HomeAway United Kingdom 

I am a host we had a two week booking and a one week booking from Homeaway in July 2021, they said they would pay us on client arrival, clients paid back in May,
4 weeks later and still no money, 30 phone calls lots of emails, 100 excuses from them, now we are ignored,
we are owed £4300

Unable to go on holiday to France due to Covid restrictions. Unable to roll forward to next year, unable to get a refund of my deposit. Owner refusing to communicate, VRBO maintaining that deposit conditions state non-refundable, so nothing they can do. Credit card company contest that Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act doesn’t apply as the debtor, creditor and supplier link has been broken as the contract is with the host and the payment was made to another retailer ie VRBO.

I’ll never book anywhere again where this contractual relationship exists.

The whole experience hasn’t been helped by VRBO’s customer service representatives not responding to emails and communicating poorly by phone.

Booked a stay via Vrbo which had to be cancelled due to covid. I requested a refund which was denied at the time, instead I was assured that I would be able to change my dates when we were able to rebook. Now that travel restrictions have lifted I tried to contact Vrbo multiple times with no luck, I was then able to reach them and a case was raised but still no contact was received. After raising a complaint I have been told I will not be able to rebook and they will not honour a refund. £600 down. Thanks Vrbo

Scammers just look at all the negative reviews.. not just me . They should be investigated scammed people out of thousands and thousands absolute crooks.

Scott,

You respond to the other reviews. All of the other one star reviews gets an response in the first two pages of bad reviews.

You are now VRBO. That being the case, why haven't you merged with VRBO?

If you can't answer, could you please pass this on to someone who can?

If HomeAway.co.uk is now VRBO, why does it still exist on Trustpilot? Surely, it should be merged with VRBO.

I have asked this before- no response! I tried to call HomeAway- longer than normal delays- as always! Chat isn't functioning- direct contact impossible. As normal!

I posted this nearly 3 weeks ago. You respond to 99 per cent of negative reviews. You don't have many reviews nowadays.... as HomeAway.co.uk no longer exist!

We have had the same experience as countless reviews below. Unable to travel due to government restrictions. I contacted home and away/vrbo who madr two feeble attempts to contact owners at my request who did not respond to them... then defereed me to basically deal with owner and attempts to claim redund. What is the point in booking through them? No refund...almost £3000 lost. Zero point booking through this company you get no help or support, no finacial recourse or security and its appears 1000's left out of pocket. Like others I have decided to make complaint now to CMA and would advise others do the same. Why they are still taking bookings for properties where the owners refuse to speak to them when there are issues is beyond me amd is a clear example of the little care and negligence they have for their customers.

Case Number 32064542. Our case has not been resolved. The owner has agreed to change our dates but will not put the changes on the Vrbo website. I think his intention is to leave the dates as they are (although he knows we are unable to come due to Covid restrictions), receive payment from Vrbo, and then cease conversation with us. Surely Vrbo/Homeaway can insist that the change of dates is shown on their website? It's a misrepresentation of the facts. The Vrbo telephone number shown below is now not accepting calls. Unable to contact Vrbo by email. Very dissatisfied with Vrbo's complete lack of assistance.

Can anything be done?
Our original booking was for 4th to 11th July 2020. When Covid arrived, we were given only one option - cancel and lose our deposit of 1729 euros. They would try to re-book the dates (which seemed very unlikely due to the Pandemic),
and “refund our deposit as a gesture of good will.” Vrbo (Homeaway at the time), recommended offering flexible credits or refunds, neither were offered to us. A change of dates was conditional
on paying the final balance. It felt like we had little option, and we paid the balance, total 4157euros. Our dates were changed to 10-17 July 2021.
Due to the UK Government’s decision to change Portugal from the ‘Green’ list to the ‘Amber’ list, travel to Portugal became both inadvisable and very difficult.
I contacted the Owner on 4th June, he couldn’t see that there was a problem, we could cancel if we wanted, but there would be no refund or change of date offered. Again an attempt to re-book our dates would be made, but the Owner’s attitude gave us little confidence that this would happen.

The Owner: "Clearly the conditions upon return is a personal decision and not one I care to comment on. Changing dates again is not an option."

"We've got 12 villas and 4 townhouses and we are receiving UK guests every other day, and the feedback is they are "sick to the teeth of a lying govt and are happy to 'comply' with a 5 day self isolation upon return in order to enjoy their holiday” "The house is fully booked this season and we are not renting next year.”

Availability calendars on both the Vrbo and Holidaylettings websites showed availability both later this year and next year. When I informed the owner, he blocked all the dates on Vrbo, and withdrew the property from Holidaylettings.
Apparently I am now being offensive (please see below), and the owner has refused any further dialogue with me.
"You've been offered the chance before to cancel your dates, we would remarket and resell and then refund you in full, but for whatever reason you decided to stick with the booking, pay the final balance and trust a corrupt lying Govt. Now because you need to abide by covid conditions and do a couple of PCR tests and stay home for 5 days, we have to basically for the 2nd year in a row loose income when we could have resold to guests from many countries across mainland Europe. Well I'm sorry, but having your cake and eat it is not an option we feel comfortable with.”

"We are not offering to remarket now .... its FAR too late for that! You were offered in the past to take that option BEFORE you started being offensive about my 'calendar housekeeping’. I am not going to enter into any more dialogue with you as you're now being offensive and passive aggressive, which I do not and will not tolerate".

I think the whole chain of emails can be seen by you on Vrbo? I do feel that the Owner’s attitude regarding Covid, has been awful, from start to finish.
He has been unhelpful, completely lacking in any understanding, and verging on rude, since the beginning of our correspondence. I think his attitude is shocking.
Can you do anything to either arrange a change of date, or for some sort of refund to be made? As things presently stand, most of the group will not be able to travel, our flight out has been cancelled, and we are advised not to go to Portugal for
a holiday.
Looking forward to your reply, Sara Phillips.

This is a different review to the one below but exactly the same has happened to us so please don’t use as you will lose your money

So Do not deal with this company. We paid 2710 deposit, but also due to COVID-19 and flights and the government not allowing us to travel we could not travel. When we tried to get our money back (we have been dealing with them for the last 4 weeks)
they say they will get in touch with the home owner and then no one gets back to you then when you chase they say they can’t help

You offer a deposit guarantee, you really need to guarantee the deposit when this happens

This site is a complete waste of time and offers no deposit guarantee even though it clearly states that it does

Also waycation the intermediary in the transaction are complete scammers

We booked a holiday to Croatia and they have altered the booking zeroed the deposit we have paid and now we are having to take maters to court which is long winded.

Home away should just deal with this as money was paid using there app and guarantee

I spent hours on the phone to no avail, we’ve been placed on hold after an hour of waiting for people to check notes Then to be cut off,

when you call them and give them your mobile number so just in case you do get cut off They. can call you back no one has ever called us back
I’ve been recently given a email address for a manager I have been email them explaining their house owner is still not refunding our deposit and the responses please call them on the international number we’ve given you which will cost a fortune, we paid a deposit using their platform they should honor the deposit guarantee and we should get our deposit back

Simply don’t use this platform to book holidays, houses, villas, hotels as it is a waste of time

Neil

HA-vvpk9h

Just in case you want to ring them here is there really hard to find tel no 02088271971

Do not deal with this company. I am taking them to court as they owe my £1300 for a villa I paid for but due to COVID-19 and flights and the government not allowing me to travel we could not travel. If you try and get your money back they just fob you off and will respond on here by saying "we are sorry to here of your disappointment please contact our customer service and we will deal with your complaint.... Haha what a joke.

Before Covid, we booked a holiday in Locorotondo, Italy (property 10241730) for June 2020. Of course, the owner was unable to provide that holiday, due to Covid, and owed us a full refund. Instead of having an immediate refund at that time, we agreed to defer the booking to June 2021. It became clear earlier this year that this would not be able to go ahead. We offered to delay again to 2022 but the owner declined. So, we told the owner we needed our full refund of the original, pre-Covid booking.

The owner has only refunded half of our deposit and refuses to refund the other half. We have contacted VRBO multiple times. VRBO immediately agreed to refund their full service fee as this was a pre-Covid booking that was not honoured. However, they have refused to force the owner to refund the remaining part of the deposit. But they also refuse to allow us to write a review of the owner warning others that this owner is trying to keep our deposit.

Of course, our payment was made to VRBO so we hold them responsible - we have no financial/contractual link with the owner. If it is true that VRBO do not have any way to force the owner to make the legally required refund, I strongly recommend using a different holiday letting company who arrange their business so that they can.

We will be complaining to the CMA and hope they will extend their action against BA, Ryanair, Tui, Lastminute.com and Virgin Holidays to VRBO.
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Sergio's 2nd reply is still confused. At no point did we agree that our full deposit refund would now become liable to a 60 day cancellation penalty! Obviously, due to the Covid uncertainty, if that had been stated we would have declined instead of agreeing to help out the owner by not requiring our money at a very difficult time for her. In fact, we even offered to let her retain it for a further year by rescheduling again to 2022 and gave ample warning of that request in April.

Regarding the cancellation, please see the email exchange on May 5. In particular, in the discussion of how to rebook, we said "... we will therefore cancel the current booking – please arrange for the return of our deposit...", she said "For the refund please contact VRBO as the payment is in their possession". We cancelled on the basis of that statement, and we require VRBO to honour the refund she promised! But please read the full messages for yourself.

I am having a horrible time trying to get a refund on a property where the owner has had to cancel my booking due to Covid restrictions in Wales. The property was booked for May 2020 and due to the first lockdown, the owner kindly offered a new date in May 2021. I now can't take up the property in 2021 and to add to my disappointment at being unable to holiday, I am having to fight to get a refund. The owner of the property has been very kind and supportive but she seems to be caught between Vrbo and Yapstone. She has completed all the documentation necessary for a refund but isn't being given the authorisation she needs to release the funds back to me. I can't get any satisfactory response from Vrbo (they will only deal with the property owner) and their website is not fit for purpose in the context of Covid. So I've had to complete the 'cancellation' section of the website despite not wanting to cancel at all - but having the cancellation mandated by the owner's understandable inability to breach law and let it to us.

Booked a villa with Homeaway/ Vrbo for a stay in Ibiza for my wedding in summer 2020. Due to covid this did not happen. The owner kindly agreed to a change of dates to July 2021. Giving the ongoing pandemic my wedding has been cancelled. When discussing options with the owner she offered a "100% refund" despite booking a nonrefundable property. Once i agreed to this the property booking was cancelled. She told me I must contact VRBO directly for the refund as the money was never disbursed to her account. On contacting VRBO on multiple occasions I was told by different agents the money had / had NOT been disbursed and they could not do anything on behalf of the owner, I must contact her myself. I contacted the owner who states she is unable to issue the refund. Vrbo again say they cannot offer a refund without owner authorisation. I contacted the owner to explain and she states she does not use the email anymore but wrote a clear message to VRBO via our messages that she provides authorisation for VRBI to offer me a refund immediately. VRBO still not accepting of this and telling me to contact the owner to initiate a refund. I have now been trying to resolve this for over a month and am caught between VRBOs horrible customer service and an owner who is now not responding. I would not have cancelled the stay if it resulted in losing my money and looked at other options such as a credit or postponement . Communications with vrbo include multiple agents closing chats and hanging up on me on calls. 2 weeks ago I was on hold for repeatedly for two hours. Multiple agents claim to have referred my case to different teams and have told me I would receive callbacks from team leaders or supervisors. None of this has happened. No correspondence from VRBO. The customer service and communication is atrocious. I will never use this site again and will share this story with every review website / social media account I can until a resolution is provided

After several hours of time wasted, I have today got a refund from my credit card company, about 12 weeks after VRBO agreed to refund my payment for a property in France,

Earlier Posting:-
I agree with all the recent reviews of HomeAway/VRBO, two months ago they agreed to refund the Euro 986 to us but unfortunately this was to a Credit Card we had stepped using last August.

The refund has yet to arrive and VRB has advised us to contact the Bank ourselves. I hope it doesn't get bounced back to VRBO as there are reports that some banks have insisted that VRBO should refund to us. I can't even manage to chare back to the bank card as we do not have an account any longer!

Well holiday booking cancelled by host and marked as refunded on 11th March. No refund received so I contact Vrbo through their automated system. It tells me to contact the host which I do. Host says no it’s Vrbo that have to issue the refund. Which was fine. However trying to contact Vrbo since has been shockingly bad.
Number they give is never answered and the chat function not working.
So how do I contact the company as their website doesn’t give me even an email to write to.
Of course I can’t book another holiday as I need the refund to do this.
Vrbo please HELP!!!!
Why make this so difficult to contact you to find out what’s happening!!!

We booked accommodation in Kissimee for a trip to Disney that was cancelled due to COVID.
The original booking was in the spring of last year, so we initially were able to move it to November 2020.
We then had to cancel this too, and asked for a refund - 100% refund due to the notice period.
IT NEVER ARRIVED.
At first Homeaway (Vrbo) said they had refunded it to our credit card. The credit card company have never recieved the refund.
We followed up.
The story changed.
They now haven't recieved the money from the property owner, so can't issue a refund.
The owner who had previously responded by email has now not responded.
So we are in total limbo to the tune of $3,109.05
We paid Homeaway, not an individual.
I would expect our money to be refunded in accordance with the refund T&C .
I cannot believe the website still says "We'll back you with our Book with Confidence Guarantee offering comprehensive payment protection".
It is total nonsense.

>>> They said they would be contacting me shortly in their response to the review.
Don’t believe the hype. I’ve had nothing

>>>> I’ve now had a reply saying the money is still held by the owner, not HomeAway/Vrbo. They can’t contact him and now want ME to contact the owner.
Question: if they can’t contact the owner, why are they still advertising the property for rental?

The Vrbo own portal says the money has been refunded by the owner. So where is our refund?
I would strongly suggest the book with confidence guarantee with “comprehensive payment protection” is total marketing nonsense. We’ve had no such protection.
8 months + and still waiting for $3,109 refund.
Avoid at all costs.

If the website would have allowed a zero star rating, i would have given one. Having had to cancel 2021's holiday to a property in France for obvious reasons, i was promised a refund of my deposit in 5 days to my account. After 9 days I emailed and asked where it was. I was told it had been paid to a card (last 4 digits quoted). I replied that i have not or have never had a card with that ending. I complained bitterly, giving the, my bank details in order to transfer direct. I then received an email totally contradicting what they had earlier said and told me that they had sent the deposit and the owner and I should get it back from her. I emailed the owner and got back what they had sent her. I emailed the company and said they still owed me the balance. Emails went backwards and forwards each day until eventually the amount (wrong amount though) was paid into my account. The next day i received another emakil apologising for the delay but they had to credit the refund to the fictitious card only to have it returned, whereupon they could send it to me. Strange - I received it the day before. I am still on principle chasing the small balance of some £12 and have claimed compensation for time inconvenience and mental stress. I WILL NEVER GO NEAR THIS COMPANY AGAIN AND I SUGGEST YOOU ALL DO THE SAME. Just be careful because they are the parent company of other rental firms also and it would be good to check so you don't get involved with them at all. Incidentally several years ago I had a dispute with th,m over the dirt and filth, not to mention a child's tooth, in a cottage we rented on the Isle of Wight.

Last year we booked 3 nights accommodation in New York via Homeaway for August of this year (2021).
The host (apartment owner) was paid $467 and Homeaway took a servce fee from us of $55.20.
Unfortunately our intended cruise was cancelled, hence we no longer required any accommodation. We (stupidly) thought it would be simple to cancel our booking; the terms of our booking specifically hi-lighted if we cancelled prior to the 12th July 2021we would receive a FULL refund.
From 16th December 2020 I have been trying to cancel the apartment and receive my promised refund. The host will not respond to either phone calls or emails and "customer services" at Homeaway are a disgraceful joke.
Their "book with confidence guarantee" is a fabricated statement.
Any obsticle is continually thrown at you to ensure a refund is not given.
I have written an official complaint to the London office (no response) and requested a refund from the refunds department in Dublin (no response).
Homeaway have, (at their request), three times been provided with ALL the details of our passport ID and bank statements showing the transactions for the apartment.
Fed up with this bunch of incompetent fools I raised a credit card dispute.
Homeway now have the audacity of arguing we should not be refunded our service fee.
Their terms and conditions as per website state:
"If the reservation is within the window for a 100% refund per the property's cancellation policy, the service fee will automatically be refunded when the cancellation is confirmed."
Given their host will not respond, confirm and cancel our booking as per our request , Homeaway believe that's the red light for just keeping our money.
Absolute disgusting service and as for the host he should be barred from accepting any further bookings....however Homeaway won't do that because of the commission they cream off his bookings.
NEVER USE THIS COMPANY!!!

Absolutely disgraceful way of treating customers. 10 months of back and forth by email and still no refund. I shall now be claiming a refund through the courts, plus interest and court costs.

DO NOT BOOK THROUGH HOMEAWAY/VRBO.

Hello!
I booked a property in march last year in London. Because of covid situation i was unable to go to London. The owner doesnt want to give me my money back. homeaway/vrbo contacted him, but he still refuse to give me my money back. So be aware of ROBERT BASSETT from London and stay away of his apartment. He is not a trusted host.We lost our money, We paid for a service that we dId not receive. The property id is #8392190 - STAY AWAY-HE IS NOT A TRUSTED OWNER.