HomeAway

After reading all the terrible reviews on here, I guess we got lucky. We rented a condo in Panama City Beach, FL and were thrilled with the entire experience. The owner was a wonderful man, and the property was everything he promised and more. We loved it so much, we're going back in May and staying in the same place.

They are the worst, please do not use them. I booked a location and tried to cancel right away but they wouldn't cancel anything. They charges me a $80 fee right away and $59 fee for damages but it's been taking two weeks for me to get my money back. They want me to call the property manager and ask to send HomeAway a confirmation cancellation, WTF, i got charged $80.00 plus i still have to do their job. I would never recommend businesses or homeowners to use HOMEAWAY or anyone who want's to rent a property. And when you call to speak with someone good luck in trying to understand them. They need people who can speak good English.

I wish I had read the prior reviews prior to using HomeAway to book a holiday. The company will not return my refundable $500 deposit over 3 weeks since vacating the property & the homeowner releasing this bond.
The customer service team are pathetic & take all conversations around in circles.
Be aware, they will first try to tell you to the funds have already been released. Next up they say your case is escalated, but may take 5 days to get resolved. 5 business days later, they detail they are re-escalating as someone has someone' has closed off the case without making contact. They now need to start the procedure all over again.
You are unable to speak to these escalations teams. I am still waiting on emails.
I have made a complaint with the ACCC I am so afraid I am never going to see my money again.
AVOID, AVOID, AVOID!

HomeAway are keen to take your money, but have no real power when things go wrong. The HomeAway listing for the property we stayed at was seriously misleading with 18 of the 35 pictures on the listing not being of the specific property being listed. Furthermore the internal space was 150 sqft compared to the HomeAway listing of 825 sqft.

When I came to complain, HomeAway said they were powerless to make the owner provide compensation or a partial refund. At the time of writing this review the misleading listing remained unchanged.

Avoid HomeAway like the plague!

I rented a vacation rental in Ogunquit, Maine. The landlords lied and intentionally mislead us. It began with them shutting the water off for the last three days of our 30-day lease. The landlords then lied to us about their extremely inefficient heating in their other rental, which we then moved into for three months during the winter. There is a long list of what they did to us and then did not return our deposit. I will never deal with homeway.com ever, again. Do not trust their bogus, embellished reviews.

Their systems mean that you have no way of telling what you will actually pay. Our initial quote for rental was 3572 for 2 weeks and when we came to pay this had gone up to 4078 and this was their service charge, We said no way property wasn't worth that and wouldn't have booked if we had known beforehand, I called them up 7 times to get the refund of their service fee which they took. Each time I was told in your account this evening and no funds. Eventually I sent solicitors letter and they finally paid. They never do anything they say they will and absolutely never contact customers when they have to refund. Terrible business model and the property owners are even more vociferous! Do not touch them with a bargepole!

This is a update on my previous Home away review. At this point, I would lower my review to a 0 if possible. As stated previously, our vacation never happened due to double booking. They refuse refund any of the rental money... said the homeowner must do the refund. When I call Homeaway I am put on hold, talk to numerous people and then the call always ends in a disconnect while being transferred. The homeowner has supposedly issued a less that 1/2 partial refund. Which will take 5 to 7 business days to confirm. The homeowner will not answer any calls, or return emails... and Home away is no help. WILL NEVER, EVER USE HOME AWAY TO BOOK A TRIP!

I learned that HomeAway bought VRBO. Unfortunately I rented from VRBO prior to reading the overwhelming negative reviews posted for them and for HomeAway. Here is a review of my rental experience which I posted on a site for VRBO.
"I had a terrible experience with my recent VRBO rental. A heating pipe right next to the bed banged and clanked throughout the day and night making sleep difficult if not impossible. The noise seemed to come from a loose heating fan hitting some metal. This certainly seemed like relevant information for a review of this rental especially since repeated complaints did not fix the problem. VRBO rejected two negative reviews as not meeting their guidelines. In the future I will not be using VRBO or any affiliate as I cannot trust their reviews."
You can trust this review of a company which I feel has extremely poor customer support.

The website wouldn't take my booking so I called the 800 number. After going thru the entire process the agent said the card "didn't go thru -try again later". I called my card company to find that two charges had been presented from HomeAway. I tried to book again on line but now the property was no longer available (probably because it had been rented to me) so I called - was transferred - was disconnected and was finally given some gibberish about the situation... and told I had no reservation. I have been wanting this property for ages... and now I think they blocked themselves with my "non-booking"! Hope the owners realize they are missing business

I was seeking a two week rental while I waited for a household shipment to my apartment. I did find one that would work. And they could not have been nicer while I validated dates with my moving company. They did press me every time to go ahead and pay, and there would be no issue changing dates. I didn't want the hassle of a refund, so I waited. As soon as I had firm dates, I emailed and had an invoice from them in 5 minutes. On the invoice from PayPal, I noticed a statement that I would receive a separate invoice for the security deposit about 72 hours after I secured the reservation. When I inquired how much that would be, and stated I couldn't possibly prepay without knowing ALL the terms, they became much less responsive. I stated I was ready to pay, just needed the amount of the security deposit. Then they said it had been booked. So draw your own conclusions, but I for one will never use them. Very shady in my opinion.

I entered a search on HomeAway for Ocean Beach, Fire Island for Memorial Day weekend (5/22-5/25/15). The house I chose stated "Minimum Stay ~ 2 nights", was given an Instant Quote of approximately $1800 & sent a message stating my interest. My jaw totally hit the floor when I received an email in return that stated a Rental Amount of $4250! I promptly sent a return email stating the price I was quoted & a reply email was sent stating that the house has weekly rentals & they were 'giving me Monday-Thursday free'! How is it free if I am paying for days/nights that I will not be there?! My final email which has yet to be answered states that as well as it is false advertising if the page clearly says "Minimum Stay ~ 2 nights" when it is actually weekly. I had looked at other houses that required a weekly stay or sometimes even 4 nights which, of course, I did not choose because that was not what I was looking for. I told them that I would not be renting from them.