HomeAwayReviews 1,751

After successfully and exclusively listing my lakefront vacation rental property since 2011 with HomeAway/VRBO, I have spent much of the past week setting up listings with TripAdvisor, AirBNB, etc. February has historically been a busy month for me with many inquiries and bookings, but this year it dropped off to practically nothing (and that was BEFORE they added their greedy "Service Fee" for travelers). My business has it's own merchant account for secure credit card processing (never hacked or breached, unlike HA's "Secure and Reliable" payment processor OpenEdge/GlobalPayments, which was breached in 2012), and my listing is obviously being negatively impacted by my not using their payment processor. Add to that the new 4-10% "service fee" automatically added to the total rental cost and it's certainly understandable why rental inquiries from HA/VRBO have dropped to practically nothing...
My current HA/VRBO listing expires March 3, and at this point I have no intention to renew with such a greedy, underhanded company that shows such obvious disregard for it's customers... and quite obviously was trying to offset the bad press it's getting by posting fake 5-star reviews on TrustPilot.com!

Home Away (HA) has changed the terms of my contract with them without notice and has started charging my customer a 6% to 10% service fee on top of the rental amount. The way around our customers paying the fee is for us home owners to have the customers pay us directly and not pay with the Book It button. However, HA then bullies the home owners by threatening to lower their ranking in the search engine if we turn off the Book It feature. HA does not seem like a business partner to me! Looks more like greed. HA--please drop this silly fee and come back to the wonderful booking site we have grown to love over the years.

HomeAway's business model is entirely based on fear. They charge the guests 4-10% for the priveledge of getting between them and the host. They pretend to be providing protection for the guest but they are actually just neutral- they can not legally advocate against the hosts because they have a fiduciary obligation to the host. The host is paying them more than you are. Most established vacation rentals exist on other sites and can be found. If you have the 10% to blow on this corporate greed fest, go for it, otherwise do it old school. Book your lodging on your own. Find them. It's Easy. Just google the area you want to go and get past all the 3rd party companies. You will find great individual owners and their own web sites and you can talk to them. It's what this entire industry was built upon until these massive corporations interposed themselves. Stop fearing your fellow humans, fear this company.

Dear world! HomeAway has just implemented a new 4-10% fee on ALL rental transactions.

The roll out of this new fee was done very discretely and it was only when customers and owners both, started seeing this fee pop up around February 20th 2016, that the outcry began.

What's infuriating is that so many of us have paid a lot of money ($1500 myself), to use their product for a year. Plus we pay 2.9% in transaction costs.

So mid annual subscription, HomeAway/VRBO started charging a NEW fee. To me, that's just unethical and poor business.

My hope is that owners and renters begin using different services to rent a vacation spot.

VRBO/HomeAway customers who have paid these $1000's of dollars for their subscription are now having to wait an HOUR on hold for a rep to answer.

Again, I strongly urge users to look elsewhere when renting.

I have been with HA/VRBO for 3 full years now. First year was great. Minor improvements and tweaks made a good site better. In April of 2015, two senior executives left the company abruptly, leaving everyone to wonder what the future of the company would be. Brian Sharples assumed the lead, and begin immediately imposing a one-size-fits-all format upon property owners. They wanted an immediately bookable property platform, so they encouraged all owners to add their "Book-It-Now" feature. We later learned they began tinkering with their internal search engine to penalize those who didn't utilized that feature, making them fall farther down the search results pages, with those who played along being pushed further up the pages towards the top. Sharples was strategically shaping and posturing the company for a buy-out. Seven months later, Expedia acquired HomeAway. Sharples continued to rain down dictates for subscription property owners to reshape their business model. Compliance was rewarded, and non-compliance was punished, all quite silently and undetected using the internal search engine they named "Best Match." In mid February 2016 HomeAway added a variable percentage "Service Fee" charged on the gross rental value (less taxes) which became an immediate offense to both owners and potential renters. It was clear it was a greedy grab for a bigger piece of the already slender piece of the profit pie. HomeAway claims were that their research had shown this new service fee would simply be overlooked as the cost of doing business and paid by renters without a second thought. Current experience at the time of this review by owners from potential guests are proving exactly the opposite. In fact, while writing this review, I had to pause to answer that exact question - "What is this new service fee? I don't recall having seen that before and I've used VRBO in the past" - for a potential renter. The owners are all upset. The future is uncertain, but certainly looks grim for a greedy money-motivated HomeAway. Unless something changes, stay away from HomeAway.

I paid to list my house on vrbo for over ten years, and it brought me numerous inquiries and bookings. But since HomeAway has taken them over and instituted all their recent changes, my rate of inquiries has crashed. Now they are trying to force home owners to take bookings through their site, so that they can take a hefty commission. And they are also charging renters a hefty fee on top of the owner's rate, so that vacation rentals are becoming more expensive, thus less desirable. I would advise all potential renters to avoid HomeAway and vrbo, and to search for owners' private sites. There you will be able to actually rent a "vacation rental by owner" which ironically enough is what vrbo used to stand for.

Does the new owners of HomeAway and VRBO think they can gouge travellers and expect them to suck up an extra 10% service fee and give a bunch of crap that their site is secure and the benefits are great. Well expedia (new owner) you can stick it where the sun doesn't shine not only have you lost me as a expedia coustomer but I will never book again on HA or VRBO or sister companies.
SHAME, SHAME, SHAME
CORPORATE GREED FOLKS IN ITS FINEST STAY AWAY

It is easy to complain about what Homeaway is doing to the hosts and yes even to our guests. If they were to lose 10% of our advertising dollars plus the fees would they get the hint? If we unite as a group we can make a change. There are other options like homeescape.com and vill4vacation.com but if enough of us made the change we can effect a change. It is fine to complain but it is time to do something. "The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice it is conformity" Earl Nightingale. I personally refuse to conform to this type of behavior. I hope you will also and get involved in changing this poor corporate behavior.

Don't believe HomeAway's and VRBO's negative fear-based propaganda that you NEED to book your rentals through its online booking system. They write things like you need "Payment Protection" and "Book with Confidence Guarantees" in an attempt to manipulate you into going through their online booking system so they can add their bogus service fee to the cost of your vacation.

Don't believe this company's lies. They are lying to travelers and they are lying to the owners who made VRBO and HomeAway the successes they are (were). Under the Expedia regime, HomeAway and VRBO have become the Evil Empire and must be brought down!

Many independent vacation rental owners have their own websites and Facebook pages where you can contact them directly and cut out the middleman's commissions. You just need to do a little Googling and searching to find these owners who care about their homes and about the people who rent them.

You also can book through vacationhomerentals.com and homeescape.com and pay no traveler booking fees (i. E., "service fee")!

HA/VRBO new traveler fee is a higher percentage on lower price rentals and declines in percentage as the booking price increases to a maximum $499 fee which makes it essentially a regressive tax because it impacts in percentage terms those least able to afford it. Even goverments know better than that, as they either have flat fees, or progressive taxes(Inc in percentage as ability to pay increases), but not HA they want to stick it to lower income people... They have no shame...

TIME TO GET BACK TO CRAIGSLIST! Greed is a sad thing and it is usually what brings these guys down. With this new fee you are taking more money from the homeowner. Anyone with a basic understanding of economics will get this. Price to be paid is set by supply and demand. Adding a 10% fee means owners will have to charge 10% less to be competitive. Time to get off these services and get back to personal websites. We will encourage our renters to get outside the process and avoid the VRBO TAX! HOMEAWAY SHOULD HAVE BEEN HAPPY WITH THE LARGELY PASSIVE MILLIONS YOU COLLECT!

I've been a loyal homeowner advertising on VRBO and HomeAway for 16 years. What was once an incredibly efficient and inexpensive way to advertise your vacation home has become a nightmare in the years since the acquisition of VRBO by HomeAway, and subsequently by Expedia. And although I have paid HomeAway tens of thousands of dollars over the years to advertise on the site, they have now chosen to charge the travelers! Each and every change I have observed over the last few years has had no other benefit than to increase profit for the company that has this market cornered. Unfortunately, greed is what will be the downfall of this company whose customer service has been abysmal, and who will very shortly (without a doubt) conceal identities and contact information between owners and guests to enforce their outrageous ten percent fees. These fees, despite admonitions on their site, provide the traveler ZERO benefits. The fee can amount to hundreds of dollars added to the price of your rental. When I asked a CS representative why my guests needed to pay the fee, he maintained that HomeAway has earned the fee as they brought me the guest. I'm sorry, what do I pay those thousands of dollars to HomeAway for?!?

I can't believe SiteJabber found 27 idiots that gave HomeAway 5 stars. Maybe Executive management at HomeAway numbers 27?