Homeaway Reviews 28

This is a fraudulent company. I wish I'd read the reviews sooner. They claim the rental prices are "all-included," but did not disclose the $1,000 rental fee. I'm disputing with my credit card company, but based on what I'm reading, I may never get my money refunded.

Terrible company, they simply do not pay host and block your account overnight. It is a disgrace.
DO NOT TRUST THIS COMPANY

Homeaway.com is in business with Gökhan Duyar and his website in real estate.
According to the High Court in Söke Gokhan Duyar was involved in fraud with real estate and we were the victims of it.
He is a criminal and everybody who wants to do honest business should avoid this man.

Litterally stole my money. The vendor even told us so. When everything locked down they refused to pay back the deposit. Utter scum. They deserve to go bankrupt!
I can provide supporting evidence to anyone who wants it.

Crooks.DEFINATELY need WATCH DOG on the case. HOMEAWAY could have returned my money when our family stay was frustrated due to covid. They confirmed they still had it but insisted on passing it on to RENTAMANOR who is the AGENT for ST Lawrence Manor which i booked via Homeaway. RENTAMANOR company is run and managed by the SON of the atual owner. Homeaway insist the owner should repay us back but while the son (Rentamanor) eventualy returned 10% the owner, who neither Rentamanor or Homeaway would reveal, turns out as being the manager's father who has kept our £3,500 when NO service was provided. HE has has KEPT our money even though our gornerment would not permit travel due to covid making a frustrated contract .This is Day light robbery.Small claims court here we come.

I Am having my one and only experience with Homeway,they take a booking for hotel room that is already booked, but they take your money first then a tell you after no room at the inn, You then have go through a tricky system to cancel the booking even thought it’s not your fault, then what should happen a refund of your hundreds of pounds they took, but sorry does not work like that, despite your best efforts, they lead you a dance, customer service none existent, and no refund.
I still have no refund, weeks turn into it’s looking like it could take months as your confidence in then wains.
This is seems to be a big American company, with little regard for the UK citizen, I am sure it’s time Watch dog, and other media, started to look at this company, and expose them, to the people of Britain, and save lots of grief and stress
Richard

Took my booking for what turned out to be a filthy dirty apartment, when I complained, they said it was nothing to do with them.

In the early days HomeAway which traded under the name Owners Direct was an excellent concept - Owners paid a fee to advertise with Owners Direct and clients had direct contact with the owners allowing the owners to easily decide if they wished to accept the booking or not. Slowly but surely the business model changed. Whilst one can communicate with the prospective guests and vice versa, the exchange of email addresses and telephone numbers is prohibited. In my experience, villa clientele want personal contact with the owner prior to booking - there is no substitute for a nice personal friendly chat on the phone and personal contact is something that has been eroded by big business over recent decades to the point that it is now almost non existent. HomeAways response to this point was that guests can call the company - yes and they will speak to someone in a call centre in a distant land on a fuzzy telephone line, a person who reads from a script and has no real knowledge of the travel industry and our business that we have spent years developing. Now when an owner accepts a reservation request, they will not receive any part of the payment until after the guest has checked in. As owners we have considerable running costs, that exist through the year, in some cases, mortgages to pay which are covered by rentals, in exactly, the same way as they would be on any short medium or long term rental property where a buy to let mortgage for example, is in place. I think we all know that the the lenders do not wait for their money. HomeAway however have no interest in this very real issue. It's almost as if they are saying that if we have a mortgage we should not be renting the property and the attitude I and others like me have experienced on the phone from staff is arrogant to say the least. For some of us this is our only source of income. Homeway's policy is not right, its not fair on the owners and the truth is that it is a business model set up for the sole purpose of generating cashflow for the company. In no way does this benefit the owners. In addition to this issue, HomeAway has confirmed (and I have two recorded telephone calls where where staff members have confirmed this) that unless owners sign up to their instant booking system, their properties will be pushed down the line in searches. Now of course they are a little more cautious about the way that they say this now. Essentially they claim that by signing up to instant booking, owners homes will gain greater exposure in search engine visibility etc etc. Ie less so if we do not comply - It is clear therefore that they are not only able to manipulate this but indeed they actively do so. My understanding is that this practice is tantamount to a form of extortion and is essentially illegal. In this respect, I am currently in the process of establishing which regulating authority covers this issue. In the early days of Owners Direct 90 percent of my reservations came from that platform. Today it is around 20 percent so if I am able at some point to withdraw from them completely I will certainly do so. HomeAway charges hefty fees often around 300 pounds to the guests. My guests all carry travel insurance (which protects their payments) and I have full public liability insurance to protect my guests as do many owners. They do not actually need HomeAway's protection and they do not want to pay it. HomeAway, must change their policy regarding payments to owners. They have been advised to implement either a simple system of advertising fee only or a commission based system where they very simply collect their commission from the deposit. But they are adamant that their policy is here to stay. Finally, if we refuse to accept a booking, we are penalised by HomeAway which is not only incredibly patronising but frankly feels like we are being told off like naughty school children, by unqualified teachers.

For the past two years I have been searching the AZ areas, Scottsdale and Sun Cities to rent a house/condo for just the month of February....unfortunately for me, I am unable to locate such....I would like to see Homeaway and/or any other vacation rentals to have a bulletin board where we can put down our requests and that the house/apartment owners can reply to us/the consumer....

I am am owner and I list my properties with them . At first I was excited about listing with homeaway but like all companies they are only in for there end ..... and to that end greed rules ! The first year I listed both my properties on one listing for one fee . However the next year I had to pay listing fees for both properties .( $499.00 x 2) plus the fee they charge the customer . ($89.00). This starts to add up and after a while it seems like you do not own your own Realestate. So be careful .. Do your home work . I know if you try to go to another management tool you can not take your reviews with you . Which is very important when starting new avenue. HOW HARD CAN IT BE TO COMBINE TWO PROPERTIES UNDER ONE LISTING TO ACCOMMODATE THE POTENTIAL RENTER AND TO SERVE THE OWNER ! Come on !!! The renter can see both listing with out jumping from one listing to another . With that all said . Anyone out there that can do it better and more reasonable . Please seek me out . Edward Dawson , Morels on the Wabash , Logansport,Indiana

We rented an apartment from Etienne Feru in Annecy and was accused of having spilled oil on his floor. We clearly objected to this false accusation as the stain was present when we took over the apartment. We objected to any deductions being made from our deposit three times to Homeaway - we heard nothing and they paid the owner EUR 150 from our deposit! Ever since I have tried to reclaim my money w/o any luck. Yesterday I was informed the owner had provided 'sufficient evidence' of us having damaged his floor. I politely asked to see the socalled sufficient evidence as I was curious to see how the owner would prove an impossible thing. Guess what? Homeaway informed me I could not get access to this evidence!
I can only urge everybody to stay away from Homeaway and in particular to owner Mr. Etienne Feru from Annecy.

Just had the !pat amazing holiday in Dorset through home away Fabulous price lovely place couldn't fault them try ot

I put some feedback on Trust pilot but there doesn't seem to be a simple way to reply

here is what Homeaway said

1. Travellers who pay the service fee are covered by our Book with Confidence Guarantee.

"So this is like insurance, like PPI, but CAN you book via the site without paying the service fee if you don't want the insurance ? After all the owners of the property are already paying you for the advertising.

2. The Book with Confidence Guarantee offers the travellers their full rental payment and security deposit protection,
3. 24/7 customer service in case anything goes wrong during their stay and emergency re-booking assistance.

"How may times do you have to provide a full refund and how many emergency bookings very few I think - a search on the trust pilot site for those who gave one star shows many examples where Homeaway failed to do either"

I still don't see why Homeaway fees make any sense for an insurance policy that you don't want, that doesn't provide cover for the few times it may happen and many unhappy customers.

I think in the future just like PPI misold insurance, there would be a case for all users of the website who are forced to buy your insurance that in the end has little value.

Disasterous Experience just like the other hundreds of good people who have made similar complaints with TrustPilot and/or Sitejabber.

I booked the apartment on Homeaway website. I was charged with the first payment. Subsequent to my booking I had to make a cancellation due to the original apartment booked not being available from the property owner. I eventually managed to obtain a partial refund from the property owner - without the processing and service fee charged by HomeAway. Homeaway told me that the owner had my money. The owner showed me a photo as a proof that they only got part of the payment.

I was subsequently forced by HomeAway to contact my bank to request they refund me the amount as a means of deferred responsibility. After a very lengthy process of my bank refusing to refund me the amount, I then submitted a refund request to HomeAway with my bank denial to reimburse letter. HomeAway then sent me service fee charge amount but not the processing fee amount. I still have to go through this extremely lengthy and painful back and forth correspondence to obtain a refund for an unauthorised payment made almost five months ago. HomeAway is simply the WORST GARBAGE SCUM OF THE EARTH COMPANY THE WORLD HAS EVER SEEN!! THEY ARE ABSOLUTE THIEVES!! DO NOT BOOK with this scam company or else you will regret it!! I regret not reading all the negative reviews from customers first before booking with this website.

Got a quote for a weeks stay and and clearly info that we would have a pet.Got a price, gave my Credit card # traveled 7 hours annd checked in Sat. 4-14. Monday got a call from Prop Mgr saying I would either have to get rid of my pet or pay an additional $200.I said I would do neither, packed our clothes after only 1 full day and was charged over $.600. Ive have used them and VRBO many times in the past but never again. They turned into a pack of scam artists.And it wouldnt hurt if their customer service people at least spoke some semblance of english instead of whatever they were speaking

We booked an apartment in Paris through this site and when the confirmation came, we saw that it was on the 4th floor with no elevator. We immediately canceled within 30 minutes of booking it.
The owners stated that our deposit of $650.89 was not refundable. After filing a complaint with VBRO and explaining that it didn't state there was no elevator until the very bottom of the page and we did not see it. We explained that my husband is a DISABLED VETERAN and if he had seen that there was no elevator, he would not have booked it.
They gave us back $250 ONLY, which is pure robbery. We will NEVER use VBRO or HomeAway ever again here or abroad.
Horrible customer service and absolute ROBBERY.
We disputed the fee with CHASE but HomeAway's contract allows for this theft so they could not help us.

Bad, unpleasant and non responsive customer service and insurance claims department (agents and supervisors).
You can wait more than a month for a response and when you call you get hostile representatives and of course no advance in the process.

just like hundreds, if not thousands of good folks have reviewed with TrustPilot and/or Sitejabber.
Homeaway and it's related companies might simply be some of the worst on the planet.
DO NOT BOOK with these scam companies, you will regret it

Homeaway purchased VRBO and vacation rentals.com and ruined both of them. They are raising "fees" on both owners and renters, but with no value add.

Don't bother calling customer service with problems, over 20 minute hold time and unknowledgeable staff and I'm an owner trying to get help!