katie t.

I am a vacation rental property owner, and have read through many comments here regarding guest reviews, among other things. Some of you have noted that your review "does not meet our guidelines," and presume that it is because you have unkind things to say. This is completely untrue, and please know that as owners we have absolutely NO control over guest reviews.

When a review is written it is sent to the owner for feedback. If it is a glowing review the owner can let HomeAway know that it can be published right away. If it is not so great or if the guest comments are perceived to be malicious in any way, the owner has the right to "hold" the review for a short period of time while he works with the past guest to try to make things right. The guest then has the opportunity to modify the review prior to publishing. If the allotted time passes with no changes, the review WILL be published as is, unless HomeAway has determined that the guest's review was simply malicious.

Never include numbers in your reviews – that is an automatic "kick-out." This includes address numbers, phone numbers, and the rate you paid to rent the property. ANY number will kick your review back to you, with the generic, "…does not meet our guidelines" note.

Here are HomeAway's actual review guidelines:

• A review must be submitted within one year of the date of stay.
• Users who post content must have all legal rights to post the content.
• The content must be directly related to its purpose. Examples include:
Property listing descriptions must relate to the property and information that would be useful to a traveler.
Reviews of a property must focus on the traveler's experience renting the property, which will typically focus on the stay but may address other factors relating to the rental process such as inquiries or bookings.
Content posted in a forum must be relevant to the purpose of the forum and discussion.
• Listings and reviews should be accurate.
• The content must comply with the current site Terms and Conditions
• Reviews and responses should not disclose the physical location of the property or the rates charged by the owner or manager.
Users cannot post a review or response for the purpose of blackmailing or extorting owners or travelers for money or other consideration. The reviews are for the benefit of future travelers, not to allow one party to threaten the other.

Eligibility Guidelines
To review a property, the traveler must meet the following requirements:
• The traveler must be able to provide satisfactory evidence of the stay; possess receipt of property access information from HomeAway Mobile Hospitality Manager; or demonstrate payment in accordance with a rental agreement and was cancelled on or within two weeks of arrival; or paid in accordance with the rental agreement, arrived and had to stay at a property other than the property booked. Owners and property managers of advertised properties may not review the property that he or she owns or manages.
All travelers must also be able to validate his or her identity or email when submitting a review.

To thoroughly scrutinize reviews, click the name of the reviewer and see if they've reviewed other properties as well. Sometimes you may see a fishy connection between the properties reviewed, and it could be that the reviewer is an employee for the rental management company or some such. Be thorough, ask questions, contact the owner – rent with your eyes open. We have 22 5-star reviews, and each one of them is absolutely legitimate.

Ditto ALL of the above 3 pages worth of DO NOT SIGN UP reviews. I stupidly signed up before checking this site, and I completely regret it. Their site cannot even find things that Google can find - it's a complete waste of time and money. I looked myself up on here, and it found absolutely nothing - and I have all kinds of public web exposure. I think the only person who works here is the one who writes the apology responses for all of our complaints!