HomeAwayReviews 1,751

If you have read the many poor reviews on this site, the image is very clear that you do not want to do business with this company for your vacation. My experience has turned into an absolute nightmare after I cancelled a reservation that was paid-in-full. The short of it is I paid for my vacation home last year using a credit care from my bank. In the Fall of the same year another larger bank acquired my bank and issued new account and card numbers. Here is where the idiocy begins with HomeAway customer service. They attempted to refund my payment to the old credit card that no longer exists, thus my funds were not credited to my current bank or credit card (this was also confirmed by my bank). I contacted customer service (person supposedly named Lynn, likely a outsourced foreign call center) to inform them I had not yet received my refund and they continuously insisted that the refund had occurred. It took me over three and half hours on the phone (two separate calls) as well as conducting a three-way connection that included a representative from my bank to get Lynn to so-call "escalate" my issue to some other office that she claims she could not contact by phone to transfer me (very laughable). She then told me and my bank rep to phone back tomorrow for a resolution. So tomorrow came today and I phoned back. Of course I got someone else (who says his name is Mark) that I had to explain my situation to all over again; this is despite him having it all in front of him on the computer and putting me on hold to discuss it with Lynn (I heard her in the background after he came back on the phone and she was still telling him to tell me "it's being researched"). I requested to speak to a supervisor, of course there was no supervisor available. I asked the name and phone number of a supervisor, of course he could not give me that either. Mark actually said "I can't give you the personal phone number of a supervisor." Speak of the inability to comprehend! That was unbelievable, I had to explain to him that I was asking for an office number for a supervisor. My bank rep explained to me how simple and usually quick it should be for HomeAway to determine that the refund transaction was not successful. So, I will contact them again tomorrow, but this time I will have my bank rep on the line again as a witness to this stupidity. I am absolutely befuddled by the ineptness of this customer service department. I can guarantee you that I will never use HomeAway/VRBO again (this was about the third time I've used them, we vacation every year)... Airbnb Here I Come!

Signed,
Absolutely Befuddled

I am a first time user of Homeaway. I was quoted a price and paid in good faith but was charged a higher amount on my credit card. When you proceed to make payment the amount quoted is confirmed on the screen - so everything was in order.

I queried the higher fee amount with Homeaway. They said they had excluded part of their fee relating to taxes. I have sent 4 emails to which they have responded to 1. Homeaway needs to be clear on their fee which they are on-charging to the customers AND this must be disclosed as part of the quoted price!

I thought the screen said the rental was unavailable so I went on to the next one. I ended up with two places rented for the same week. I am begging her to delist the one property for next week. It is the keys and everything is full so chances are it would rent. She had slammed the phone down on me twice. I put her on speaker so my family could hear her she had mental issues. Keeps insisting I am wrong and I never intended to come. We are leaving Saturday for the keys. Please NEVER. Give credit card info to these people. The woman I am dealing with is a hateful crook. We are out 2500$. She screams at me when all I ask for was for her to relish the one property. BAD. PEOPLE. Stay away!

I went to renew my listing on HomwAway today and was told I have to use "HomeAway Payments" or I cannot list my property. That means my guests pay HomeAway a high booking fee in addition to my rent AND that HomeAway will keep my guests' payments until after the guests check in and then and only then would HomeAway pay me those funds. I get reservations 6 - 9 months in advance and use the deposits to pay expenses like insurance and taxes on my vacation home. I spent an hour trying to get a waiver of the HA Payments requirement to no avail. I found out today that HomeAway uses a third party company, Vacation Rent Payments, to handle my guests and my funds and that company refuses to release the funds until guest check-in. HomeAway calls it "HomeAway Payments" but it is not HomeAway at all but this third-party company in Europe. I have no contract or relationship with this "Vacation Rent Payments" and HomeAway did not tell me about them at all. Now they have my banking information and that of my guests! I am cancelling my HomeAway listing ASAP.

I spoke with a representative, who wouldnt give me her name, and him up on me, when I questioned, all the extra fees, I know the owner of the properties pays HomeAway to list, then they charge the traveler, so if you have a rental for a week, at say 10,000 it ends up costing you the renter 12,000 because of all the extra charges HomeAway has. This isnt fair in my opinion. I cant talk to the owner or property manager until I pay up front 1/2 the balance, there are some things that you need to speak to a real person and not an email. There are a lot of scams out there, and Im supposed to put 6000 dollars in an account to be able to just give or get a phone number or website to a property. Are they kidding me. This woman was so rude to me. Whoever is the CEO, of this company should vet their employees better. I dont know about you but dishing out my money whether it be 100 or 6000, is absurd. I dont know how they can get away with this.

This website is awful! Made a reservation in Italy, was charged the next day. Realized our travel plans were changing and cancelled the reservation literally 3 days later. Had a lot of trouble getting my full refund. Finally received my refund only to see that it wasn't completely refunded. Called Homeaway and their excuse was it is a international charge. A $45.00 international charge! Don't believe the print when they tell you you will get your entire refund back!

I'm only giving this one star since you can't give it zero, but the people at Home Away DO NOT CARE about you. All they care about is making their $$. Once that's been accomplished, they throw you to the curb. The whole story is too much to type out here but suffice it to say that the cancellation of the trip due to the inability of their staff or the homeowner to provide access instructions until the night before arrival will only get you the "policy" bull crap statements and no refund if you make alternate arrangements to ensure you have a place to stay with your wife and 2 kids when you arrive at a destination. I'm LIVID and will do everything I can to crumble them.

Why do you sell travel insurance?
We did not travel to a vacation destination due to Governor of Alabama declaring a state of emergency in the area we where to stay. We talked to the property owner before we decided to not travel. Property owner suggested to put in claim with travel insurance and rebook trip the next month. Seemed like the right way to handle the situation.
Only to find out later. Governor declared state of emergency is not covered by policy.
Lost full payment. Lost vacation. Lost faith in homeaway.

Their website messed up my booking and I called them immediately after receiving the confirmation to correct it. They said they would void the transaction which made sense. I then proceeded to be charged by them and the property owner. When I called back referencing my case and resolution they acted like it never happened and said that they could not help me once they had processed the booking (5 minutes ago and you cannot help?!). They that I would have to deal with the property owners for any changes to my reservation. Thank god for credit card companies having your back. These people are thieves. Stay away!

Today, I tried to make our final payment for a rental my family is staying in next week. I punched in my credit card info in the app, and got denied twice. I called my credit card company and they said that Homeaway had tried to charge us 5 times! By the 6th time the credit card froze our account because of fraudulent behavior. I had to call back and forth between Homeaway and the credit card company to try and straighten it out. While I was on the phone with the credit card, the representative informed me that Homeaway had tried to charge my account for the 7th time while we were speaking. I cancelled my card to end the madness. I contacted the owner of the rental and he shared a lot of similar complaints about Homeaway, and said we could pay the rest of the balance at check-in in person. We appreciate how helpful and cooperative the owner was. I can't say the same for Homeaway's customer service. We will not be renting through Homeaway or VRBO ever again. I just cannot trust them with my money!

Disastrous Experience just like the other hundreds of good people who have made similar complaints with TrustPilot and/or Sitejabber.

I booked the apartment on Homeaway website. I was charged with the first payment. Subsequent to my booking I had to make a cancellation due to the original apartment booked not being available from the property owner. I eventually managed to obtain a partial refund from the property owner - without the processing and service fee charged by HomeAway. Homeaway told me that the owner had my money. The owner showed me a photo as a proof that they only got part of the payment.

I was subsequently forced by HomeAway to contact my bank to request they refund me the amount as a means of deferred responsibility. After a very lengthy process of my bank refusing to refund me the amount, I then submitted a refund request to HomeAway with my bank denial to reimburse letter. HomeAway then sent me service fee charge amount but not the processing fee amount. I still have to go through this extremely lengthy and painful back and forth correspondence to obtain a refund for an unauthorised payment made almost five months ago. HomeAway is simply the WORST GARBAGE SCUM OF THE EARTH COMPANY THE WORLD HAS EVER SEEN! THEY ARE ABSOLUTE THIEVES! DO NOT BOOK with this scam company or else you will regret it! I regret not reading all the negative reviews from customers first before booking with this website.

I have used Owners Direct (from today Home&Away) for over 14 years. They have, over the years provided the lions share of rentals to my overseas property to the point where they have appointed me one of their "premium" owners - so I must be earning them loads of "service charge" dosh and have kept my villa a viable proposition - so no complaints from this angle but it is a 2 way street - I am honest and provide a villa as described on the website. I do what I can to ensure my guests get value for money and want to come back - which they do!
HOWEVER - I have noticed, since Home Away took them over - a very clear decline in customer service standards. They are now a large Corporate company that are only interested in maximising their profits and providing minmum value. No regard for either the renter or the owner.
Whenever I have a problem they make it clear it is MY problem and not theirs. They hide behind Corporate gobbledy gook speak and NEVER answer the question you ask. The payment sytem they use is a mess.
On the occasions I have provided feedback with facts and specific incidents - I get the "feedback is a gift" speel but do not acknowlege they have a problem and need to fix it.
I guess I am like thousands of other villa owners in that we are between a rock and a hard place - Home&Away give us the advertising exposure we need but little else - but few good alternatives. Its like an abuse of power.
Rant over!

Rental inquiries are on the decline and also the quality. The few inquiries I have received this year are such low quality. I have been listing my property for 9 years and have experienced a sudden decline two years ago. People request to book then never follow through or respond. Im beginning to wonder where these fake iInquiries are actually coming from... hmmm.

I took my listing off auto renew and will look for other sites to list my property. Any site suggestions for northeast market?

To anyone reading this review don't use this company. It has gone from a great way to travel to a big scam with their customer service overseas. The representatives read from a script and never address the customers issue. Their hope is that you eventually hang up. It's a law if you request a US Representative that they provide it but not Homeawy. Also, the Owners cancellation policies mean nothing. They can keep whatever amount they decide and will just stop communicating. I have used this company to travel to Italy, Mexico and several big cities in US it has completely become awful in every way! Please beware

We rented a house (or so we thought) in the Caribbean for a big vacation, it turned out to be a room in someone's home, they live there full-time, there was no glass or screens on the blinds and windows - it was completely open to the outside, bugs were pouring in, roaches in the bathroom, and we had to leave our car in a public parking lot as the house was so difficult to access.
HomeAway could have cared LESS. They have no minimum standards that a home has to follow to be listed. We were offered nothing, and the home is still available for other unsuspecting renters to fall for.
HomeAway's entire response to the incident was for me to contact the homeowner directly, which would not have changed any of the facts, of them living there, and the entire house being open air.