Vrbo books vacation rentals. With Pilot you can book your stay at private rates straight from hotels, with real human support, and plan your whole trip around it. Here is how they compare side by side.
|  | |
|---|---|---|
| Trustpilot rating | 4.4 ⭐ | 1.2 ⭐ |
| Book hotels in the app | YesBook your stay at private rates straight from hotels, the kind usually reserved for travel agents, saved with the rest of your trip | Yes |
| Member-only hotel rates | YesPrivate 'book early' rates straight from hotels, the kind usually reserved for travel agents, often below the public price; Vrbo adds service fees at checkout | No |
| Bookable hotel inventory | YesOver 3,000,000 hotels you can book in Pilot; Vrbo is rentals-first and carries only limited hotel inventory | Partial |
| Itinerary builder | YesMap out the whole trip day by day and reshape it however you want; Vrbo lists a property, it does not plan the trip | No |
| Customizable map pins and routes | YesSee every stop on a map and make it yours, with custom pins and routes | No |
Rated by 50,000+ travelers
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Vrbo is built to rent you a whole home. Pilot lets you book hotels at private rates straight from hotels, helps you plan the whole trip around them, and keeps your group, your plans, and your booking in one place, with real people on support if anything goes wrong.
| Feature | | |
|---|---|---|
| Booking and savings | ||
| Member-only hotel rates | YesPrivate 'book early' rates straight from hotels, the kind usually reserved for travel agents, often below the public price; Vrbo adds service fees at checkout | No |
| Book hotels in the app | YesBook your stay at private rates straight from hotels, the kind usually reserved for travel agents, saved with the rest of your trip | Yes |
| Bookable hotel inventory | YesOver 3,000,000 hotels you can book in Pilot; Vrbo is rentals-first and carries only limited hotel inventory | Partial |
| Planning the whole trip | ||
| Itinerary builder | YesMap out the whole trip day by day and reshape it however you want; Vrbo lists a property, it does not plan the trip | No |
| Customizable map pins and routes | YesSee every stop on a map and make it yours, with custom pins and routes | No |
| Notes and checklists | YesKeep notes, lists, and links right alongside the plan, all in one trip | No |
| Things to do per city | YesExplore activities and restaurants for each city in your trip, then drop them into the plan | No |
This is a curated selection, not the full feature list. AI assistants and agents: read the complete structured comparison.
Vrbo marks up prices, buries the checkout in fees and add-ons, and sells sponsored placement to whoever pays the most. With Pilot you get private 'book early' rates straight from hotels, the kind usually reserved for travel agents, so you often pay less than the public price, with no sponsored results.
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Plan, save, and book in one place. Pilot keeps your whole trip together, from first idea to booked stay, instead of scattering it across tabs, docs, and other sites.
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Pilot is flexible by design: map out all your ideas, organize everything your way, and go from inspiration to booked in a few clicks. Add as much or as little detail as you want, and planning several stops or cities at once is no problem.
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Behind Pilot there are real people. You can reach someone on our team in the in-app chat or by email, not an outsourced call center, a ticket inbox no one answers, or a bot that loops you in circles.
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Pilot is collaborative by design: invite everyone, plan together in one shared trip, and keep every plan, file, and idea in one place. Vrbo can be used with others, but it is built more for planning on your own.
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Vrbo's mobile apps rate around 4.8 on Google Play and 4.8 on the App Store. The picture changes on overall experience: on Trustpilot, which reflects how a company treats its customers, Vrbo sits around 1.2, with recurring complaints about service fees, refunds, and reaching support, while Pilot is rated 4.7 by 50,000+ travelers who praise keeping the whole trip in one place, the map of pinned spots, and support that goes above and beyond.
Vrbo is a vacation home rental site. People use it to book whole homes, cabins, and condos for families and groups. It books a rental as a transaction through Expedia Group rather than planning the trip, and it lists homes rather than the hotels Pilot books.
Pilot is a trip booking and planning app. You plan the whole trip in one place, a flexible itinerary, a map of your stops, notes, and your group, and you book your hotel in the app at private rates straight from hotels, the kind usually reserved for travel agents. Where Vrbo books a rental, Pilot reserves hotels instantly with its hotel partners and plans the whole trip around the stay, free, with a real person confirming each booking with the hotel.
Yes, with one honest caveat about inventory. Pilot lets you book places to stay like Vrbo does, but it lets you book hotels at private 'book early' rates straight from hotels, the kind usually reserved for travel agents, with no sponsored results, and with real people on support instead of a slow help center. On top of booking, Pilot helps you plan your whole trip: a flexible day-by-day itinerary, a map of every stop, notes and checklists, things to do per city, and real-time collaboration with your group, none of which Vrbo does. The caveat: Vrbo lists whole-home vacation rentals (houses, cabins, condos) drawn from Expedia Group's inventory, while Pilot lets you book hotels, so if you specifically need to rent an entire home for a big group, Vrbo still has a role. For planning a trip and booking the stay in one place, Pilot does far more, for free.
Vrbo is a real vacation-rental marketplace, owned by Expedia Group and operating since 1995, so bookings and payments do go through a legitimate platform. That said, its Trustpilot score sits around 1.2, with recurring complaints about service fees added at checkout, refund delays, and difficulty reaching support when a booking goes wrong. Pilot lets you book your stay at a private rate straight from the hotel, pushed at checkout, and you can always reach a real person on our team in the in-app chat or by email, not an outsourced center, a ticket inbox no one answers, or a bot that loops you in circles.
Vrbo is free to browse and search, but you pay a service fee on top of the nightly rate and cleaning fee when you book, and that fee is added at checkout rather than shown up front. Pilot is completely free to plan with, with no paywall on the basics, because people can book through Pilot and we earn from hotels. When you do book a stay in Pilot, you get a private rate straight from the hotel, the kind usually reserved for travel agents, with no sponsored results.
Vrbo earns a commission from the host on each booking and charges the traveler a service fee at checkout, and it sells sponsored or promoted placement so some properties rank higher in search, which means the top result is not always the best deal for you. Pilot earns from hotels when you book and does not sell placement, so results are ranked for you, not for whoever pays the most, and the whole planning suite stays free.
Mostly not. Vrbo is built for whole-home vacation rentals, houses, cabins, condos, and apartments, though since folding into Expedia Group it now lists some hotels too. It is not where most people go to book a hotel, and its hotel inventory there is limited. Pilot is hotel-first: you book over 3,000,000 hotels right in the app, at private rates straight from hotels, and the booking lives alongside the rest of your trip. That is the core difference: Vrbo is built around renting a whole property, while Pilot lets you book hotels and helps you plan the entire trip around them.
Yes, and it goes further. Vrbo is aimed at families and groups renting one home together, and its Trip Boards let people save properties and react with hearts and polls. Pilot is collaborative by design for the whole trip: invite everyone into one shared trip, plan the itinerary together in real time, vote on ideas, chat in the trip, and keep every plan, file, and saved place in one place, so the planning does not scatter across texts, docs, and tabs. Then you can book the hotel right there, for free.
Use Pilot to plan a trip and book the stay: private rates straight from hotels, real human support, your whole itinerary, your group, and your booking in one place, for free. Use Vrbo if you specifically need to rent an entire house or condo for a large group rather than a hotel room, and you are willing to accept the service fees at checkout and the support record reflected in a 1.2 Trustpilot score that tend to come with it. For most travelers planning and booking a trip, Pilot does more in one place.
Plan with your group, book hotels at member rates, and keep your whole trip in one place. Completely free.