HomeAwayReviews 1,751

You cannot trust anything you see or read on the websites run by Homeaway! They are not in the business of quality control or information integrity, just a middleman collecting fees and placing all accountability as far away from their website platform as possible. I was double charged for a single booking even though the first was rejected in their system and they stated as much to my bank but obvious they just issue a authorization for everything regardless. Then I was contacted by the owner stating the property was not available meaning a double charge and no place to stay! Zero system accountability. I had to go to great lengths to get everything reversed and have Homeaway take responsibility for their lousy platform and zero accountability business model. Not worth the headache. Another case of Internet commerce pirates laughing all the way to the bank while the people doing doing the heavy lifting get screwed.

So HomeAway just posted better than expected results. Yet note that revenue has dropped when the economy is picking up and Q2 is when a lot of the vacations are booked. So how did they do it?
If you ask homeowners and guests who book through their website you will find that renters are getting bombarded by unwanted adds and offers. Hence the increased revenue. For the owners who post their properties on home away their is an uproar!
The ability to use other means of payment (via check, paypal or other means) has been virtually shut down. So Homeaway has increased their income by adding that extra fee on the payment to their coffers. On the other hand they have only one set of responses and communication that the owner can use to communicate with the renter, and it is impersonal, full of adds and scripted answers that do not allow for a personalized and friendly communication with the renter.

So while this quarter`s results are up, be prepared for a continued drop in revenue as homeowners find better, more flexible and friendlier sites to post their properties. Short term greed that has taken over since VRBO was purchased by HomeAway and will lead to a drop in future earnings unless they change their stance. Property owners are dissatisfied. I for one have 2 properties that I will be posting soon... they will not be going to Homeaway. And the current one we have will also leave.

I booked a rental on the lake for 2 days for my sister's bachelorette weekend nearly 2 months in advance, I paid $400 for the renal and a $250 deposit. 2 weeks before the weekend I get an email saying my deposit had been refunded (not the $400) and when I tried to view my rental info it said there was no reservation. After trying to get a hold of the owner I called HomeAway who gave me the runaround saying the owner cancelled it and I needed to get a hold of her for the refund. After several voicemails and emails she finally answered my call (after blocking my #) and told me she didn't cancel my trip and that HomeAway must have overbooked her property b/c she had someone else down for that weekend. She said that HomeAway has to refund the $, she called them for me and said they gave me a full refund. When the refund came it was short $27. Called HomeAway and asked for the rest of the money and again was told they do not process the refunds, it has to be done by the owner. Now I am trying to get a hold of the owner again. At this point I don't care about the $27 this is BULL$#*! and I would NEVER recommend or use HomeAway again.

I am trying to write a review for a VRBO condo at the Seasons Resort in the Attitash Mountains in Bartlett New Hampshire. Could you post this review on homeaway vacation rental reviews property *******? I tried unsuccessfully to access that website.
We stayed at the above property from July 18-24 2015. Four adults and two children.
The condo was nice. Looks just like the photos. Everything was provided as advertised. The activities were awesome. Did Mt. Washington WOW. It's a must. Took the children to Story Land. Perfect. Thomas the Train was at the train station for the weekend. Children loved it. Diana's Baths for a short hike, swim and picnic was neat. The restaurants were outstanding. Everyone was very friendly and went out of their way to make our experiences enjoyable. That includes the resort personal who got us discount tickets and were so nice and especially the condo owner who was so kind in helping me through the rental process, sending the keys by express mail, answering all my inquiries in a timely fashion, and just being very nice to work with.
This is an outstanding, reputable, easy to use vacation rental service.
Catherine Feind and family

My wife and I recently made a booking through Homeaway. We were charged a booking fee which is supposed to be paid by the owner and not the traveler. When we contacted Homeaway we were passed along approximately 6 times and given the runaround. They readily admitted that the owner was suppose to be charged but refused to recredit our credit card. We were even told that although it showed on our credit card we really wouldn't be charged. Unreal! We then had to contact the credit card company in order to dispute the charge even though Homeaway agrees that the charge was inappropriate. BEWARE! What a scam! They will not receive our business in the future,

Be very wary of the reviews of the vacation home you're interested in renting. I rented and have written a review that gave less than 5 stars because the noise level of the location of the rental house was quite high and never mentioned in any of the reviews. It was a disappointment. I submitted a review mentioning the house is located right near a busy small plane take-off and landing approach of a local airport and HomeAway refuses to publish the review saying it is not "substantially" significant. Would you rent a vacation home so you could hear planes take off and land throughout the house? I suspect HomeAway is only interested in publishing the 5 star reviews and nothing less. Makes me not want to rent from this outfit again.

Homeaway has over a million properties on their books so millions of people have used their website. This site currently has 230 reviews. As a percentage of holidays booked, that's minute, not even. 0001%. Add to that the fact that most people are quick to leave bad reviews and slow to read good ones... well, I think that speaks volumes. It's a shame that a good, successful company could potentially be brought down by this misinformation.

Homeaway's new algorithm program was written by an idiot to benefit Homeaway and VRBO only. Homeowners get rated on their performance and their exposure to potential renters is based on that performance rating. The glitch is that the program makes errors and then penalizes the homeowner. According to their customer support techs, there is nothing that can be done to individually correct that glitch. Here is my personal experience.
1. The number of views to my property differs substantially between this year and last year, almost 75% difference. I call homeaway to inquire about the discrepancy and an informed about their new algorithm system. It seems for three days during Memorial Day weekend, I did not receive text nor email informing me that I had an inquiry and therefore did not reply from the email I set up and have been using for the last 3 years. I am told "it's not their problem" and I should have logged in to my Homeaway account and therefore being penalized with a low rating. The low rating making my listing come up at the end of other listings who might have paid less but responded quicker to their inquiries.
2. I make sure to log in, update my calendar, respond immediately to inquiries and my rating increases.
3. I receive duplicate inquiries from the same person. One at 12:00 and the other at 12:01. I respond immediately to the inquiry and continue to have email conversations with that potential renter. I notice my score is low when I log in to Homeaway immediately call and am told I should have responded to the duplicate inquiry so the computer doesn't penalize me. He says there is nothing he can do about it.
I have spent hours on the phone and all I am told is "I understand your frustration but there is nothing that we can do to correct the situation". Unacceptable answer.

They have call me and wanted that I advertise. I have choose global bundle.
Their cost is 2320 euro or they offer to me 50% discount for the first year and it looks nice 1,160 euro.

But looking on their price structure, was not easy to find, I have found that normal price is 599 dolars euros or pounds, depends where you pay, and without any discount. Not 2320 euros. Real price is 599 euros. Just type global bundle 599 and you will see.

The people who work for homeaway vrbo or any other sister site of homeaway, from God knows where, are for me criminals, and pure scamers.

They have take market for themselves an s they invest millions in google and you can do nothing not to pay them just as to google. You will never be listed if you do not pay to google or to those sites like homeaway, vrbo, tripadvisor and so on.

I rented a house from Home-away. The reservation was HA-81CV7D As soon as we checked in the house wasn't as described. She listed it as 3 bedrooms but the main level smelled like urine and the bedrooms had pipes that were leaking from the previous tenant. The septic system was messed up and whenever you flushed a toilet everything came out into the bedrooms and into the house. We were not able to stay in the house due to the smell of urine and feces. We had children in the house and this was very unsafe. We called the house owner she never even met us she was in Europe. We contacted Homeaway to make sure that a refund was made since they have a policy that the tenant has to check in and everything has to be fine in order for them not disburse the money to the owner. Homeaway basically said they will contact the owner. No one spoke to her since, she never responded. They said no managers are available and said someone would call me the next day. We left the house and couldn't stay there. The next day no one called me. Whenever you call someone outside the US picked up and said no manager was there. I got no refund, no response. They clearly state that if the house is not what it was suppose to be that they don't give the owner the money. After a month of fighting with them I finally send emails to the CEOs which I found on their management site. No one responds for days until finally a very rude assistant customer service exec calls me back and says the CEO of the company doesn't care and will not refund me but make a complaint about the owner and its between me and the owner. This is horrible service and negligence to me someone who paid over 10k for the rental. Where is my security? I purchased a security for 99 dollars to protect me. They told me yesterday they closed the case? The owner has not responded I have no refund. Instead she stole my jewelry that was left in the house the first day and doesn't respond. I have also contacted the Texas State Attorney General office, FTC, and consumer affairs. Seems like nothing is helping.

I am not yet in my rental, but we are finding several problems (Venice, Italy). The air condition is broken. Message sent by owner and now it says no wifi. False advertising. I am one of the persons that send messages on trip advisor, and I will make sure this is placed on the post so nobody else gets this false advertising. We had a fantastic experience I. The past in Paris, and Barcelona. So we thought this was going to be fine. Well, that owner will get bad marks for false advertising.

We stayed at 173 White Tail Circle in Hawley PA. The listiing said it can sleep 14. That is false. It had 3 very small bedrooms, and 2 awful bathrooms which could maybe accommodate 6 people if that. The house was in an awful condition. We were forbidden to turn the air conditioning on in 90 degree weather. The doors and windows were falling apart. There were no mesh screen doors to keep the bugs out. The owner of this house should not be allowed to rent this property as advertised. We have had excellent experience with homeaway but this left such a bad taste that unless homeaway penalizes the owner for ruining my weekend, I will not be utilizing this site and definitely not recommend it to friends.

"Chillin' on Pleasant Bay" was a fantastic base for our vacation. The house is immaculate, with everything --and, I mean, everything, we needed in it to cook and relax. The pool is shared with other house on the property; there were no others in the apartment next door so we had the pool to ourselves. The location of the house was steps away from Pleasant Bay, and a short drive to either the bay or the ocean. What could be better than that?
Peggy Walton

I was a bit nervous after reading all the dreadful reviews for Homeaway. I can say we had no issues with them at all. No complaints.The apartment - ground floor 59-596 A Kamehameha Highway Haleiwa - was roomy, clean, comfortable, well-appointed. The directions to find it and to get in were spot-on. It is actually located at Pupukea - a short walk across the road to the most beautiful beach, and walking distance along a shared bike path, to a Foodland and some great little eateries. This area looks very down at heel, and we were a bit alarmed at first. There is a house in front of this property, on the same block, with barking dogs and rubbish strewn everywhere. It is on a very busy road, and there are noisy neighbours. It was a relief when we got inside, but it is definitely only for inside living - no balcony or views. We discovered that the upstairs studio apartment had a balcony, so that might be a better choice if you want to enjoy the balmy evenings and the sunset.

They allocate 24 hours for the property owner to accept an offer. During that whole time, even if the property owner has accepted, they continue to show a "So and so has HH: MM: SS to accept your offer" on the Messages page, which to me is a statement that they have not yet accepted my offer. Yet apparently it was accepted and my card was charged (I used their supposedly secure payment system). I never received an email at the end of the 24 hours (and yes I checked my spam folder). This led me to think that the offer fell through and I booked elsewhere (directly w/ the owner). Then 8 hours later my credit card was charged. Great, now I'm double booked. Still no message and their support says it takes them 2-3 days to respond. The property owner didn't seem to understand the system either so I think the interface on that end must be just as bad.

We tried to book a vacation home through home away. When we didn't hear from the renter within 24 hours of booking we contacted HomeAway; that was 5 days ago and we have not heard from them. They seem to be very unprofessional and unresponsive. As a family that frequently rents vacation homes I have some experience with various services and this is by far my worst experience. There is nothing about this site that I can recommend.