They charge a high processing fee which I have seen go up from one year ago. They require a deposit at the time of the booking and hold it.
Also if someone needs to cancel and is due a refund they are slow in returning their deposit.
This review is in response to the many other reviewers that were cheated by unscrupulous HomeAway. HA is headquartered in TX. Complete and email the online form for fraud division Texas attorney general. HomeAway has cheated so many people, both owners and renters or potential renters. They need to be reported to the agency that can put a stop to their illegal business practices.
I second, EVERY negative feedback. They are horrible. Runaway while you can, live in a tent, under a tree, go elsewhere and understand you are better off. Its hard to make reservations when the person you speak too doesn't have command of the English language. It's hard to resolve the problem when they hang up on you instead of figuring out what is wrong.
If I could give it negative stars I would. They don't check that the listing are real until after there is a problem then they offer no assistance. I rented a property and paid for it only to find out it a scam and lost my money. When I called them they were no help. Told me to contact the "owner". Poor business practise to allow anyone to list without checking it out.
They don't tell you to click on a button every month to update your calendar. Otherwise you calendar is hidden from consumers. I just found out my calendar was hidden for two months. No wonder I haven't gotten inquiries for two open weeks. Then they raised the rates and require renters to pay booking fees. Ridiculous.
Horrible! First time using it and the lack of response of owners when requesting information is terrible. How exactly they are renting properties here if they don't even have the courtesy to email and less to update their calendars. How they pretend that you book the property without asking questions.
The web site was down the day we reserved our rental on the phone. I had a very hard time understanding the agent. She took our credit card number and never booked the rental. It took over 30 days and many phone calls and emails to convince HomeAway to refund my booking fee. I am not sure where the HomeAway phone center is located but it does sound like english is not their first language.
Homeaway used to be a nice website which advertised peoples homes for rent. It now is pressuring potential renters to pay via credit card right on line and continues to pressure those people to pay and if they dont respond soon enough Homeaway cancels the transaction! Homeaway is getting greedy!
This monopoly have taken the owner out of vacation rentals by OWNER. They charge our guests exorbitant fees. Hide all contact information of the owners and renters until the guest pays a deposit. They are holding our houses and businesses hostage at the expense of our guests who are just looking for homes to rent, where they can talk to the owner and get what they are paying for. Corporate greed hurting people who save for s year to take their precious families on a vacation. Book direct with owners. Stop this insanity
I have been advertising on Homeaway and VRBO for over 10 years. They used to place your ad in the list depending on your number. If you were with them for a long time, you had a low number and were higher on the list. Now it goes by how much you pay and whether or not you allow them to hold the money. If you dont, then you are lower on the list. In addition, they block out the phone number and email address. You have to go on the owner site to get this information which takes time.
I recently signed up for vacationhomerentals.com. I am getting good inquiries and bookings from that site! We need to all leave VRBO and Homeaway! They are NOT the only game in town!
Just add me to the list. Had my property on HomeAway for 5 years. I will go elsewhere when my subscription runs out. Some other company will jump into the void. You can't add $46.00 to a 3 night $517.50 rental. You just can't. The greatest shame is not informing the owners before this took affect so we could go elsewhere. I guess we know why.
I find it repulsing that Homeaway after having acquired practically all its competitors are now forcing a fee based business model on to their clients. Although they lower the subscription fee somewhat they are now taking the liberty to skim 6% off what used to be the home owners business. This is not acceptable neither for home owners nor for renters!
We booked through their website, without reading reviews ahead of time. And we were astonished to end up being charged 25% MORE than expected for the booking. As we made repeated phone calls to seek remedy, we heard from many more companies and customers that HomeAway is a real trap. Look at their ratings. Who else have you seen with MOSTLY 1 star ratings?
We booked on HomeAway and their sister website charged us. Even if you cancel 30 days or 60 days prior to arrival there will still charge you booking fee which is rental fee. And I would never recommend this website there are cheaters.
Do not use homeaway to advise your vacation homes.
Homeaway charges $499 each listing from owners, then charge again for guests who book on line. They do not provide any service, when you call, they will get back to you after 48 hours.
For 14 years I have gathered the best clientele for our rental properties and have had
Satisfaction and pleasure in giving families fun vacations and long lasting memories.
Now I have to charge less to make up for the 10% fee homeaway is now charging my customers, for what, nothing! They are still just an advertising venue and always will be. Charge me more for that service NOT my customers!
I'm an owner with 3 properties, like everyone else, I was not warned of the new service fee. I had to find out about it from my customers. I have posted the following message in the description of all 3 of my listings:
I am no longer accepting on-line payments through the Homeaway/VRBO site. I will take payments via check or PayPal. As of March 1st Homeaway/VRBO is charging travelers a service fee of 9% for online bookings through their site on top of what they already charge owners. I apologize for the inconvenience this may cause; however, I cannot in good faith have my customers charged this fee.
So far my customers have been appreciative of my gesture. I have turned off the online bookings feature along with the auto renewal. Unfortunately, I'm stuck until September with one of the properties, but the other two expire in April.
I spent 3 hours on the phone with this company. They sneak in a 110 fee in my case for nothing. The customer support is awful and they will fight you like crazy for a refund of a charge they have no permission to take out. Dont ever use this company ever ever to book anything. I would give 0 stars if possible
I'm very disappointed with homeaway. I have rented a place in Natal/ Brazil. I based my decision on the 100% positive review from people who stayed there. The place was located on a very dodgy area, just behind a crack house. I was so scarred of staying there.
Fortunately I paid only a small deposit and was able to leave. After a big argument with the property owner.
I don't recommend it.
Worst company ever. Book through these idiots at your own peril. Lost booking, charging credit card in error, refund not processed. Language barrier and all in all worst rip off merchants ever. Do yourself a favour and steer clear
Overview
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.
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- Sitejabber’s sole mission is to increase online transparency for buyers and businesses
- Sitejabber has helped over 200M buyers make better purchasing decisions online
- Suspicious reviews are flagged by our algorithms, moderators, and community members