HomeAway

I have been a long time VRBO and HomeAway user. The core of my satisfaction was always to make personal contact with property owners before renting so I was comfortable with the arrangements and quality of the relationship. After all, I would be renting their home not a hotel. I wanted to feel safe in case of an emergency on my end or theirs. With Expedia's new policy basically blocking my access to owners combined with their outrageous added fees and online payment strategy, I will never book through them again! A true loss to me and the many owners I have rented from is the past. From now on I will use local rental companies where details of any rental are known to me upfront and payment and cancellation terms are acceptable to me. Note to Expedia "executives": I am not an idiot!

My negative review of a property has not been posted even though I have complied with everything asked of me. The property had rodents and was not clean. The homeowner promised a refund in a text message but never followed through. Our attempts at contact with the homeowner then became termed as "stalking." After disputing one half of the charge through our credit card, the homeowner informed our credit card company that everything had been worked out/a refund had been issued -- who knows what -- and we were left with no refund. We attempted to rid the place of what we thought was one mouse but came to find there were many. It was a horrible way to spend a long-awaited vacation with family and friends and paying for a rental home with was definitely not as it was represented! I never care to book through HomeAway or VRBO again.

Lazy and/or dishonest property owners do not update their calendars, rendering HomeAway's website a complete waste of time. They need to determine a way to "punish" property managers for not updating their calendars - a few of their competitors have found a way to remedy this problem.

Note: I say "dishonest" since the last property I attempted to rent seemed to good to be true (pricing, etc). Well, I fell for the trap. The property manager immediately declined the reservation and referred me to 2 of her other properties (neither of which I had any interest in).

Eight of us rented a home in Savannah, 207 E. Henry Street to be exact. We rented the home through HomeAway/Vrbo based the pictures posted on the site. It was total Misrepresentation! Beware of the owners rental lease. We lost out on $1,600.00.
HomeAway would not let us write a review to warn others. The Owner, knows that if you cancel the contract through Vrbo/HomeAway you cannot write a review! So Unfair to potential renters for the truth!

I was mostly happy with HomeAway until they added a horrendous Service Fee to travelers booking our homes. This service fee typically adds $35 per night to my bookings. I have called numerous times to complain but have gotten no satisfaction. My inquiries and bookings are definitely down since they added this fee. All the vacation renters in our area are livid because of this horrible fee and scared of what it is doing to our rental incomes.

I've been a vacation property owner on HomeAway for over 7 years and was always very pleased with my guest's and my listing success. Now that they have started charging these new fees from the guest. I have been having to deal with guest complaints about their fees not being clarified up front along with the rental rates being jacked up from what is listed. In addition I am having problems with getting information on when I will get paid from HomeAway for guest who paid HomeAway for their stay in my property. This is resulting in numerous emails back and forth with guest's and HomeAway reps. Very frustrated!

I also was not allowed to post my review of a less-than-idea rental. They hide behind their rules' at all costs to protect their homeowners and give renters no ability whatsoever to leave a bad review. I requested' (I literally used the word requesting') a refund of part of my rental cost from the owner because the AC was not working properly in the middle of the summer in New Orleans! HomeAway removed my review saying I attempted to blackmail' the owner out of money. Are you kidding me?!?! Seriously, do NOT use HomeAway. I never will again. Airbnb all the way from here on out. HomeAway disgusts me at this point. Totally biased to their homeowners. They do not care about your rental experience at all. I had to have one of our kids sleep on the living room floor for the first two nights because the AC was not working. Do you think HomeAway wanted to hear about that?!?! Nope! They completely took the homeowner at her word. They had no interest in my side of the story at all.

I have rented through HomeAway and VRBO many times but I will never use them again. I had to pay a $1500 security deposit which is extreme. However, the fact that they took this $1500 out of my account at the time of booking (4 months prior to arrival), is robbery. Not only are they collecting interest on my $1500, but I am out this money in my account until refunded. A security deposit should be held and only used if there is damage! People listing their property with HomeAway and VRBO should pick a more reputable business to rent your property with!

As an owner, they could not be less interested in sorting out THEIR mistakes.
They charged a tenant £850 less than they should have paid based on the rates advertised on my property page and then they tried to blame me. Their IT is basic and they are not interested in accommodating any problems. As an owner be very careful if you use their payment options, you may well be getting less rent than you are due and they really could not care less.

A villa owner kept our security deposit ($400) for a supposed split seat (which we didn't use), all the while complaining about the $3000 he paid for a new pool heater. HomeAway claimed they investigated (a likely story, where does their commission come from? Oh the owner!) and found in the owners favour. So paid $400 for a chair they can buy for $80 in Walmart. Refused to share any evidence or reports of findings and took the best part of 2 months to response to correspondence. DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME

Home away/vrbo has added a "service fee" to all on line bookings. This increases the cost of renting our properties. They also charge us a fee when we book on line which decreases our income. Although owners don't have to pay the "service fee" renters do which makes it seem as though owners are hiding fees. I have told renters how much they can save by booking directly with me. Most want to cancel the on line booking & book directly with me. However, this penalizes me because my listing priority is based on the number of on line bookings. For owners & renters looking for an alternative I have had good luck with flip key by trip advisor. I pay about 1/3 of what I pay VRBO/Homeaway & get about twice the bookings. I was in the process of listing with airbnb until I read their complaint policy.