HomeAway

As a homeaway owner advertising 2 vacation rentals with homeaway/vrbo for the past 9 years, I am very disappointed the company has changed its flat rate listing pricing. NOW, they charge guests 9% more and they force owners to let them take all the payments but their credit card fees are very high. I was paying much less taking credit cards through Paypal. They also erased one of my properties due to an error they made and refuse to reinstate my add unless I pay them an additional $349 fee. Its turned into a horrible company. Too bad, I really liked it but now I am switching my properties to airbnb

As a property owner I have been extremely frustrated by HomeAway following the takeover of Stayz. Their customer service is nil, technical support obsolete, and senior management appears to be more interested in promoting their own holidays then looking after their property owners and travellers. My suggestion is to use HomeAway to find a property that you like, search for it online to find their website or their listing on another accommodation booking portal. Do not book through this site.

Ever since homeaway took over, the service has been horrible. We've been members since 2013 and it's just gotten so bad. If you need a supervisor... good luck! It took a week to get one. Their policy is that a supervisor will call you back within 24-48 hours... even in an emergency!

Also, they don't treat their owners fairly when it comes to search priority. We used to show up on the first page and now we're on page four. You search in our city and other cities come up before our home.

I wish there was someone to contact that cares, but i really don't think they do.

I've listed my vacation rental on VRBO/Homeaway for the previous 12 years without any problems. Recently they've gone to only taking payments from renters thru a foreign banking service. I was concerned giving a foreign bank personal information needed and what they might possibly do with my personal information. I've currently been waiting over 4 months for payment that they've received from guest in July. Multiple calls to homeaway trying to get payment. Beware

Just spent a week in Tuscany on a HomeAway vacation. It was PERFECT, as were our previous vacations booked on this site. After reading all these negative Nancy reviews I had to put in my two cents worth here.
Simply put, this is all on you renters. You have the INTERNET. Awesome tool this thing. Use it and do your research. When you find a listing that interests you, for cripes sake read ALL the reviews. Judiciously. Bad reviews? Don't book. No reviews? Don't book! Does everyone rave about the landlord being helpful and available? Good sign. All five stars? Good sign. I've had nothing but wonderful experiences with HomeAway, but, like AirBnB, it isn't idiot proof, and of course nothing is perfect. Use your head and it can open the doors to some amazing adventures. I LOVED my experience, and my host. He already had 34 all five star reviews. I just gave him one more!

I have been advertising the homes I manage on VRBO and Homeaway for over 10 years. I also own a bed and breakfast Inn. Since Expedia bought them, as well as BedandBreakfast.com the bookings from these resources have plummeted over 90%, especially in the last 6 months. Finding my properties on their sites needs a degree. Their fees to renters are exorbitant too. I don't find AirBnB much better because of restrictions I have to impose by law, and not being able to speak to guests or show the property. Property owners and managers need an alternative to these site to advertise my properties. I am looking for suggestions - anyone out there?

Waiting on my refundable deposit of $500 (for a property of $290/n) with no one to contact. There is no number you can call and there is no way you can do anything else than just wait for their mercy. Contacted the property manager who confirmed that the property was left in an perfect condition which was conveyed to Homeaway the same day. At this difficult time when we all are feeling the financial pressures, they are illegally keeping our money. Will never book with them again.

When you request to book, owners respond with higher priced offers siting mistakes on Homeaway calendar or they bait and switch for lesser quality properties but for the original price. When I check to see if the owner has corrected the calendar, no corrections have been made. It's all lies because HomeAway does nothing to stop this. When I filed a complaints, twice, they were ignored by HomeAway. Use Airbnb instead. They have never given us any problems.

We are currently staying in s property we booked through HomeAway. Be warned they do not check the condition of the property plus there are hidden extra costs such as paying for bedding! (incredible) tourist tax and cleaning (even though the property may be dirty when you get there... 100 Euros for the privilege!). We are going home early as to put it briefly the property smells of damp, is furnished using old and uncomfortable furniture and looks like it needs gutting and starting again. We paid 1300 euros to stop here and I've no doubt will see none of that refunded. There must be s better way to book reliable holidays.

I have several units that I rent out and have done very well with Air BnB but wanted to expand my listings so tried HomeAway. I can tell you the site is very hard to use as a host, customer service is nowhere to be found, got the same standard email reply four times for a problem. As a host I do not want to take bookings from them, and the only thing I can lose is some money. Why would any guest risk your vacation or business trip with this worthless company.

We had a home owner cancel our reservation 2 days before the date even after they had deposited our full payment and told us it was available. I would not use this site if you want any guarantee of the quality of your stay. They appear to favor home owners over renters including the censorship of renters that do not give favorable views. They reject reviews about instances like mine citing that you need to have stayed at the place to review it. Also, if you look through the site you will see a very low frequency of negative reviews, most likely due to their owner friendly screening process.

According to my recent experience with a dishonest property owner, I would recommend everyone to avoid using homeaway.com for the following reasons:

- Homeaway does not help you nor protect you if you have a problem with a property owner.

- The customer service team never replies in detail to your queries (you will receive automated replies).

- It seems Homeaway only post positive reviews about property, which lead to biased judgements by customers.

I have lost more than £500 because an owner refused to refund me duplicated charges and the security deposit of my rental. Despite several letters, emails or calls to Homeaway, I never got my money back!