Vrbo’s Rolls Out New Promotions Suite: What Managers Should Know

On the surface, Vrbo’s recently launched Promotions Suite may look like a simple toolkit for driving bookings. But zoom out, and it becomes clear this update marks a strategic shift for Vrbo.

This article breaks down what Vrbo’s new Promotions Suite offers, who it’s designed to support, and what its launch suggests about the platform’s direction. Along the way, we’ll raise key questions professional short-term rental managers should be asking as promotional tools become more central to OTA strategy.

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What Vrbo’s Promotions Suite Actually Does

Vrbo now offers four types of promotions you can set directly in your dashboard (with API access coming for some PMS users):

• Early Booking: Target travelers 60+ days in advance to secure longer stays and better rates. Available now.
• Last Minute: Fill vacancies within 30 days of check-in. Available now.
• Mobile: Reach mobile-first users who account for nearly half of Vrbo bookings. Coming in July.
• Members-Only: Offer deals to Expedia Group loyalty members—travelers who reportedly book earlier, stay longer, and spend more. Coming in July.

These promotions can be layered on top of existing discounts (weekly, monthly) to create more compelling offers without permanently lowering your base rate. In exchange, listings using them may receive:

• Improved sort rank
• Promotional badging
• Increased marketing exposure across Vrbo

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What This Means for Operators of All Sizes

For small operators (1–10 listings):

• Easier visibility wins without big marketing budgets.
• Tools to attract last-minute or early-bird bookings without full-time revenue management.

For mid-sized operators (10–50 listings):

• More ways to segment offers by property or season.
• Potential to test and iterate promotions in lieu of dynamic pricing tools.

For larger operators (50+ listings):

• Once the Promotions API is live, there’s potential for scaled, automated discounting that plays nicely with existing tech stacks.
• Opportunity to fine-tune exposure and performance without relying solely on organic reach.

But for everyone, the underlying message is the same: you now need to think like a merchandiser, not just a manager, crafting targeted offers, boosting visibility, and positioning your listings to sell, not just sit.

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Perfect—so instead of a full-blown how-to, you want a clear, strategic primer that:

• Acknowledges that how to use these tools matters
• Summarizes what operators need to understand about setup and stacking
• Links out to Vrbo’s official instructions
• Integrates seamlessly with your existing article

Here’s a section you can append to the end of your published piece:

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Want to Use Vrbo Promotions? Here’s What You Need to Know First

While this article focuses on why Vrbo’s new Promotions Suite matters strategically, actually using the tools effectively requires understanding a few key mechanics—especially if you’re layering discounts and managing multiple channels.

Here’s the foundational knowledge every property manager should have before diving in:

Promotions vs. Discounts

Promotions are not the same as Vrbo’s standard weekly or monthly discounts. The key difference?

• Promotions include badging and visibility boosts in search results (if the discount is 5% or more).
• They are targeted and time-based, allowing you to tailor offers to specific guest behaviors like early booking or last-minute travel.
• Promotions can be stacked on top of existing weekly/monthly discounts, increasing guest savings—but also cutting into your rates if not monitored closely.

How Stacking Works

Vrbo automatically applies the highest promotional discount available during a guest’s booking window, and only one promotion can be stacked on top of a long-stay discount at a time. The promotion is applied to the already-discounted rate—not the base rate—so the final price drops further than it might first appear.

If you’re using dynamic pricing software, be extra cautious to avoid rate conflicts or unintentional underpricing.

Setting Up and Managing Promotions

You can set up promotions directly in the Vrbo Owner Dashboard, and they’ll appear in a dedicated Promotions hub under your calendar settings. From there, you can create, edit, pause, or remove promotions as needed.

Want to see step-by-step instructions? Vrbo has a full how-to article here.

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What Vrbo’s Strategy Appears to Be

This move isn’t happening in a vacuum. Here’s what the launch of a full promotions suite suggests about Vrbo’s broader goals:

1. Catching Up to Competitors on Conversion Tools

• Airbnb and Booking.com have long offered mobile discounts, loyalty deals, and conversion-boosting tools.
• Vrbo is late to the game but appears to be closing the gap by offering similar features.

This raises a key question:
Will Vrbo continue rolling out merchandising features to match Booking.com’s Genius tiers or Airbnb’s machine-learning-driven personalization?

2. Leveraging the Expedia Ecosystem

The “Members Only” promo hints at deeper Expedia-Vrbo integration—perhaps the most strategic piece of this update.

• Vrbo listings using this promotion will be surfaced to Expedia Group loyalty members—a traveler segment Expedia claims spends 40% more annually on average, books earlier, and stays longer.
  
• This could become a key differentiator if Airbnb continues resisting loyalty programs altogether.

But we don’t yet know:

• How much control hosts will have over which loyalty tiers they target.
• Whether these guests are more valuable in practice, or just in theory.

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Vrbo’s Promo Tools in the Context of Expedia Group’s AI-Powered Strategy

While Vrbo’s Promotions Suite itself isn’t labeled as an AI product, it launches at a time when Expedia Group is rapidly evolving its marketing engine through artificial intelligence. In a recent interview, Jochen Koedijk, CMO of Expedia Group, laid out how the company is using generative AI to:

• Scale creative production (text, image, video) across Expedia, Hotels.com, and Vrbo
• Optimize campaign performance using real-time trendspotting, summarization, and behavioral insights
• Adapt to changing guest discovery behaviors, especially among younger users moving from Google search to AI agents like ChatGPT
• Enhance loyalty and targeting through platforms like One Key, backed by AI-driven personalization

These developments suggest that Vrbo’s new Promotions Suite is more than a surface-level feature—it’s likely part of a longer-term strategy to:

• Dynamically match offers with guest behavior
• Automate merchandising logic across millions of listings
• Bridge inventory with demand in a more intelligent, data-driven way

Emerging Questions:

• Will Vrbo eventually recommend or auto-adjust promotions based on market trends or guest behavior using AI?
• Could future versions of these tools automatically A/B test offers and suggest optimizations?
• How will Expedia Group’s cross-brand loyalty program and AI stack influence Vrbo’s feature roadmap?

We don’t have all the answers yet, but the direction is clear: more automation, more segmentation, and deeper platform control.

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What This Tells Us About Where the Industry Is Headed

Vrbo’s promotions suite isn’t just about plugging holes in your calendar. It reflects broader currents shaping the short-term rental landscape:

1. Merchandising Is the New Minimum

You’re no longer just listing your property. You’re:

• Targeting segments (mobile, loyalists, last-minute)
• Layering strategic offers
• Managing visibility algorithms

Operators must now think like online retailers, not passive inventory suppliers.

2. Guest Identity and Intent Are the Next Competitive Edge

Airbnb has leaned into personalization. Vrbo is tapping into loyalty. Booking.com has Genius tiers.

The platforms are all trying to own the guest relationship—and property managers must understand how they’re being positioned within that.

Key question:
Will future visibility depend more on guest behavior than listing quality?

3. Operators Need Tools—but Also Oversight

OTA tools like this give smaller and mid-sized operators more competitive leverage. But they also:

• Require active monitoring to avoid unprofitable stacking
• Can lead to dependence on OTA traffic and logic

For large operators, the coming Promotions API is promising. But only if it integrates cleanly into existing tech and doesn’t create duplicate workflows or conflict with pricing software.

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Final Takeaway

Vrbo’s new promotions suite is a strategic signal that tells us:

• Vrbo wants to evolve from a listings marketplace into a performance-driven platform.
• Guest segmentation, loyalty leverage, and merchandising are becoming essential tools in every OTA’s arsenal.
• Professional managers must now juggle more levers to stay visible and profitable—even on platforms they once treated as set-and-forget.

The bigger question isn’t whether to use promotions. It’s:
Are you ready to manage visibility, conversions, and pricing the way the platforms now expect you to?

If not, you may be leaving money, and future bookings, on the table.