HomeAway

Property #******* Grand Marinas Angeles Gilmore accepted our payment in full in March 2024 for a rental for one month starting in Feb 2025. Jan 19 Angeles sent an email stating at first there had been a natural disaster which was a lie then followed by an email giving us notice our rental was only available for 3 weeks due to unforeseen circumstance and we needed to answer within a few hours or it would be cancelled. We did not see the email and found the credit on our mastercard not ever 24 hr notice. She has never responded to our emails. Of course her new rental rate has increased considerably and obviously they found someone to pay more. Be very leery of dealing with these people. Of course all of our flights have been booked for months. The lack of integrity and greed not to mention the stress & anxiety they created has been unbelievable! DO NOT DEAL WITH ANGELES GILMORE! NOT TRUSTWORTHY!

We chose a cottage yesterday and were told it would cost £1180 approx with an immediate deposit of £396 approx. Gave c/c details for deposit. Showed kids the house; everyone happy and excited for next years holiday.

Then, later in the evening the owner emailed me saying the house would cost £800 MORE than the first price to reflect next years fees.

With HomeAway, all communication is faceless and there is no redress or person to complain to, no emails, no way of raising the issue! The owner has the upper hand entirely.

This is the perfect platform to scam people. We won't be paying the extra £800 however, I'm sure some people would do so believing they're in some sort of contract.

By the way, should you still want to use them, avoid ‘WOODGATE' farmhouse (near Crackington Haven, near Bude), as this is the house the owner tried to scam us out of £800 extra.

I booked a home and once I got there, owner would not leave for hours. Then had me sign a contract ( her own) stating all these ridiculous stipulations, cannot go into living room, cannot use pool without paying an extra fee, no opening windows, and the list goes on and that we cannot post reviews of our stay there was no recourse as I had no where else to stay after flying there. Do not use this company. They do not vet their homeowners and this one was literally crazy.

I booked a terrible house in Tellaro, Italy through HomeAway. When we got to the house, there were electrical wires hanging out of sockets including over the children's bed, mould growing up the walls, a loose banister, rickety furniture that looked as though it would collapse at any moment. The entire place was a health hazard. I made repeated calls to HomeAway pleading with them to move us to somewhere else but Home Away did not want to know. They were not interested in helping once they had my money despite the fact they knew that they had place my family and young children in hazardous conditions. Even worse, they continued to advertise the property in question even after I sent them photographic evidence of the dangerous state of the property and did not publish my review. Disgusting company. Do not book with them

We stayed at 10 Old Dock Road in Plattsburgh NY! Never stay there! The place was a complete rib off! The AC didn't work and our family of three sweated there for four nights and couldn't sleep! The worst of it is when we left they charged us $200 for damages that were not true! They stayed complete lies! In fact they should have refunded our money for that stay not charged us more! Avoid at all costs! Wanted to add that the water smelled horrible too! And that my sister Ona Belser paid for this for me her brother so that this review has nothing to do with her!

Booked through HomeAway almost 2 months ago.
First booking didn't go through - although payment did.
Call center assured me that it was an Internet fault. Payment would bounce back to my account and to use a different card for booking.
I did - paying $454.05 again.
After a week payment had not bounced back and bank told me both payments had been cleared by HomeAway.
It has been 2 months, many unanswered emails, then automated emails asking for the same information again and again, repetitive phone conversations and STILL NO REFUND.
DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY.

Don't stay at Durham house apartment
Shocking customer service. I booked Durham House apartment in Beer we left early due to how dirty it was.
With covid we had expected it to be clean but the state of it was disgusting - we took photos and contacted The owner Sue Wesley she was rude and very nasty and HomeAway was hopeless.
Really to listen to all these bad reviews. Don't stay at Durham House apartment in Beer and don't use homeaway

When VRBO/HomeAway 1st began it was awesome service but appears they've hired the greed mongols and here's how they play you now...

So you find a rental and they list it at 162.50 per night. Oh wait but that's not all because what they don't show until you book is an additional $100 owners fee, a $49.00 service fee and then they top it off with $41.72 lodging tax. So now the $162.50 per night is really $353.22:-o! Oh of course you need to set aside another $150 for the damage deposit which hopefully you get back. I'm sure they don't treat the property owners any different and overcharge them too!

Hopefully a less greedy alternative shows up soon or someone figures a craigslist style platform that all property owners can utilize and so we can begin paying what the home owners are asking and not the hidden doubling of cost that VRBO/HomeAway has devised.

Last, HomeAway will sell you trip insurance on top of all this too LOL!

This site lists fraudulent properties and knowingly sells uninhabitable rental accommodation. Trying to get a refund is unlikely due to unfair clauses. Will never book with them again and urge others to rethink before parting with their money- fine if everything goes ok, but if there's a problem or you need help then you're doomed. And to add salt to the wound, they don't let travellers leave bad reviews, so you never get to share the truth

Bad customer service, bad attitude. No refund given due to orders from corona virus to stay home. Owner said to get insurance, but no insurance covers what is happening. HomeAway says it asks it's owners to give a refund, but it's only at the owners discretion. We got nothing back from $705 that we had already put in. So we had to make a decision to either stay home and let her keep our money or go to a forced vacation, against orders to stay home from the government and risk our lives just to go. In this case, I think we should have been refunded. There is no insurance that covers this kind of shutdown. Owner says she has bills to pay. Very rude and awful. No compassion for what it going on. We need that money back too for food. Highly don't recommend!

I'm a home owner with two properties listed and have been a Homeaway member for four years now. Up until today, I would have given Homeaway five stars. Their customer service has always been top-notch, and their dashboard is user-friendly.

Today, however, I just set up a booking and noticed a new line added to the payment list--a 9% "service fee" which my guest must pay. (Assuming he still wants to book after seeing it...)

This will severely damage our ability to attract guests and perhaps kill our rental business. The shame of it all is that there's absolutely no need for the fee beyond Expedia's desire to suck more cash into its corporate coffers. It's a short-sighted move and a classic case of killing the goose for the golden eggs.

A sad day for all travelers and owners connected to this otherwise great company.