HomeAway

We have paid for advertising on HomeAway since 2001 to the tune of thousands of dollars specifically to be able to have direct contact with guests.

This year after the acquisition by Expedia they decided to reward us by cutting off all direct contact with guests until they collect their added fees to not only guests but also to us. So basically we have been ripped off, they took our advertising money and are using it against us and our guets for the sole purpose of collecting fees without any responsibility for the actual business between owners and guests. Book direct and save
#bookdirect

Horrible company to deal with... They will not allow reviews that don't meet their standards. We were DOUBLE BOOKED and Home Away would not allow us to leave a review cause we did not actually stay at the property... Of course we didn't... It was DOUBLE BOOKED... How can we leave a review on a property when weren't allowed to get in it... HomeAway did absolutely nothing other than to tell us it was their policy not to allow those type reviews. I feel sorry for future rentors who are in our situation. Basically property owners are allowed to double book their properties with absolutely no consequence for their actions... They have a complaint process but no viewer if the website will ever get to see the complaints that are filed... They are purely in it for the money and not the protection of the rentors...

I rented a house in Berlin MD, paid for, confirmed and money out of my CC. Next day the owner (Louisa) texted me and ask me to switch my dates because she got someone wanted the house longer than me. So she canceled my confirmed reservation to rent to someone else because of money, no regards to customers feelings. Called HomeAway and they said nothing they could do because she canceled my reservation within 24 hours, no customer protection. So BEWARE...

We booked a family home on March 14th with possibility to cancel until end of May without costs. Creditcard deducted immediately a large amount on March 14th. Contacted them several time to ask to get the amount refunded, they claim it takes longer due to Corona, but still do not have the money back. It seems they do not have the money to do so. I am now forced to file a dispute with my creditcard company to make sure Homeaway does not get the money this is really ridiculous. My advise: do not rent from Homeaway!

Signed up to HomeAway after reviewing the gamut of sites out there to offer my place for short term rentals. Have had good experience with AirBNB, but as an owner I wasn't happy to stiff renters with their terrible fees.
So I signed up to HomeAway, and frankly haven't been all that impressed with the number of requests I've had for my apartment (which is stunning and has views of Central Park and is offered at a very competitive rate).
Rang to demand a refund and to close my account, and was told that obviously they are able to change their terms and conditions at any time (which I of course read when I signed up... hmmm). Now, being a Claytons Lawyer, I know that you are not able to change price as part of an amendment to terms of a contract unless agreed by both parties, but of course HA will say that I as the party to the contract have not been affected by the changes, hence they are within their rights to change.
I can feel a class action coming on!

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,

HORRIBLE- Bait and Switch for rates on 2 separate reservations! DO NOT BOOK WITH HOMEAWAY. We booked two reservations within 4 days and both said they needed higher rates or they would cancel. The one simply stated (after booked and confirmed through Expedia) "we can get a higher rate" and they cancelled our reservation. We had already booked $4200 in Delta flights and $2600 in ski and cat ski packages, so now we are screwed! HOMEAWAY says they will put a penalty message in under these property owners, but cannot do anything else! HORRIBLE way to conduct business, especially being a Lifetime Titanium member with Marriott, I am used to book accommodations that are not just cancelled out from under you! BAD BUSINESS!
Addresses are 1482 Empire Ave and 1415 Lowell Ave- both in Park City

I rented a private apt in London and paid in full - a rental, cleaning fee and security deposit for a three day stay.An hour later I received a paypal money request from flatbookfor a second security fee. I called home away and flatbookfor that apologized as a "clerical error". The apt turned out to be a bedroom in a shared house with only a mattress, we didn't stay and asked for a refund. Home away said we are only an advertiser talk to flatbook, flatbook said, we are in Canada and are not responsible for bad descriptions. Neither refunded me anything not even my security deposit. Don't be a victim like me, use reputable hotels, home away is a scam

I would advise everyone to NEVER BOOK WITH HOMEAWAY! They have a mandatory deposit policy and don't require home owners to justify their reasons for keeping the deposit.

I recently rented a home with homeaway for a weekend getaway in La Jolla and I got scammed my $500 deposit even though I have not destroyed anything in the house. I spent a total of 3 hours calling the customer service on different dates and they were not helpful at all. The customer service representative told us "The guy literally said: we're not like Airbnb. We don't serve customers" and said that they will not help us get our $500 back.

Bottom line: if you don't want to be charge an extra couple hundred dollars book with airbnb. I have rented from both, had customer complaints on both platforms and airbnb always made sure I got what I paid for.

We called to inquire about a property listed. This was a last minute booking and were told the owner had 24 hours to respond which didn't work for us. So we told them not to put the booking through, that we needed to look at other options as we are leaving in hours. Within 10 minutes we received a CONFIRMATION booking notice. So we called back to have them stop it and were met with unhelpful customer service who informed us it was our responsibility to contact the owner to cancel. WHAAAAAAT? We were then hung up on. When we called back and got another agent she was just as unhelpful so I asked to speak to a manager. She said there were no managers available and when I repeated myself that I wished to speak to a manager PLEASE she argued again saying no manager was available. This went on for several minutes and then I was still told no manager was available but I could speak with a supervisor. I'm beating my head against a wall with these folks. STAY AWAY. Don't book with HomeAway!

I am a host for the last 5 years with homeaway. They are interested in one thing - MONEY. Hosts pay for the service, now they are charging the renters too. Note there is no phone number on the web site. You get customer service people who dont have a clue and you cant get anyone who gets the IT /software issues.
They constantly changing things in order to secure renters personal information, control access to renters and hosts and there changes are for one thing- MONEY. They arent intersted in service or a great travel web site- money money and no customer service. As for the hosts and the renters- pretty good experiences in my travels and with my 2 renters- but I am moving to Air bnb who provide a service wo collecting all the renter information.

I own 10+ vacation rentals within CA and manage a few more for friends and family. We built some software in house to automate the cleaning and check-in process. I initially started marketing my rentals on airbnb and have had a lot of success at 50+% occupancy. So having used VRBO/Homeaway as a user, I decided to see if we could also list on that website.
Wow, if there is one thing for certain by going through the process, it's the demise/end of Homeaway and VRBO. It appears you have to use their payment provider (YapStone) but they require you to notarize a document before you can get each listing online. NOTARIZE! Even lawyers are moving away from that and you have a company who is trying to compete with Airbnb, ditch their monthly pricing and make it almost impossible for anyone to use their platform by asking for notarizations.

Good luck Homeaway/VRBO. But you won't find me as a patron on the visitor side or the owner side. And I'm sure that will be the case for many.

Homeaway/VRBO doesnt back the renter. House was fine but manager and Homeaway/VRBO stole my money. Don't buy their fraud insurance! They won't pay up. The manager stole $850 damage deposit, $45 damage insurance he wasn't supposed to charge and $200 fraud insurance stolen by Homeaway/VRBO for a total of $1095. After making you do almost the impossible to make a claim (I'll spare you the gruesome details) they deny you even though the manager never responded to them. They reject any negative review and allow owner/managers to erase all reviews and start over again. Never buy their insurance. I've read countless stories about them not paying up. You cant even rely on the BBB. They've been known to "resolve" disputes even when the complainant hasn't agreed to anything. Buyer beware!

I would have give homeaway a lower rating bt it wouldnt let me. We saved up for a year to take a vacation in Puerto Rico. After the hurricanes, we reached out to Homeaway to assist with an owner that was not returning our calls. They called the owner and the owner said the property was fine. The owner continued to give us the run around and we continued to request assistance from Homeaway. After 60 days, it was to late to challenge the transaction. The owner sent us an email informing us that the property would have water in a couple weeks and power in January. (Two wks from our departure date) We lost $1283 to the property owner. Homeaway was worthless in, and during the process. We will not use them again!

I booked a country house last summer that supposedly slept 8, but only 6 were inside the building: one double bed was in a tool shack, separate from the building. None of us slept there, the owner did not return our deposit, and instead fraudulently edited the property's description after my complaints to add "semi-detached".

After submitting full (and notarized) documentation to HomeAway:
1) They saw "semi-detached" as an accurate description, even though I had provided pictures showing the tool shack 10ft away from the building, without shared walls.
2) They admitted that they could not verify whether or not the owner had edited the listing, because of "limited storage capacity", and did not consider my printed version of the webpage.
3) They canceled the insurance, refunding the subscription fee, with a letter saying that the policy "never was in effect".

I wasted my time searching houses in homeaway! Making first a list of desirables. When I went to "inquire" ask seriously to the owner for a booking during the dates I was searching (available in thw website from homeaway) begon my journey through a list of "unavailable" houses! How is it possible... Just a scam... I´m very angry...

I "inquired" about a few dozen vacation rental listings per HomeAway's instructions that their web site said were available during the dates i wanted, but EVERY SINGLE ONE actually ended up being already booked. I wasted a lot of time on completely false listings. This site is deporable at best.

Owners using HomeAway Payments had their banking, Social Security numbers and other property info hacked! Please read.
http://www.law360.com/articles/*******/homeaway-slapped-with-suit-over-yearlong-data-breach
According to the complaint, the private data of property owners and managers who used the online payment service including their names, contact information, home addresses, dates of birth, bank accounts and Social Security numbers was publicly available on YapStones site from July 15,2014, to Aug. 5,2015. HomeAway and YapStone learned of the data breach by Aug. 4 and alerted their users about six weeks later in a letter dated Sept. 11.