’s no longer about empowering hosts to offer added services; it’s about Vrbo building guest-centric conveniences into the post-booking experience, with minimal or no host involvement.
How Hosts Are Reacting
A LinkedIn post by Heather Fillmore, CEO of StayLuxe Properties, brought the issue to the forefront. While there are some differing views, the majority of responses from hosts have been critical of the move, raising serious concerns about control, safety, and revenue loss.
1. Loss of Control and Liability Concerns
Many hosts are uneasy with the idea of third-party vendors entering properties without their knowledge. Questions about safety, insurance, and access control are at the top of their minds. For professionally managed homes, standard operating procedures often require approval before any non-guest entry.
2. Lost Upsell Opportunities
Property managers and vendors noted that upsells like baby gear rentals represent a growing revenue stream. By integrating BabyQuip directly, Vrbo bypasses hosts and captures this value stream. Several STR professionals see this as part of a broader trend of OTAs edging in on the ancillary revenues traditionally leveraged by property managers.
3. Framing Frustration
There was also visible frustration with how Vrbo framed the announcement. Hosts found the emphasis on “hands-off convenience” misleading, arguing that it obscures the platform’s real motive: capturing more guest spend for itself.
4. Some See a Silver Lining
A few voices acknowledged potential upsides. Offloading baby gear logistics to BabyQuip can reduce host liability. It may also improve guest satisfaction by ensuring high-quality, sanitized equipment. Some argued that this integration helps raise awareness of upsells as a category, pushing hosts to take guest experience monetization more seriously.
Airbnb’s ‘Services’ in Parallel Signal a Broader Platform Power Grab
This isn’t just a Vrbo story. Airbnb recently launched Services, allowing guests to book experiences like private chefs or massages inside the property, without requiring host involvement or notification. This has stirred similar concerns: unauthorized vendors accessing homes, possible damage, and blurring lines of liability.
Both moves suggest a shift: OTAs are increasingly looking to act as concierges, managing more parts of the guest journey and keeping more of the revenue, while hosts handle the housing and possible headaches.
The OTA as Experience Broker
With BabyQuip integration, Vrbo is doing more than helping families pack light. It’s taking a larger role in shaping and monetizing the guest experience. For professional managers, the challenge is to stay informed, assert control where it matters, and think strategically about what the guest journey looks like; not just from booking to checkout, but from discovery to delivery.
