At the end of the day, HomeAway is a advertising vehicle for owners to reach guests. Each unit is as good as that owner makes it. I own 11 properties that I list on HomeAway and manage 6 for others. My customers are universally happy with the condos they stay in. At this point there is not much you can do. But I would strongly suggest in the future you speak to the condo owner and ask tough questions. Owners like yours give the rest of us a bad name. It is a shame that a few bad apples can screw things up for the rest of us owners who work very hard to give our guests a great experience!

No it is not possibler. It would be like if you would ask why is google major search engine or almost all goes on google when searching anything. It is up to the people and they have chosen to go over that sites for some reason and they invest a lot of money in advertising and you can not avoid them if you want to rent for the owners, agencies or renters.

I plan to contact Better Business Bureau (BBB) about Home Away. Hopefully, others will do the same.

I look for other places where I can contact owners. In general when renting I find it useful to ask a lot of questions and be as informed as possible. Legitimate owners are usually wiling to answer questions unless they are very unprofessional or in an over touristy area in which choices are few or limited. Verifying the ownership of the property through independent means has also given us peace of mind. Best of luck.

I wrote a review & I dealt a LOT with Homeaway.co.uk as well as the owner who ripped me off. I've rented flats tons of times from other agencies & have never dealt with a landlord like this or an agency who did not help at all. I'd try to get your money back & run, don't walk away from anything to do with homeaway.co.uk. It's pretty bad when the owner's cleaner steals a Rolex, hundreds of euros, a travel card, etc. and then the owner makes me pay for her listing with homeaway which was NOT on her contract.

It is Blackmail! You can't threaten to write a bad review if they don't return your full deposit. Use a good contract and you won't have any problems.

Barbara K., I rented a flat in Knightsbridge, London. Never rent a place on Rutland Mews. 3 retired women rented a flat in Knightsbridge/London & arrived before check-in time while the cleaner was there. We left the bags until check-in time. The next day 1 of us discovered that her Rolex watch given to her by her recently deceased husband was missing along with some euros & an Oyster card from her carry-on bag. We notified the owner who acted disbelieving & mentioned that SHE always wore her jewelry when traveling. The bag was not out of her sight through the whole trip. We assured the woman we only wanted to warn her so future guests wouldn't be stolen from.
We also asked her to return the deposit after she had checked the flat after we left as my credit card was loaded.
She did & after saying how pleased she was that we left the flat in such good shape she deducted 90 GBP for agents' fees which in her contract clearly states the the rental price INCLUDES the agents fees.
Twice Homeaway rejected the review & finally did but left the owner tons of time to reply. I then said if she returned the 90 GBP to me, I'd just drop the whole thing. Homeaway then called me & said I was BLACKMAILING her & they won't publish the review. How is asking for money that's rightfully mine considered blackmailing. I've rented flats 17 times in London before & this is the first bad thing that has happened to me. DON'T RENT A PROPERTY ON RUTLAND MEWS! The flat is nice, the owner is not.

Am renting a guest cottage in myrtle beach this summer have never dealt with this web site before have always dealt with grand strand want to make sure this info im getting on this cottage really does exsit before sending thousands of dollars

Has anyone used HomeAway in London?

Have anyone rented a condo in Biloxi Mississippi from Dennis? If so how was it? Is it legit? Do the condo add up to the pictures on Home away?