Ever heard of the Vrbo Premier Host programme? It’s exactly what it sounds like – an elite group of hosts and property managers who go above and beyond to provide a great experience for their guests.
Achieving Premier Host status is much more than just a flashy title: it helps to drive business results. For example, Colorado-based property manager River Ridge Rentals achieved a 20% increase in revenue by becoming a Premier Host.
So what does Premier Host mean on Vrbo and how can you become one? Read all about it below.
What is the Vrbo Premier Host Programme?
Vrbo Premier Host is a free, invite-only program that recognises property managers who consistently deliver outstanding traveller experiences.
As a Vrbo Premier Host, you can enjoy a wide range of perks, from a special Premier Host badge that makes your listings stand out to 24/7 priority support.
You can become a Vrbo Premier Host by investing time, care and energy into making your guests’ stays special and meeting a set of eligibility criteria.
Related: How to Rank Higher on Vrbo
What are the requirements for becoming a Premier Host on Vrbo?
Here are the requirements you need to meet to earn Premier Host status (across all your listings in the last 365 days):
1. Earn excellent reviews from your guests
The reviews you get from your guest are a reflection of the hospitality experience you provide. As a result, reviews are one of the most important criteria to qualify for Premier Host status.
To be eligible, you need to have collected at least 3 reviews from guests and have a 4.3 or higher average review rating across all your listings.
Wondering how the average review rating is calculated? Here’s an example. If you have five properties with ten bookings total, and five bookings received a 5.0 rating and five bookings received a 4.5 rating, your average review rating would be 4.75.
Tips on getting more (and better) guest reviews:
- Prepare your guests. When you follow up after their stay, tell them how they can leave a review. Get them to talk about their stay so they’ll have ideas to write about. Then let them know they’ll receive a post-stay email with a request for a review.
- Proactively leave guest reviews. Writing a guest review often prompts them to leave a review for you. While you don’t always have to be the first to leave a review, it can be a good way to get the process started.
- Get better reviews by setting the right expectations. Make your listings as accurate as possible through photos and content. We can advise you on putting together high-performing listings that get great reviews. Check your listings’ quality score in Rentals United now.
2. Maintain a high booking acceptance rate and low owner-initiated cancellation rate
Accepting as many bookings as you possibly can and following through – i.e. not cancelling reservations – is crucial to providing a great guest experience. That’s why paying attention to your acceptance and cancellation rates is key to achieving Premier Host status.
To become a Premier Host, you need to maintain a 90% or higher booking acceptance rate and a 5% or lower owner-initiated cancellation rate across all your listings.
How is the owner-initiated cancellation rate calculated? For example, if you have five properties with twenty bookings in total, and you cancelled one of those bookings, your overall owner-initiated cancellation rate would be 5%. Bookings cancelled by guests do not count towards this rate and do not affect your eligibility for Premier Host Status.
Tips on improving your booking acceptance rate:
- Set up your properties with Instant Book on Vrbo. In Rentals United, all Vrbo listings are set to Instant Book by default. With instant book enabled, you can be sure you will not miss a valuable reservation.
- Show travellers how to cancel directly on Vrbo. If you get an offline cancellation (for example, on the phone or by email), be sure to select “Cancelled by guest” when you register the cancellation in Rentals United. Guest-initiated cancellations don’t affect your eligibility for the Vrbo Premier Host Program, but owner-initiated cancellations do.
- Proactively communicate with property owners. Be very transparent with your owners and talk to them about how owner-initiated cancellations affect the guest experience and the performance of your listings. If they’re aware of the consequences, they’ll be less likely to want to cancel bookings out of convenience.
3. Reach a minimum number of bookings or booked nights
Additionally, if you’d like to become a Vrbo Premier Host, you need to have received 5 or more bookings or 60 or more booked nights across all your listings in the last 365 days.
You don’t need to apply to become a Premier host – as soon as you meet all the eligibility criteria outlined above, you’ll be automatically accepted into the programme.
Eligibility is reassessed on a quarterly basis. You can lose your Premier Host status if you don’t meet the criteria, but you can also get it back as soon as you fulfil the requirements again.
What are the benefits of becoming a Vrbo Premier Host?
Achieving Premier Host status comes with a number of benefits:
- Premier Host badge shown on your profile and all your listings (including new ones). This will help you stand out from the crowd and give you a competitive edge in your market.
- Access to
Boost
*, a programme that lets you earn power-ups to improve your listings’ visibility in search. This will allow you to boost specific listings in a date range of your choosing and drive bookings. - Inclusion in the Premier Host filter. Your listings will show up when travellers apply the Premier Host search filter, giving your more visibility.
- 24/7 priority support so you can resolve issues as quickly as possible. Available in all countries except Singapore, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Brazil.
How can you check your Premier Host status?
It’s very easy to check your Vrbo Premier Host status. Just log in to your Vrbo dashboard and check your scorecard.
It will tell you how close you are to achieving Premier Host status and even give you tips on what to improve to become a Premier Host faster.
How can Rentals United help you become a Vrbo Premier Host?
Rentals United exists to help you save time so you can focus on the areas of your business that need your personal attention – like providing an impeccable guest experience, which is key to becoming a Premier Host.
By automating your distribution with our channel manager, you can be more efficient, reduce time spent on repetitive tasks and have peace of mind that all your channel connections are taken care of.
Moreover, we work closely with our channel partners – like Vrbo – to provide you with all the data and tools you need to optimise your channel performance, rank higher in search results and earn more from your listings.
If you’d like more information about our Vrbo connection, check out our Vrbo channel page or get in touch with us.
*Boost is available on a market-by-market basis. If you’re a property manager who uses software to manage your listing, you must be price consistent on Vrbo in order to access Boost.
