HomeAwayReviews 1,751

I have used online travel booking sites for over 20 years with no need to complain. HomeAway is not like any other travel booking site. They take payment from your card, whilst at the same time telling you your required dates are unavailable, so you are forced to book alternative accommodation after they have already taken payment from you. They refuse to give a refund, after you spend months phoning and emailing their appalling customer services and you have been kept on hold for hours at a time to their call centre in Philippines? Call staff do not speak English well and do not understand English. WORST EXPERIENCE EVER

Umm. So I cancelled the stay because check in was 7:30 pm in New York when I landed at 7:00 am that day. I was notified after I booked and once I would be charged 50% of the stay. I ended up cancelling and when calling Homeaway and Alexandar he told me that once you cancel you cancel your stay sorry there is nothing I can do- due to bad experience before:

Alexander sent a message7 minutes ago
"Hi I'm sorry but once you cancel that's it. I had many issues in the past so I can't do anything else."

Book at your own risk, but Homeaway cannot do anything for you either.

Speaking from a property owner point of you, this company has become extremely greedy! They now charge property owners 300 Euros for each listing, they 'force' you to accept payments made only through them otherwise you can no longer advertise with them, and of course you only get paid after the customer has checked in and on top of that they also charge you a 3% process fee for every booking.
They do not realise it but at some point people (property owners, customers) will punish the company and its unbelievably greedy policies!

My experience pales in comparison to others, but still I wouldn't use them again. They have zero existing customer service, and dubious business ethics. I spent dozens of emails trying to get them to receipt my accommodation. They fobbed the inquiry to the accommodation owner, whom could not respond with a receipt as the payment is processed by HomeAway. I still haven't received a tax invoice for the full amount, which in effect means they have taken $38 from my bank account without my consent.

After several round of phone transfers & being placed on hold, someone eventually agreed to begin the process of returning our money. Yes, It's a Process! Rather than reversing the charges and refunding, there's a form to complete & 4-6 week wait for my money back. It feels like they're just trying to blow me off in the hope I'll go away. Considering we were charged FIVE times for an attempted rental due to their websites report "payment cannot process, please try again later" - I will not just go away.

I stayed at a property in Spain for a couple of months, and the place was quite run down and in a poor state of repair. I advised the owner I wouldn't be able to give a good review, and she understood, blaming the condition on previous tenants.
Homeaway is supposed to contact on departure to have you submit a review and this didn't happen. The other method is to log in, go on "my trips" and review it there, however there isn't a spot to initiate this action, so you can't leave a review. Contacted their centre, and did an on line chat, that ended with me waiting endlessly for person to get back to me, so gave up.

On April 9 I booked a rental and paid the full charge. Almost immediately I got a message from the property owner that he had withdrawn his listing and didn't understand why it appeared on the VRBO/Homeaway site. It is May 1 and I have yet to get my money refunded. Homeaway uses a call center in the Phillipines, where I was transferred around to various departments to no avail. Then started emails from Homeaway from a host of representatives with first names only, from all sorts of departments. To date I've received around thirty emails, which are filled with useless explanations and lies: that the funds were paid directly to the property owner, which he refutes logically saying that Homeaway doesn't release the funds to him until the traveller has checked in. Homeaway emails claim that they are a marketplace so not accountable. I pointed out that is only stated in their Terms of Service, which no one reads, and that they present and function as an Agency. They are perpetrating a deception and a fraud. I have filed complaints with Attorneys General of three states and with the Better Business Bureau. This shameless scam operation is a division of Expedia Group. Stay away from VRBO/Homeaway!

We have rented from HomeAway.com for several years, both in the US and abroad. This year I visited the house for which we had paid over $3000. 00 for our annual family weekend. I found mold in the refrigerators, a section of roof collapsed, and the bedroom below with sagging ceiling, front cement steps basically collapsed, stained mattresses, and dirt throughout (and they knew we were coming!).

Homeaway instructed me to call the owner for a refund and refused to help any further. Luckily, he refunded our money a few days after I told him I had a "case number" with Homeaway's complaint department.

There are many sites that are in the same home rental business. Use them instead of Homeaway. Com or any of their "family" (VRBO etc.) We have been shocked by Homeaway's total lack of concern for their customers.

One of the worst experiences that I had.
I canceled a rent after on homeaway (within the time limit to do it) and during 2 weeks I didn't get any answer from them, i called more then 4 times to customer service support. I've got one of the worst experiences talking to a "costumer support", lack of respect and not sense of how to talk to clients.
Very poor attendance for one company that says it's "n1 in house renting". No you're not.

We're owners of seasonal, vacation rentals and have used the HomeAway/VRBO web-sites on and off for years. We started with them over 10 years ago when it was called Cyberrentals. Back then, it was a flat annual fee and worked out great. Things have changed drastically, and not for the better. I'd expect the annual cost to go up as things do, but we were unpleasantly surprised when a couple of years ago, they started charging the tenants as well. I called and inquired about this and was told it was good for the renter and helped provide them better service. I didn't see it that way and I doubt the tenants did either. I felt it "picked their pocket", made money for HomeAway/VRBO, but did nothing for the client. We stopped using the web-site for a time but decided to give it another try as we purchased another property and wanted to garner some off-season rentals. Now in addition to charging the client an exorbitant amount, they block all phone numbers and e-mails. People used to be able to call me; now they can't. Of course they do this to ensure that people have to use the HomeAway web-site. The poor renters haven't any choice.
Here's the "straw"... If someone puts down a deposit - HomeAway keeps it until the tenant checks in. What if that's months away? They didn't used to do this, I've had people pay on-line with them in the past and it was deposited to my account in a timely fashion.
Let's recap:
1.) We pay to be listed on the web-site - obviously that's fair
2.) The Tenant pays again - to HomeAway to rent our listing, that amount is almost as much as our yearly fee to HomeAway on a 1 week rental.
3.) HomeAway keeps the money, I'm told in an escrow account, where (let's be honest), they're making interest.
I'm done with them - Does anyone have an alternative to this?

HomeAway Is A Rip Off
HomeAway Is A Rip Off. HomeAway and their property owner advertisers use false advertising, bait and switch methods and do not refund 100% of the booking fee as promised. I booked a house in La Paz Mexico. The listing stated there was a pool. After booking, I checked Google maps and I couldn't see a pool on the property. I contacted the property owner and she said there was not pool but she had another house that did at $1000 more plus utilities for the month. There was no choice but to cancel. I had booked on the Canadian site, in Canadian $s, with a Canadian credit card. They refunded in US $s which lost me $250 in exchange rates. This was entirely HomeAway's fault, responsibility and error, I should not be penalized, I have contacted HomeAway several times and they are telling me this is not their problem.