HomeAwayReviews 1,751

Our family of six thoroughly enjoyed our stay at Pica Flora rental property. The scenery was beautiful. It was very peaceful and homey. Great for adults who appreciate no t. V. There is wifi for those so inclined. The plants and wildlife are bountiful. Restful areas throughout the property to sit and read or take in the views. It is like a home. Comfy. Many items in the kitchen to use... showing a loved and cared for Homeawayfromhome. Leiticia, the property manager is readily available and will meet you in town to take you to the home. We had a wonderful stay.

I have listed my vacation rentals for years on Homeaway, but they have totally changed since they were bought by Expedia. In addition to charging me for my listing, they started also charging guests to book through them. When I offered guests alternative booking options, they cancelled all of my listings without notice and left me without any way to communicate with guests. Unbelievably bad customer service as well. When I called to find out why my listing was cancelled, the rep told me to "read my emails", when I asked what could be done about this they said I could "send an email" but he advised they have no obligation to respond. When I asked about a refund for the $2000+ paid to list my properties, they said I wouldn't be getting one. When I asked who I could escalate the matter to - they gave me the EMAIL address for their legal department, but advised they would only respond if I hired an attorney.

My advice to guests looking to use their sites: Homeaway, VRBO among others is to find an alternative. Their rental guarantee is meaningless as is their trip/travel insurance. I have dealt with many guests who have been cheated on both fronts. The rental guarantee is simply a ploy so they can collect their "Service Fee".

My negative experience with HomeAway. HomeAway, Inc. is a vacation rental marketplace. We wanted to find an appartment for rent in Miami via this site. I found a pretty good condo and contacted the host. She asked me not to book her condo on HomeAway but to communicate directly with her. I was surprised to hear that but after some research I found out that it's a normal practice for HomeAway hosts. Ok, maybe it's a kind of their policy. The lady lives in Montreal so she asked me to bring prepayment in cash to her place... Ok... We agreed to meet today at noon but as she had asked us to give her a call before coming, I called her twice this morning. Both calls were dropped off. I texted her. No reply. Finally I sent the following message: "I am really sorry, but we decided not to book your property. We followed all the agreements <...> It seams to be very risky for us: if we have any questions or issues on site and you are not reachable it can be a problem. Best regards, Natalia". Her reply was really weird: "No problem Natalia. It's really up to you. During Friday night and Saturday I don't use my phone for religeous reasons. I thought that we agreed to meet today at noon. I didn't know you had more questions. It was never a problem for me with anyone else but like I said it's up to you. I will cancel your reservation. Thank you". So SHE asked us to give her a call before coming, we called her on SUNDAY as discussed (!) and it looks like finally WE did something wrong.
Conclusion:
1. I wanted to leave my complaint on HomeAway site but it was impossible as the property had not been booked yet. There is no customer support section on HomeAway site (!)
2. Why don't they remove accounts that want to get money in cash and off-line? As a customer I am not protected from fraud at all

I have just put my property on homeaway and received a booking, I then looked at the payment situation and my customers were charged immediately for the deposit but I won't receive anything until 1-7 days after they arrive. I have now read that homeaway don't give you the security deposit, you have to fight for it and that's the dame with the non refundable deposit. What a scam, how are they allowed to do, this?

It says on the website, somewhere very hidden that I, don't have to use there payment system and I can be paid directly but I cannot, find, out how?

Home Away somehow booked two reservations with my name and under my credit card. I only booked one reservation and I have been going back and forth between HomeAway customer support and Killington's Customer support to get the reservation I never booked cancelled and my money back that i never authorized to leave my account. I have been dealing with John Raimond from Home Away and Betty and Lisa the Manager at Killington Accommodations. There is no sense in urgency to help me get back $716.93 that was taken from me. I am outraged at the customer service I have received.

We have been fighting insurance fund returns on trip and damage rentals for three units which did not work out thru no fault of our own!

HOMEAWAY is holding $800 in our credit card funds which they are blaming on the insurance they sell!
They are fingerpoint each other's Dept and have received no emails or phone calls from HOMEAWAY!

I'm sure CEO Brian Sharples loves the idea of taking money with immediate bookings and not return funds while they set in his bank account

Well... as usual, HomeAway customer service is of NO HELP.
In your recent response:
1. You didn't even bother to respond to my 2nd issue AT ALL.
2. YOU MUST correct YOUR error in service fees charged to my most recent guests. I copy the original message here because I have ZERO confidence that any CS staff is competent enough to scroll down in a message. Here's what I wrote:
"Our most recent two guest: Lxxx and Nxxx, have been charged two different service fees even though each of them paid identical deposits, cleaning fee and sales tax. Lxxx charged $135; Nxxx $124. Why?"
It is not merely disgusting that you have not addressed this issue... It further CEMENTS my belief, based on several previous non-helpful CS responses, that none of you CS personnel will ever provide decent, reliable, honest, or accurate assistance.
Your CS service is badly broken... I hold out zero hope you will ever make your CS state of the art, much less even competent.
I'm not finished with this matter... I am incensed and will explore ALL possible ways to express these thoughts on social media.

We were looking forward to a hen weekend in the summer of 2018. We paid our deposit only to be told(wrongly)that it had been double booked. There was a long delay in being reimbursed and many stressful emails and telephone calls later, we realised that we were left almost £80 out of pocket due to the euro conversion. We have had no apology for their mistake or any offer of a goodwill gesture of any sort. This is appalling customer service and homeaway can be sure that we will be spreading this message far and wide.

I attempted to book the Sieber House on Lake Rescue for 2 weeks this summer 2017 but was inexplicably declined. I found the house on homeway.com, where my dates were (and still are) available. I sent an inquiry to the property manager, Kristen Merrow at Lilypad Properties, who was quick to reply and answer my questions. She indicated the dates looked to be available but wanted to confirm with the homeowner. She included an invoice for the rental in her response. I heard nothing for 10 days. I sent two emails which were followed by another two weeks without a reply. Seeing that the home was still available, I went ahead and booked the reservation on the Homeaway site, only to finally receive an email from Kristen that my reservation was declined. I asked for an explanation but again, did not receive a reply. After filing a complaint with Homeaway, Kristen called me to claim that she did try to contact me outside of the homeaway system to recommend some other homes. She claims the house is booked for the entire summer but it still shows as available on the Homeaway site for my dates and most of the summer.

I hope the property owners are able to read this review and see how unprofessionally their property manager handled this situation. I put a lot of time and effort into planning my vacations and rely on sites like Homeaway to make the search and rental process secure and trouble-free. If homeowners are going to rent their homes, they (or those who manage the property) should provide accurate information on the rental and respond to the renter in a reasonable amount of time. Neither happened in this case and that is wrong.

Homeaway offered zero assistance and wouldn't even let me post this review on their site because, get this, I never stayed at the house... right morons... that's why I'm writing the review

This company have no idea. We booked a villa and paid a rather large deposit to then have it cancelled in error by the owner. However, we are out of pocket by over £70 because despite the owner refunding, we have had to pay transfer and charges due to change in euros and pounds and their charges and they have done nothing to help sort it out. No customer service and couldn't care less about us. Will definitely not be using this company again as it's not worth the risk.

Based on the prior comments - ours is an all too familiar experience. We also wish there were a zero rating available!

Made a booking for a Chicago apartment - money paid - confirmation received.
Exchange of several friendly emails with host - all seemed fine.
2 weeks later, the host (Ryan)emailed: do you still want the place?
We replied: of course, you have our payment as the guarantee don't you?
2 days later: your booking is cancelled, your money has been refunded (we are better off than most it seems...)
Contacted Ryan: he says " yeah, I just saw that, can you explain what happened?"
Huh?!? I'm supposed to explain?
Being generous - he screwed up... he doesnt understand the system - At worst he screwed us over and took someone he knows (the subsequent booking was forna day shorter...) But we just wanted a quick explanation and - oh, I dont know - an apology? But he has never replied since
Started the complaint process to see if HomeAway could get him to remove the booking that got dropped into our slot and reinstate us
I mean, that is what any of us would do right? Call the second booking (it was for only a 4 day weekend our booking was for 5),, apologize for the screwup and put the original booking back in...
Anyway - as you can guess from the prior postings, the common theme from the HA people we have heard from is "how the location is managed is all on the host". NOT acceptable - they are the 3rd partner in these transactions and making lots of money off the process (one of the biggest booking organizations in the world) - they should insist on some standards towards the guests using their system.

We should have stayed with the tried and true BOOKING.COM which we have used for 25 years of travelling witout a hitch... buuuut my wife found this lovely looking apartment on HA for a little less money so we tried it. Mistake. By the way we have also kicked AirBNB to the curb due to their new " we gotta' know everything about you approach"
Anyway - going to Chicago? Avoid Ryans "cozy west loop apartment w/ jacuzzi on HA and VRBO...

We rented a home that was dirty. I contacted Homeaway and they said we had to deal with the home owner, and that usually just by creating a report the homeowner usually resolves the issue. I had taken pictures of the big cobwebs, leaky faucet, kitchen light did'nt work, really filthy furnace filter that we had to walk by at eye level on the way down the stairs from the bedrooms, ants on the kitchen floor, etc. I thought I deserved some money back (I spent a lot on the rental) due to unclean conditions and the home owner emailed me back saying that previous customers didn't complain and she didn't see a problem. She said to email her husband, a Lawyer, and he would handle it. She created a customer bad report on me even though I did nothing wrong. I asked her later if she honestly thought I was a bad customer and she said no and that they were cleaning up the house and fixing things.

We booked a dream family holiday to Florida with HomeAway but due to unforeseen circumstances had to cancel.

We trusted that our booking was safe as we booked through their website and paid via PayPal, the promise was 100% money back if 30 days notice of cancellation.
We initially paid initially through the HomeAway site payment wouldnt go through to owner for some reason so they advised me to pay owner direct. They also advised me to liaise with him directly. I did and went on to sign the rental agreement as I was assured it was normal practice.

When we cancelled the owner refused to refund the money and kept the 1200 even though we gave 100 +days notice, on the rental agreement I signed it stated (in very small writing) that he could keep ALL of the money regardless of how much cancellation was given. It was never made clear that this agreement would supersede that of the booking agent. In addition the agreement was signed after payment!
Home away said that the agreement superseded theres and refused to help any further!
DO NOT USE! They are obviously well versed at scamming people.

We booked in homeaway for two nights stay in Hanbi Mansions, Baguio. Four days before our date of arrival our grandfather died. We asked the owners for a chance to rebook since our group will not make it due to the death of my mom's dad and the owners agreed to rebook us but homeaway would not allow it. The owners said, we can't change the date if homeaway does not agree because they might not pay them. Homeaway gave us the usual statement, it's company policy not to be allowed rebooking 7 days before date. It was PHP23K which they will not return even on death of a family member. PLEASE DON'T BOOK FROM THIS COMPANY. Go direct to the owners/hotel.