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Pennsylvania
1 review
0 helpful votes
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Beare in the Poconos
February 3, 2018

Many communities, including ours, have amendments and rules against short term rentals. The Townships do as well. Owners who rent short-term often violate these rules hoping they won't get caught. But if they are shut down by security or zoning officers, the renter is out of luck. And good luck finding the owner for a refund. Shawnee Valley is one of the No Short-Term rental communities. Be warned!

Date of experience: February 3, 2018
California
1 review
7 helpful votes
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I booked a property through Homeaway (booked 5 months in advance). I paid in full. Two months later I received a refund - no explanation until I contacted them. I currently have not received the full amount back I paid and they have just said contact the property owner it's not their problem! As a service I would have thought it was part of their duty. Poor support and customer service. Steer clear, plenty more reputable companies about.

Date of experience: May 15, 2018
Oklahoma
1 review
0 helpful votes
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Boating Disaster
January 18, 2017

We stayed on what was advertised as a high rise boat and it was nothing short of a HUD property with beds that were put together with couch cushions, old mildewed pillows, dog beds by your pillows, broken glass, outlets not working, tv not working, sticky notes for instructions and much more.

Date of experience: January 18, 2017
Kentucky
1 review
5 helpful votes
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Not rented yet
July 20, 2016

Looked at a few properties. One we were interesepted in, got online to rent and price had gone up almost $700 in a day. But the daily rate was still the lower price. So I sent email to property, never got a response. But when I got online found that the daily rate had been raised since my email. Guess that was my response. Does not appear to have good customer service. A little afraid to use now. Really wanted to rent a place through them. Will look for something else

Date of experience: July 20, 2016
Canada
2 reviews
4 helpful votes
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L have recently had a bad experience with this site as a renter for a rental property(#*******/ #*******)
In Barbados.My $500 usd deposit has been taken. They were great & prompt replies to all my emails until the wire transfer of my $500 usd was completed. After that l emailed this property owner for confirmation of payment/dates booked & no reply. L waited 1week & then request to cancel/refund & since then after numerous emails & un-answered phone calls still no refund nor any assistance from this site. Please dont throw your money away.

Date of experience: October 7, 2013
Netherlands
1 review
2 helpful votes
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What a horrible site. They lure guests with their "Book with confidence"-guarantee, but did nothing for me when (1) upon arrival the apartment turned out to be located somewhere else completely; and (2) the security deposit was not repaid without any reason. PLEASE be careful booking here--you have NO guarantees whatsoever. Far better to use AIrBnB where I never had any problems and which had helpful staff.

Date of experience: January 22, 2018
Oregon
4 reviews
8 helpful votes
Follow Denise F.
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Do not book with any Home away properties. We had to cancel due to COVID-19 for our June yellowstone trip. We could not get a full refund because Home Away is useless in proactively motivating their property owners to refund during this unusual period. 5 phone calls and nothing but Lip Service. The property owner was so greedy she originally offered only a 50% refund or book a future date. We elected to move our dates one year forward to June 17-19,2021. Billy Richards decides to book us for May 17-19,2021 which was impossible for us with children in school. She wouldn't change the dates to what we requested so we decided to take a loss of 50% now only to be sent an email that we would only receive 35% refund, with no explanation. SO GREEDY! It was bad enough that they advertise "Great nightly rate of $185". Watch for that one... turns out two nights will be billed at $600! Not an honest bone apparent here or at Home Away. Won't book with either of them again!

Date of experience: May 28, 2020
New Jersey
1 review
7 helpful votes
Follow a l.
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I have rented my home through this company for 7 years. A year ago the problems started (read the reviews). It got worse and worse. As an attempt to maintain a venue for attracting renters, I succumbed to their demands, but it keeps getting WORSE! I don't think they actually WANT the homeowners business. I don't have a theory for their reasoning?!? I have finally dropped them, but I have been monitoring, and for my small rental area, the number of homes available has dropped from 245 to 203 in just three months. So apparently other homeowners are as frustrated as I am. For Cape Cod and the islands, visit WENEEDAVACATION! They are awesome. NO BS!

Date of experience: November 2, 2017
Netherlands
1 review
1 helpful vote
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Don't use HomeAway!
October 25, 2019

HomeAway collected double playment due to an ' error ' on their website. After more than one month and many phonecalls and emails we still have not received our money back. HomeAway does not respond to our emails and reminders and when we finally get somebody on the phone the person always claims 'it is under investigation by the technical team' and they cannot do anything more for you but asking for an update (which you subsequently do not receive). It looks like a big fraud to me. I will never use HomeAway ever again and strongly recommend you to stay away from them.

Date of experience: October 25, 2019
Texas
2 reviews
4 helpful votes
Follow Deborah T.
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As we could not safely arrive for our stay at this property and there was inadequate warning of adverse conditions VRBO/HOMEAWAY allows no review of property since we did not actually stay there. They have very neatly protected themselves and left the Traveler no recourse should there be an issue with the Owner OR Property. This property has only 4 and 5 star reviews so it seems that the Owner may be allowed to manipulate the site in his favor as some of my messages to him were deleted/hidden from the Inbox. Transparency and trust of the site and its reviews are now a question. Maybe the Owners and the fees generated are valued by VRBO above the Traveler's needs? I have contacted VRBO but have had no response to their unsolicited e-mails to review my trip. Booking.com and Flipkey.com here I come.

Date of experience: April 6, 2017
Minnesota
1 review
36 helpful votes
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Class action lawsuit time
February 19, 2016

We paid over 1200 to have a vacation rental website owned by the homeowner. We never agreed for homeaway/Vrbo to take over our website and get between us and our renter. They not only add this illegal service fee but also tell our renter to use homeaway payments and try to sell them damage insurance. I have multiple properties and prices have gone from 329 to over 1000 per property.

None of us gave homeaway/Expedia the rights to edit our website or hide email addresses and force us to communicate through the dashboard this is a violation of our privacy.

Everyone here with the same complaints let's check on a class action lawduit

Date of experience: February 19, 2016
Florida
1 review
1 helpful vote
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Booked a place through orbitz yet home and away charged a 5000 dollar security deposit that i never authorized then they took the home off there site. Which we never got in and still wont refund the security deposit

Date of experience: May 9, 2019
Louisiana
1 review
4 helpful votes
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Home robbers Inc
June 13, 2017

This company has a thieving reputation and does not return reservation money in a timely manner... Be warned these people are taking your reservation money and earning interest on it... holding on to it for up to 6 weeks

Date of experience: June 13, 2017
Virginia
1 review
3 helpful votes
Follow M H.
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This is the trip that I will forever look back on as the one that taught me to invest in my vacation lodging. It wasn't clean. More precisely, it was filthy; the landlord and I could not get on the page about anything - whether th apt had been cleaned, meeting times, etc.; and Home Away customer service was a joke. I won't use them again either. When I called to complain about the state of the apartment (hairy tub, tried urine on the toilet, and stained sheets ;) they put me on hold for 30 minutes (twice,) told me to meet the landlord back at the apartment to discuss a resolution because they couldn't easily communicate with her over the phone (nevermind the fact that I was on vacation and had travel reservations,) and then continued to do absolutely nothing to make it right. I finally convinced the landlord to clean the bathroom... Even though she swears I received the professional cleaning service I paid for... This experience definitely tainted our long awaited vacation.

Date of experience: February 3, 2017
New York
1 review
7 helpful votes
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Hi Guys
I didnt know until today that Homeaway.com is NOT a trusted site, they will not back you if any problem occurs, and they will let you on top of the water and will not care for you,
I was have a major issue with my vacation rental house, and the owner refuse to refund any money, and after 4 weeks and sending proofs Homeaway said sorry we cant help you, call the owner to curt.
Would you buy from Amazon.com if you know that your purchase is not guaranteed if you are not satisfied? Same here, shame on you homeaway for not protecting their customers.

Date of experience: May 2, 2016
Sweden
1 review
0 helpful votes
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We have just returned from a beautiful vacation in France. We had rented two large farmhouses at the Bed and Breakfast facility "Le Four a Sel" in the village of Aubas, just a few kilometers from Montignac. The houses were clean and well set up... swimming pool was well-kept... the owners of Le Four a Sel live on site and were helpful in suggesting local points of interest and restaurants. All in all- a very positive experience!

Date of experience: July 9, 2015
GB
1 review
4 helpful votes
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I recently booked in Spain. What I didn't like was the fact they deducted the cost of the booking from my credit card at the time I booked and NOT when I actually arrived at the accommodation.
They did this with the security deposit also which is NOT acceptable. I got stitched up by my credit card for a big fee when they took the deposit and also for when they put it back. I also had to ask the accommodation owner to chase my deposit as they can take a week to pay it back!
So I lost money on the currency transaction and paid fees I didn't need to amounting to £40.00. I believe my deposit is exposed whilst they have and the reason they take both payments fast is to cash roll their business. Imagine the deposits they hold at any one time and if something happened to the company they would never be repaid!

Date of experience: March 13, 2018
New Jersey
1 review
1 helpful vote
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I see many reviews here blaming Homeaway for a bad experience. Vacation renters, please know that Homeaway/VRBO do not own any of the properties you see on their site. They are merely the marketers for property owners that pay to advertise on their site.

Homeaway/VRBO do not inspect properties, make sure the homeowners are competent or anything of that nature. They simply bill the property owners to place their properties for rent on their site.

Date of experience: July 9, 2015
Michigan
1 review
20 helpful votes
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Since Expedia purchased Homeaway in December 2015, they have made changes that were not communicated to Homeowners until we discover the software no longer works as it has in the past. For example, the 10% service fee they have begun (Febr 15,2016) to charge our guests, in addition to the annual fee we as homeowners pay to use their match service is over the top! Homeaway is no longer providing the qualtiy software/service marketing they once did. I will be leaving them after my last current booking. If they plan to use homeowners to generate secondary revenue from guests as though we are their booking agents, they should provide a wage and benefits for all the additional administration time and expense these changes have landed on my desk. Homeaway - Farewell.

Date of experience: February 22, 2016
Ohio
3 reviews
12 helpful votes
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VRBO and Homeaway are charging a ridiculously high service fees.
We are long potential renters because of their high fees
They never let anyone know. We have 2 properties and pay 1500 a year and now this
They need to take the fees away..

Date of experience: March 2, 2016

Overview

HomeAway has a rating of 1.1 stars from 1,751 reviews, indicating that most customers are generally dissatisfied with their purchases. Reviewers dissatisfied with HomeAway most frequently mention customer service, credit card and property owner. HomeAway ranks 152nd among Vacation Rentals sites.

service
119
value
104
shipping
30
returns
50
quality
95