Beware hidden fees they will charge customers, a "service fee" of 8 - 10% for doing absolutely nothing.
I don't know any owner or agency happy with this rubbish company since buyed from expedia.
If you are an owner, do not advertise, if you are a customer do not book. Just contact directly with the owner.
To be fair the property I rented out from these guys was fine. But there was an issue with the bill and when I tried to call it was a complete joke. 2hrs spent being passed around various (offshore) departments who all asked the same questions and still didn't even get close to a resolution.
I wish there would be 0 star review! HomeAway took 900 of me, due to Pandemic and lockdown they supposed to refund my money but they only transferred 560! They are ignoring my messages, telling me I'm uneducated because I'm not British. Fretting me that they will ban me from social media because I'm trying to get in touch with someone who is not sending me automatically generated messages. Pure Scam!
They do not take any responsibility for the
Listings posted on their site. I booked an apartment through them. The apartment looked nothing like the pictures. Since they make you pre pay, no one could give me a refund, I was stuck in a dump for a week. And after I sent home away pictures from the place and highlighted everything fraudulent in the property listing, they still have the property listed on their site, complete with the fraudulent photos and info. They have no accountability and no respect or care for their customers. They have a guarantee posted on their website which means nothing to them. Do not trust this site.
Joke. Joke Joke... Scam Scam Scam... Just seconds ago I lost a renter that used my home last year because of this fee. $1500 bucks gone because of a $120 service fee. And sometimes you wonder why people snap. Someone please do the math on this scam. Here is my guess 35 million properties on VRBO. Each property rents approx. 100 night/year at lets say $100 US/night. I'm probably low on that. Total scam at 10% of approx. $350,000,000... wow to have some knob answer the phone... Maybe we vote Trump in and this will all make sense.
We were surprised and disguised by this new service fee. We are proud of our home and go to great lengths to ensure it iis kept in top shape and that it is impeccably clean. We offer a great rate for our customers as we do the advertising ourselves rather using a property management companies. We personally try to generate a great deal and a great experience to our guests. Homeaway has now inflated the quote a potential guest is given, and tries to explain away their reasoning. My guests don't need 24 hour customer service. I give it to them along with the property management company. How dare Homeaway take a cut of the rent. Our home generally is rented for a week or two at a time, and Homeaway is raising the rental base amount by 10% Rediculous! We are actively looking for another company to advertise our property... Elaine
I'm another angry reviewer who had to cancel my trip because of Covid 19 and the no travel order. I have called customer service multiple times. The home owner won't respond to any of my messages. They have literally stolen $631 from me. I didn't have a choice about cancelling, it's a worldwide Pandemic! I will never use Home Away again. I really want to get an attorney and everyone get together and sue these crooks. What kind of people steal during a National Emergency. I'm so disgusted. DO NOT USE HOME AWAY! Don't rent from Aldophus Wilson in NOLA if he is on any other apps. He will steal your money and ignore you.
I currently have a property listed on Homeway.co.uk and all I can say is stay away! They charge holiday makers ridiculous fees which I was not informed of when paying hundreds of euros to list my property.
They also charge VAT on my rental? Surely this is my income and they have no right to impose VAT on money which has nothing to do with them?
On a rental worth 900, a customer is charged over 110 extra in fees, 25.30 of that is credit card fees alone!
I had been diverting customers on to another site which I use, as there are no hidden fees on that one, but I received a stern email from homeaway to say that if I did not start accepting bookings on their site, they would take my property off line!
I must certainly will NOT be renewing my listing, would NEVER book with them for my own holidays and can only advise other to do the same.
Due to the effects of Covid-19 I was forced to cancel a booking. The initial listing of the property offered a 100% cancellation refund if cancelled more than 30 days before the holiday. This is 7 months away so thought I would get an automatic refund of my deposit. The home owner refused and, after conversing by text, changed their property listing to say no refunds are available on the property. I started a chat session with HomeAway and their customer service representative was full of sympathy and assured us we would get a refund. She even went as far as saying that the owner was being very dishonest. But then, she 'forgot' to email us a transcript of the chat session and we can no longer communicate with them. They have refused to reply to all of our emails and terminate immediately when we start a chat session and mention the case number. Absolutely disgraceful behaviour from a previously well thought of company.
I recommend you don't ever try renting with Home away. They ask for your credit card information before the rental is approved by the owner, and say it will be scratched if the rental is declined. The rental was declined because the cottage was already booked by a different site. My credit card was still charged the "SERVICE FEE" OF 82.99 which is complete bull$#*!. I have called Home Away Customer Service about 5 different times and keep being told the same thing... "Your credit card will be refunded within 3-5 business days". It's now been 15 business days since the property was declined. Complete BULL$#*!
Homeaway has ruined our vacation experience. We found two seperate house through 2 seperate homeowners. The first home confirmed our reservation, then deducted over $1000 from our account. An hour after confirming, the homeowner decided she was going to renovate the home, and cancelled our reservation. Over 4 hours on the phone and 2 days later, we have still not been refunded. We then found another house. We requested to rent it, the homeowner responded it was unavailable and denied our reservation. Yet they still charged our account for the house. Now we have been going back and forth between the bank and homeaway all day trying to get our money back for a reservation that was never made. Beware or this company.
First off, what ever your read on the website is not true as it relates to availability. I had over 20 tries of renting a condo in Palm Springs area that the site said where available only to find out they were not. So what you see is a fiction novel.
My true horror story is that I rented a condo that showed available. It had a payment schedule that stated basically 1/3 1/3 and a final 1/3 would be required over the course of 10 months. I was booking a rental 1 year in advance. As I monitored the transaction the entire rental amount was charged to my account within 20 minutes. I called the phone number on my emailed receipt and was told "oh that was a mistake" we will cancel the transaction". (It was not an in significant amount by the way.) They also said we cannot take this reservation because it's only for a week. So they not only took the full charged amount in monies but also would not rent me the place. Be warned, stay away from this fiasco!
My brother and I spent a week on the phone and on their sites (vrbbo.com, homeaway.com, and vacationrentals.com) trying to book a cabin to spend a weekend. Unfortunately, for a week and a half, we could not get their site to work and kept having to enter our payment info only to receive "Unable to process payment". After calling, we received the "it's the card" only we used 5 different credit cards total and none worked. They tried to have us contact the owner, etc. Finally, we just ended up booking a hotel because I'd rather pay more than deal with them. Absolutely horrible experience.
We are completely disgusted with Homeway.com. Ever since their merger with vacation rentals.com we've had nothing but problems. We are now in our peak season and our listings don't even show up on Homeway.com or Vacationrentals.com. Multiple calls to the company have produced no results. We had great experience with vacationrentals.com before the merger. Then the merger which tripled our fees, charged our customs 9% and now just plain lousy service. Come on Homeway.com get your act together. Stay away from this company until they get their act together!
Terrible customer service with a change in a reservation. Changed our reservation from 2 weeks to one week and instead of doing a correct adjustment, they doubled my nightly charge and left my 50% payment as the first payment and then used it again for the second payment. Weird, right? The owner and I questioned this weird math with phone calls and emails but they said I had paid in full. Fast forward to after the vacation. I attempted to get my $500 refundable damage deposit back assuming I had paid it. After another round of emails and phone calls they said I had not paid one because it is paid in the second payment. They then blamed the owner for not refunding it and it was not her fault or mine. It was HomeAway's. I finally asked for a supervisor in an email because for their hefty $399 service fee I got nothing but grief and agents that did not understand. Never heard back after asking for a supervisor. I Will not use their site again and would not recommend.
Terrible system that withdraws money from your card upon request for reservation then takes 72 hours to have money return.
Advice: change to have money withdrawn upon request acceptance.
How can I look to book another place if the money I had put away is sitting in limbo!
I wish I had read these reviews before agreeing to book with Homeaway. These people are the worst thing with what I have tried in terms of vacation rental. I have four months waiting to be paid for the December 2018 reservation, every day they have a different story, I changed the account three times because according to them 'my bank does not accept transfers' and the worst thing is that, it is all lies. Payments provider is Payoneer and they are even worse, they kept the money for two months with the excuse of a technical error and now that they return the money to Homeaway the same thing happens... not even a proof of delivery I received and the money has never arrived. Sent many emails and I have called many other times and nobody solves the problem... Someone should sue them or collect all those who have been scammed by these people to pay three times for the bad times and dishonesty with which they handle,,
When you have people whose home you facilitate renting and a customer becomes stranded in a foreign country because of your unscrupulous dishonest client and put a persons life st risk, you deserve to lose business, you deserve to go bankrupt. Your client deserves a lawsuit so that she pays for her con.
I want to file complaint on michael young. Home is listed as 2 night stay, i tried to book four nights, he responds its a week stay. I respond with a copy of the ad which states two night min stay.
He then responds, Replied available-4 hours ago
"No, you don't have the money." is this the type of people you have working for your company? He is a arrogant person.
Property
#*******
Michael Young/ lienced realestate broker ( he cant even spell licensed)
Really Mr Sharples!? You just guaranteed your competitors will eat you alive! I will switch even if I have to pay more. How can you possibly justify changing my terms after you take my annual fee? This used to be a site I raved about. You and your marketing director should be fired!
Answer: Homeaway is charging a fee for paying through them. They said it was to improve marketing and because renters like to pay through them. As some one who is listed through Homeaway I find this practice destructive both to the owners and renters. I encourage all potential renters to contact the owners directly and pay us directly. Owners already pay a fee. If the owners want to be listed in higher tier you have to pay more. To me they are just trying to find ways to make more money at both the owners and renters expense without improved service for either.
Answer: Go elsewhere. Sadly what started as a very good site many years ago has evolved into an unethical monopoly that has a sole interest. Profit. They do not care about owners or travelers. They exist to remove you from your money, and will say one thing and do another. They have lost the faith and trust of both, and it is well-deserved. Anyone coming on board with any of HomeAway's companies as a traveler or host would be foolish considering their underhandedness.
Answer: That's a toss up... Kinda like eBay with sellers and no feedback... In general... I don't trust Home away anymore than I can throw em... cuz they are gonna side with their rentors and not you...
Answer: No, they won't. Worst agency I ever dealt with. Warn all you friends. They should be put out of business.
Answer: HomeEscape.com is relatively new but with the new Expedia Service charges on HomeAway/VRBO, the homeowners are moving over to HomeEscape in droves. Over the next year as the HomeAway subscriptions expire many of the homeowners will not renew with HomeAway if HomeEscape turns into a good alternative. In general we (homeowners) are pretty upset that Expedia is going to make over 4Billion in added income from our customers just in the first year of the fee, if folks continue to book through them. Many of us will feel pressure to lower our rental income but if you only knew our expenses you would know this is not really a big money maker for us - personally, these fees will actually put us well into the red. So, for our guests and ourselves, HomeAway will no longer be a site we do business with once our subscription expires. And, though we used to rent through them at least once a year, we're done with that as of now.
Answer: This was my first and last experience using a similar service. I have been traveling for years, staying at hotels, with no problems. Given my experience with homeaway, I will only use reputable hotels from now on.
Answer: If I were you I would run as far as you can from these people!
Answer: I don't think our guests are aware of the rip-off yet. Look what it took for us to figure out what they are doing.
Answer: Avoid them at all cost! They're criminals!
Answer: Trust me, Homeaway does NOT assist you contrary to what you might think of them as sort of a back-up if there are problems. It's the worst agency I've ever dealt with.
HomeAway has a rating of 1.1 stars from 1,751 reviews, indicating that most customers are generally dissatisfied with their purchases. Reviewers dissatisfied with HomeAway most frequently mention customer service, credit card and property owner. HomeAway ranks 152nd among Vacation Rentals sites.