I wrote a review about HomeAway which did not put them in good light. I wrote to the President himself and he got his legal team on the case. It is now resolved in my favour and all monies I was entitled to have now been returned. The actual booking service was good, it was just the after service care! Fairs Fair.

My husband and I rented a week in Beer, Devon at Durham House Apartment. We have visited Beer before so we knew the location.
On entering the building the carpets and tiled floors were dirty. The hand rail and general paintwork, which was all white emulsion had not been wiped clean., The mirror and shower door not cleaned. The seal on the glass shower door mouldy. The pipe behind the loo thick with dust and dirt. The overflow hole in the bathroom sink black. Carpets matted, stained and hair. Cooker vents greasy. Toaster full of crumbs. Food under fridge and seeped out of side of fridge. Extractor in bathroom extremely noisy and ran on a long time. A plug in air freshener on to disguise a dusty smell throughout. We took our own linen and bedding and we were very pleased we had. We did not cook and we only are fish and chips once in Beer beach. When i complained to the owner she implied we had complained about local restaurants which we had not even been to. I sent photos when we left the rental early. No acknowledgement of how dirty my photos showed the apartment to be. No apology but just insisting everything was clean and implying i was not telling the truth. The photos clearly verify what i have said.

Despite us cancelling our Villa reservation within the guaranteed 100% deposit refund period (due to COVID-19), and the property owner providing a full deposit refund of EUR 2,085 to HomeAway 3 weeks ago, HomeAway still refuse to pass this refund onto us. We've been in regular contact with HomeAway 'customer services' over the past 2 weeks, but are always fobbed off with stories of technical issues, and that they are working hard to resolve these. Each time we contact them we are told to wait ANOTHER 10 working days. I doubt we'll see the deposit again, so won't be using them again, recommendation is to steer clear.

This farmhouse was truly a wonderful find. We spent a week here in April exploring the region and had no difficulty driving down in our hire car from La Rochelle. We loved the layout and character of this villa. It is clean, spacious and comfortable and really felt like a home away from home. Our kids were particularly delighted with the games room which was a godsend when it rained! The heated swimming pool and private garden made the entire stay so relaxing. We will definitely return. The Stafford Family.

This company is a complete scam. After speaking to the owner of a property and agreeing the cancellation and refund on the 20th March I called today and the refund will take another 3-4 weeks to process. Avoid at all cost.

I stayed in a lovely log cabin for a 4 night break in Mid March. Could not fault the place, the owner an absolute delight, we met her at the cabin and she showed us round. Homeaway took our money and a deposit for damage. £100 held in case of damage, I contact the owner through their website (Homeaway) she says that they have refunded it on the 23rd March, I have contacted Homeaway through their online chat facility and they say it may now take quite a few weeks due to Covid 19. Personally I think they are going into administration due to lack of funds. The online agent said she would provide me with an email address to write to sending it to my email, guess what... NO EMAIL from Homeaway, please avoid this site and company at all costs, they take but do not issue legitimate refnunds

My government said stay at home!
After loads of emails and phone calls to HOME AWAY and the villa owner JEAN MARC.
They kept my money €1777 for a ten day stay with my wife and 5 year old child.
I hope you can sleep at night JEAN MARC BECAUSE WE WILL MEET ONE DAY!

Like hundreds of peo0ple in a similar position I had to cancel a reservation in Sardinia due to covid 19. This was on 15 March and the money has still not been refunded despite several phone calls and an email of 21 March using the following words the amount(of over 700 euros) had already been refunded last Mar 15,2020 and it should just take 5-7 banking days on your account. Well here we are on 2nd April and still no refund, I have written to Jeff Hurst a Mr Mortegon and their media department but no one has the curtesy to reply. The last conversation I had with customer services I was told that there were technical problems with some refunds REAllY

This is NOT a site to rent / pay for accommodation - when you "pay" for the accommodation a fee is taken from your card and then... you'll get an email telling you contact another company to pay the balance, potentially by bank transfer.

I assumed this was a horrible mistake - but HomeAway assured me - they just advertise - get on with making the bank transfer.

Thankfully I've managed to get my CC company involved and disputed the transaction. My advice: find the property on another site. Try using Google reverse image search (https://images.google.com) to find others using the same images in the listing - then go to the property provider directly.

Saturday night I received a text saying a James Havering wanted to check availability on
My apartment for rent for 2 adults.
No dates were given.
A dubious looking UK telephone number was given... repeating the country code and using
3 double digits in the number. This proved false
No e mail was given as has been the case on a previous enquiry from the German site that is linked to this one by common ownership
I tried to respond by the customize reply drop-down box option but received an error message. Subsequent interrogation of this enquiry yielded the same results for the confirm
Availablility and reject availability options.
The message from the specimen enquiring was "Hope your(sic.) declaring this to the tax office".
The following night I then received the same message with the additional sentence of
"Your details will be passed for scrutiny"
All 4 enquiries came through in the late evening. You can draw your own conclusions.
Does any verification of enquiries and their source take place before transmission to property owners/managers with this site?

I had to cancel my booking for an apartment owned byJoanna Baker in Burgau and she emailed me to say that HomeAway had refunded my deposit on 17 March 2020. I have NOTreceived this money and my contact went straight to the owner as this is how the HomeAway system works and she responded on 21 March to say perhaps HomeAway were busy. I emailed a third time but this time she did not respond. Why has the deposit not been refunded to me? They have had ample time now and there is no contact from them so is this a case of a company using the pandemic to line their pockets? This is a disgrace especially given that we are pensioners in the vulnerable group and we need our money refunded now. PLEASE DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY, THEIR LACK OF COMMUNICATION IS DISGRACEFUL AND THE WAY THEY DO BUSINESS IS VERY QUESTIONABLE. I will be looking into how I can escalate my complaint as I see no reason why they should be allowed to get away with this, look at Trust Pilot as well for more of the same. Highly disreputable!

AVOID AVOID AVOID AVOID AVOID
AVOID AVOID AVOID AVOID AVOID - I cannot stress this enough! Only use HomeAway if you want to pull your hair out and lose your money!

After a completely shambolic experience booking an apartment in Tenerife back in November for a trip in May2020, HOMEAWAY contacted me, explaining that the Apartment was 'no longer available' and that it was down to me to try and pursue the Owner (scam Artist) and if I have no luck, I then need to try and recover the fund through my own bank.

After months my bank kindly re-imbursed me for the owners part of the transaction but could not recover the so called service fee that had been taken by HOMEAWAY. Homeaway promised me in writing they would re-imburse me for their fee in January. They have not! I have now contacted them over 15 times for them to continue to say "our team of technicians are investigating the refund and this may take some considerable time".

This is a stalling tactic hoping that I will simply go away and forget the refund. I will not!

In summary,
1) HomeAway DO NOT vet owners and the properties they represent on their site (after investigating the so called 'Owner' in question I discovered he was just a scammer with no real trading credentials).
2) when you encounter any problems HomeAway completely expect you to sort it out yourself with absolutely no help or assistance from them whatsoever (would not even attempt to contact the 'Owner' on my behalf).
3) any promises they make to refund you for their fees are just stalling tactics, and cause further frustration.

Use Airbnb - they know what they're doing - they hold your money until you have entered the property - not like this lot who just pay random people your hard earned cash!

After months of stress I have now finally booked a replacement accommodation but it is far from what I wanted due to having less choice, time and money - thanks for nothing HomeAway! (and I mean nothing!)

Home Away don't honour their statement to help provide accommodation for the first 7 days of your booking that they cancelled. A guaranteed booking statement from them is not worth the paper it is written on. I believe Expedia owns Home Away. While Home Away is not regulated, you can complain to Expedia and if that doesn't work. Go to the Office of Fair Trading. Seems like this is the only way to treat THIS DISHONEST COMPANY.

We booked a villa early October in an area we knew well, in Menorca. We paid the full payment and received a an email with a reservation number and booking details, owner's name (but no contact details) we booked and paid for our flights corresponding to the booking.
By chance, on Saturday 16th November, we discover by checking out credit card statement, that on the 3rd October the money had been returned less £98. Why, and why weren't we told? We could have flown out next April for 4 weeks and have nowhere to stay.
My email to home away was not replied to, and via their app, I was told my email to the owner requesting clarification could not be sent and to try again later. Which I did, with no luck.
Further digging through their non-user friendly website, full of THEIR terms and conditions and privacy policies, I found some phone numbers, but I also stumbled across sitejabber and these reviews. I decided I would not waste any more time with them and walk away from my £98. Instead I contacted the BBC x-ray programme and asked them to investigate. No promises but if enough of you people reading this contract them as well we may get some answers and publicity about homeaway's bad practice. BBC Wales X-ray. Contact them now (I phoned but you can email) and put karma their way.

I do wonder if customers realise how much money this company makes from both parties. It is now only possible to advertise with them as an owner, if they handle the customers money and charge a booking fee as well. They take all the profit for no outlay or risk hanging on to the money for months on end... I do wonder what would happen to it, if they went bust.

Only sales answer the phone, customer service forget it, been on the phone for an hour! I have done a search on our own property, put in Bristol pet friendly, I get properties 30 miles away, must be about who pays the most money

The accommodation we booked in Spain did not exist. After half a day on the phone to the local provider they offered us a far inferior apartment - 20 sq m, no windows, winos on the door step instead of our "Luxury Apartment".

Homeaway were no help whatsoever - as far as they are concerned the contract is between you and the local provider. Their "book with confidence guarantee" appears to be a complete fiction.

It wasnt their fault that the accommodation failed to materialise - but their "its nothing to do with us" attitude absolutely stinks.

Will never use them again - three days of a holiday ruined.

All the accommodation owners resent the enormous rake-off made by homeaway - for which they get bugger all in return.

RIP off booked a holiday took 1600 off my credit card then 3 hours later informed me it was double booked paid in English converted to dollar so not my fault but £20 worse off and no holiday

This looks like a good outfit but basically they take no responsibility for the properties or any issues with them. They want you to sort everything directly with the owner and if the owner is difficult they don't help. The 'deposit guarantee' is a joke as they simply take the owners word against yours without any proper consultation. I holiday regularly but would never use this company again.

Stay away from this website. I wish I had read the reviews before using. Having been promised a 100%cancellation refund it has taken me a month of going round in circles and finally getting another home owner to tell me how to tell my owner what to get some of my money back. It was not -all of it but I have had enough and cant be bothered to fight anymore. I would give zero if it was possible. Expect no back up from the company whatsoever

Book with someone else. Website refund states 5-7days this is not the case, full of excuses. Property Manager couldn't initiate cancellation due to there faulty system, then owner had problems with there bank. Homeaway was quick to take the money, not so quick to refund.

Terrible customer service. We booked a villa in Madeira which was cockroach-infested (amongst other issues.) We spoke directly to the agent and were promised a refund and he persuaded us that there was no need to go through Home Away. We booked into a hotel. Not what we wanted for our holiday but the best that could be done under the circumstances. Of course, the promised refund then never materialised, and the agent claims that he never offered it. In spite of our providing evidence of all this, Home Away say they cannot act against him because we didn't get the promise of a refund in writing. We are not covered by their guarantee either because we didn't go through them when we had the problem. They appear incapable of understanding that this was purely because the agent was so reasonable and apologetic and appeared happy to sort it out with us directly and this persuaded us away from notifying Home Away - but of course the refund didn't arrive. This must be perfectly acceptable behaviour on his part as far as Home Away are concerned, as they refuse to do anything about it. We are significantly out of pocket and Home Away's customer service appear totally unable to understand the problem or even to read the evidence we have submitted to them properly.

My advice to anyone looking at booking on homeaway is to google the property name or address. I have found a lot of the places have their own website or are listed elsewhere. They don't have the huge homeaway fees and you are able to contact the owners directly, much cheaper and faster confirmation. Talking to the owner directly is the best way of finding out what you need to know, plus usually they are willing to negotiate. Homeaway is a rip off.