HomeAwayReviews 1,751

Homeaway/VRBO was purchased by Expedia last year and now charge 6-12% commission to all guests booking through their site for doing NOTHING!
They do that by FORCING owners to take on line bookings and payments. The service fee/commission is charged before the owner and guest even speak. It is complete greed as owners already pay a hefty fee to advertise their homes on the site.
Find a home you like on Homeaway (most homes have a name) and do a google search to find the owner's web site or a portal for the town advertising rentals in the area. The Chamber of Commerce is a good place to start.
As written about in the thousands of negative reviews on the internet, Homeaway is ripping guests and owners off! Taking money out of bank accounts and holding back refunds from guests etc!
They have to get the message that this greed will not be tolerated by the consumer.

We attempted to book a rental in Hilton Head. Our money ($2300) was immediately deducted from our account. After a day, the owner did not confirm the reservation, so we lost the rental. But Homeaway KEPT OUR MONEY held! After numerous calls, Homeway REFUSED to contact PNC bank to confirm the funds should be released. It's been days and I have no vacation booked because I do not have the funds available! They are rude, obstinate and completely unprofessional to deal with. NEVER AGAIN!

> Reservation made on May 30,2017, and Homeaway debited my credit card for $194.50.
> Reservation cancelled May 30,2017 by the owner of the vacation rental home.
> I received an email confirmation via Homeaway, on May 30,2017, indicating that my reservation was cancelled and refunded.
> It is June 12,2017 and Homeaway has not refunded my credit card for $194.50.
> Homeaway's refund policy indicated that I should receive a refund 5-7 business days.

Homeaway sent me this email message: Since the owner of the property declined your reservation, your card only had a hold placed on it for the potential funds that would have been withdrawn. You should have seen the hold returned to you a few days after the decline of the reservation.

Again, June 12,2017 - no refund. It is now in dispute via my credit card company. I've kept all of my emails - cancellations - refund information sent to me via Homeaway...

Wish I would have researched them first... I see here that trying to get a refund from Homeaway is difficult - even when it wasn't me cancelling the reservation - it was the owner of the rental property... Hope this wasn't one big scam...

1- Homeaway, does not check if the manager of a property is officially the manager of that property. Almost anybody can post a property at homeaway telling he is the manager without been.
2- Homeaway does not check the backround or even the present businesses of the people they accept to use their "paying platform". You can pay using Homeaway's platform and even though they don't really know that person or company, and they are unable to get in touch with them, regarding to any issue of the property.
3- Homeaway's website posts reservation numbers of properties that their are not sure the property exists, neither if it's available or not. The process of a reservation number must include checking with the owner dates and amounts in order to validate that reservation.
Be careful, Homeaway's security process is very weak, you can be easily ripped off without Homeaway's responsability. The truth is a very unsafe site.

I booked a villa through HomeAway in December, they said it was available for my chosen dates so I paid their 'service fee' of nearly £100. The following day I received an email from the company who HomeAway had passed me on to who said my dates were not available, and offered other dates. I declined the other dates and was told that HomeAway would be informed that the holiday was cancelled.
However, HomeAway still took their so-called 'service fee' from my account. WHY! They had not provided me with any service whatsoever. Trying to contact them through their customer services was like trying to get blood from a stone!
I decided to write directly to the company CEO at their address in London, sending my letter by registered mail so that I could track it and see who signed for it. So... having sent TWO letters without any reply I contacted Citizens Advice and they were brilliant in explaining what I needed to do. FIVE MONTHS later, after a lot of emails, and one step away from court action, their 'customer services' emailed to say my deposit had been refunded. ( The other company involved were really helpful and have nothing to do with my complaints). So my advice is DON'T USE HOMEAWAY!

On Friday 06/02/17, I booked a furnished Villa in the Villages, through HomeAway.com. They debited my credit card for a substantial deposit, and emailed a rental agreement to me for review and sign. I electronically signed it and sent it back, via return email. This morning, I received two calls, the first from Tiffany a receptionist at White Pelican Vacation Rentals, and second from Steve, her Manager. Tiffany advised me that the $2,000.00 rental amount, posted by HomeAway.com was incorrect, and that the homeowner wanted an additional $1,300.00 to rent the property. According to both Tiffany and Steve, HomeAway.com had made an error, and had posted the listing with the wrong rate. I told her that this was unacceptable and that I was not satisfied. She said that she would bring it to her managers's attention. Later that morning, I received a call from Steve, saying that there was an error made, and that he was exercising his right to cancel a reservation within 48 hours of it being made. There was no sympathy, there was no remorse, the was no offer to make us whole for any monies that we may have laid out. Instead there was an officious, and entirely too confident disregard for the inconvenience caused by this error. Given all these facts, I would NEVER recommend that anyone do business with HomeAway.com of with White Pelican Vacation Rentals.

My first experience with this company was terrible. People stayed at my home and in a month did a chargeback. I had no idea what it is, honestly when I was reading the agreement I couldn't imagine this scenario. It was some kind of scam, people used stolen card or something. So Home Away doesn't want to be responsible for the transaction they provide for the guests and owners. This company does absolutely nothing to protect you from the scammers, they just took all the money back.

Homeaway/VRBO have totally mishandled our booking that I discussed in previous review and presently they 'say' they have refunded our deposit so our booking owner is now asking that we try to re-book again through VRBO but she dropped her subscription so her property is no longer listed. She made an alternate suggestion as she is trying to help out but the alternate suggestion has been blanked out by vrbo who controls any communications we have with the owner.
We're presently here on our vacation and have no idea whether we have a place to stay that we booked with VRBO months ago, put down a sizeable deposit and it was confirmed! The actual booking takes place in two days and we are totally confused, stressed, and whatever thanks to their mishandling of this booking! I guess things could be worse but we do not deserve to be in such a ridiculous predicament due to incompetent mishandling of a booking!
What a mess for ourselves and the property owner. Not sure what we are going to do but I do not believe VRBO/HomeAway has one iota of empathy/concern as to resolving our problem. Every step they have made has resulted in an error(s)!
What an uncomfortable way to experience a holiday!

I have been with VRBO for 6 years and all has been great until they were taken over by Home Away. I have recently received an email from Home Away saying that my guesst would have to do on line bookings with them or I would not be able to renew my account. Unbelievable! This is because they want to receive money from my guests. I pay $650 Canadian for my site and they still want more. I called to ask how much they would charge my guests and they actually could not tell me. Somewhere between 5 and 12 percent I was told. The more you collect for your place, the more they charge. Even 5% (the lowest amount charged) on $1500. 00 is $112.00. I refuse to ask my travellers to pay this, since I have always done my own booking. The Customer Care person I spoke to could not care less that I was upset, nor that I have chosen to take my business elsewhere. They basically told me to do what they say or get lost. Such a nasty business practice!

As a home owner I am feeling pushed into accepting their increasing big brother tactics of online bookings and credit card payments which do not take into account our need to accept dollar and sterling payments to dollar and sterling accounts in the USA and UK respectively. They are now charging not only us to advertise on their website, which goes up extortionately year on year, but also the guests a 'service fee' plus credit card fees.

The only way round this is for me to email potential guests separately from the website to get them to book outside of it. This looks very unprofessional although is the only way I can save them fees.

Although I get more enquiries now through HomeAway UK than I did through VRBO - although I do not understand why this is as they're supposed to filter into each other - if I don't accept online payments I will I believe be bumped right down the listings AND have to pay an even bigger fee to advertise.

They are ripping off both homeowners and guests