HomeAway

I 100% agree with all the homeowners complaining about Expedia/HomeawY charging OUR guests a service fee and pricing is out of the market. It's ridiculous! What's even more ridiculous, is never once over the past three years have any of the dramatic changes they've made been communicated directly to the homeowners. Only because I've done investigating to find out why I have half the number of page views and inquiries did I find out about the hidden service fee being passed on to my guests.AND it's not communicated as a website fee, it looks like a fee I am charging. It's killing my business. I started with VRBO since the beginning ten years ago and now I'm so frustrated with everything I just want to find an alternative. Forcing us to take credit cards, penalizing us by placing us low in search results, not allowing certain reviews on technicalities, it's all stacking up against the owner. You don't help me at all Homeaway. It's all about you and no one is protecting me. Do not advertise with the Homeaway family they don't care about you they only care about your money.

Worse experience ever!
They didn't want to know about the aircon that stopped working in this Sicilian heat, we could not sleep!
They told us to contact the owners which we did they did buy a portable one which wasn't enough as it did not reach the bedroom.
We complained again the lady on the phone was very rude and was not listening to our complaint they are just money grabbers, I asked for a part refund for our 3 week stay and they refused saying it's nothing to do with them, but they are quick in taking your money, I call it money laundering.
STAY AWAY FROM HOMEAWAY!

In six months today is the second time that my reservation has been cancelled two weeks prior to my trip. I planned everything with more than a month or two so it is a total disappointment to get cancelled two weeks prior to my trip.

I was thinking that this is a great way for the renters to get FREE FINANCING with my money. They charge almost half the price right away and total booking is charged one month or more in advance so they use your money for as much time as they want for FREE and you get charged with credit card interest. THIS IS TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE.

TIME TO GET BACK TO CRAIGSLIST! Greed is a sad thing and it is usually what brings these guys down. With this new fee you are taking more money from the homeowner. Anyone with a basic understanding of economics will get this. Price to be paid is set by supply and demand. Adding a 10% fee means owners will have to charge 10% less to be competitive. Time to get off these services and get back to personal websites. We will encourage our renters to get outside the process and avoid the VRBO TAX! HOMEAWAY SHOULD HAVE BEEN HAPPY WITH THE LARGELY PASSIVE MILLIONS YOU COLLECT!

Once upon a time I had a very high opinion of Homeaway. Most of my bookings came from the site and I didnt mind paying the annual subscription, even when they raised the rate to include VRBO. My guests communicated directly to me and I got to establish a relationship with them as we interacted in the months leading up to their arrival. To my guests, Homeaway was just the search engine that lead them to me But now, there has been a shift in the relationship and Homeaway wants it to be that the guests are renting my property from THEM. They have taken control of the money, dictating deposit amounts and holding it until check in. For my summer rental property that books 10-12 months in advance, thats a long time to wait for MY money. And most troubling is I used to get a signed rental agreement from tenants. With their 24 hour booking, I am forced to accept a reservation without a signed contract. Even though I posted it on the website for people to read, it makes me feel vulnerable and open to potential disputes. And most egregious is the service fee my guests must now pay. Its $400 for peak week! Theres no question I will lose business because of this money grabbing fee! Im looking for other advertising alternatives and will drop Homeaway as soon as I can. Shame on you Expedia for being so greedy. Shame! Shame!

I have paid for advertising on HomeAway since 2012 paying thousands of dollars 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 guests for the sole purpose of collecting fees without any responsibility for the actual business between owners and guests.
The owners of HomeAway are extrymly greedy. All the changes done recently are not allow me contact person who made the inquiry. 3 years ago I had rental fee charged back from my account and I had to pay 50 Euro penalty, because person who rented my place via their system figured out 6 month later that he did not authorize any charges. I got interesting proposal from them to pay another 500 Euro and HomeAway will do future investigation not promising any results. Since that I started screening guests and ask them for copy of ID for my protection. Currently I cannot do that anymore because I do not have access to the guest information. Whenever is any dispute about financial issues HomeAway is not taking any responsibility they just send info about some financial institution in England providing their phone number in England. I pay fee directly for HomeAway and I am not getting any protection from them.

I have multiple properties on home away. Since the merger last year the site has deteriorated and become more expensive for guest and Host. The customer service is actually ok on the reservation side. However the payment side Yapstone no customer service for fraud. They DO NOT do credit card verification. I have had four fraud credit cards the past few months. I am lucky as I have so many previous guest that I have been able to keep the houses going. I am slowly closing my accounts and moving to Air BNB model and Home escape. The first does verify credit card. Owners please beware. DO NOT take last minute rentals with out an ID then still risky. As one had a fake ID. I would advise if doing reservation that is close to the date to at least get them to pay by air bnb as less scams, I have so far never had a scam payment on Air BNB. That being said I have had fake adds made of my houses on this site but the company dealt with that fast. For anyone with fake credit cards you can travel the world for free as no follow up is done and you will have a month before they even start to look at the charges. So for the scammers Home away is the place to be. I would advise any owner to open up other accounts as this and having so much repeat business has saved me. If this would have happened when I first started out on Homeaway. I would have been ruined. They should start having trust and safety as part of the goal for the now and the future.

I had to cancel a booking made though this site. The property owner agreed to a full refund ( less a small admin fee), but I only received half of this despite a lengthy email exchange with the owner. There appears to be no way to contact the web site directly to pursue complaints. The property owner also trying to contact them on my behalf without success. I WILL NEVER USE THEM AGAIN AND STRONGLY ADVISE EVERYONE TO AVOID BOOKING THROUGH HOME&AWAY.

Answer to Carmelita: The host has admitted her mistake and returned our money. Just FEWO-direkt and HomeAway are sitting on what´s obviously their share of the loot and wont admit their error and return our money. Unfortunately they have the nasty habit of sending you only "NO Reply" emails, so you can´t really communicate with them.
Use only AirBnB if you want to be sure not to be cheated by that bunch of crooks at FEWO and HomeAway.

I recently booked a trip through Home Away to Barcelona and Seville Spain. Home Away is in excellent site to get ideas about what is available and about cost. I would strongly discourage anyone from booking with Home Away. All fees are due well in advance. You will get daily emails about your trip and other services they can provide, such as, transports, dinner reservations, private chefs, and other activities. Unfortunately, Home Away is not a travel agency but nothing more than a booking portal that adds fees to your trip. The extra services that they are soliciting are not necessarily offered by the local onsite booking company. This led to major miscommunication and confusion for our vacation plans. I could never tell if I was communicating with Home Away or the local booking company. It is very difficult to speak to a live person with Home Away. In conclusion, "Look but don't book"! Stay away from Home Away and just google the property you are interested then deal with them directly.

I was shocked to find a 9% service fee included in the rental amount charged to my
Repeat client. They asked to talk to me over the phone. I told them there has never been a service fee, that I pay an annual fee, and it is another glitch in homealways system. I guaranteed them they didn't have to pay. I called customer service and was told some off the wall C. P like I was some stupid no nothing about business and this fee was enacted 2 weeks ago. I was never informed of this fee in any way via email or dash board. I looked like a stupid sleaze bag scammer at first to my clients. Homeaway already makes money
On my annual subscription. They make money on the other service they push to clients, including their partnership with the damage insurance company who's fees come up as default in every rental agreement for every client who rents through homeaway. I keep my own records, make all my own hard copies and they charge me another 3-6% for credit card fees. It's very bitter that now this 9% service fee is now on my books in my sight and I have nothing to do with it except to insult my clients and lose them when now they can go to a luxury hotel provided by Expedia and get house keeping everyday for the same price.

This is the second time I am making a review for this company. I had a guest that contacted me, provided some very confidential info which I feel puts the guest at risk so I contacted Homeaway to have the email remove from the communication list in case my account is breach or even to protect the guest from Homeaway staff. But they refused to have the email remove or even archived it, stating that it's impossible to do. Second, I receive a 1 star review in error. My guest revised the review and submitted a second review. I contacted them right away to see when the new review will be updated. I was advised they have a team that reviews them, and usually updates them in 24 hours time. 9 days later, I check the original review is still in place. I contacted them again, and was advised the second review is automatically rejected as there already is another review in place. Doesn't it make sense to update the latest review instead of rejecting it? Now in-order to have the new review updated, I must request my guest who has already checked out to go back into their site, remove the original review and make another review. The second review had already been rejected! Talk about backward processes. If anyone knows of a better listing site, please let me know. Not to mention they are also double dipping: charges listing owners an out front fee and charges guests an additional fee but the service they provide is outrageous.

I started managing vacation rental properties many years ago on VRBO. At that time they were a privately-held company, and they were great to work with! I think I paid $300 a year for the listing, and that was it. I could manage my own payments then, too. Then Homeaway bought it, and now it's owned by Expedia, and they are AWFUL. First, the renters need to pay way more than they used to as they charge me almost $500 a year plus a "service fee" of $100-200+ to the renter on each booking. Secondly, I am not allowed to know anything about the renter before they have booked. I used to enjoy talking with renters up front and addressing any questions they had. Also, many of these properties are small, privately owned places, and I am no longer really able to vet the prospective tenant. The final blow came this week when they decided - with no notice whatsoever - that they would keep payments from my renters until after they checked in. I used to be paid when the client paid. Many of my bookings are for a year in advance, so, I either have to wait a year to be paid, or I have to pay them 6%. What a bunch of crooks. I am taking my listings down. There are other options out there.

I've tried booking on this site for my daughter's wedding for 3 months, a good 6 months before the wedding. Availablity calendars for homes are not kept up to date and I have yet found a property where the owner has the courtesy to respond. The only way to contact an owner is through the home away website and with no response, you're hung out in limbo. When asking customer service for assistance, their response is to email the owner through each home's link to email the owner. Doesn't do you any good if the owners won't respond. This site is awful and has caused a lot of stress trying to find a home for the family to share during our celebration. BASED ON MY EXPERIENCE, I WOULD SAY DON'T USE HOME AWAY.

I recently went through Home Away to find a place at the lake for a group trip. Had several issues with owners not getting back to me within 24 hours and my reservation subsequently not going through. But when I finally found an active account I booked. 3 days later I wake up to a negative bank account balance due to two charges of $1,130 and two charges of $500. I called homeaway to be told in a short manner they are cancelled and I shouldn't worry about them. After telling them I was worried as I had no access to my bank account due to the completely unnecessary hold of funds I was transferred to an "account service rep". This guy then provided me with codes he assured me I could provide to my bank and in one easy step have the charges dropped. Well, according to the bank this is common practice and the codes are actually not in any way helpful. Luckily my bank helped me to clear the false charges and I was able to pay rent and bills on time (barely). I know Home Away may not have loyalty to their customers as most of us (or myself anyway) are one or two time users. But this was absolutely ridiculous and completely avoidable had they not placed 4 totally unauthorized and unnecessary charges to my account freezing over $3,000!

We rented (what turned out to be) a dump in Narragansett, RI's Eastward Look development in June 2019. The photos were great, the place, not so--but we grinned and bore it. The owner told us that the previous tenants trashed the place and also left him holding the bag financially. When we left a week later, he decided that we had damaged the place and withheld our deposit. We'd purchased damage insurance but truthfully told the insurer that we did no damage when they notified us of the owner's claim. After 7 months of calling HomeAway/VRBO and being told to be patient, it culminated in them acknowledging that we were vindicated but that it was beyond their six month time limit to refund our deposit. They claim to have notified us prior to the six months but no such notification was received. They said "too bad". Oh yeah, they also didn't publish our review of the dump, which was a tough but honest portrayal of what we experienced. A prior experience with HomeAway had been fine but it is clear that if there is a problem with the rental or the owner (or both, as in our case), the cards are definitely stacked against you. Steer clear! They are slimy.

Ok ive just come back from a holiday booked through homeaway. Now the add looked great, an facilities suited my type of holiday, but...
The apartment I got was completely different. I complained to the owner through numerous emails of annoyance, got moved to the correct apartment after 4 days. All the facilities advertised were missing, washing machine, satellite TV, oven, towels, fridge, sun beds on roof terrace... ironing board, I could go on... the holiday all in all was horrific. The owner. Now I'm going to mention his name, as it is on the advert, if this gets taken off because, so be it. Alan Maddock. Owns property ******* in la Santa Lanzarote
On homeaway, it is all fake. He even tried to tell me it wasn't his but his sisters who is dying of cancer... a lie, this was after I told him I was emitting a bad review. As who would write a bad review of a dying women's business?. It said on the site it was his.!
Anyway, homeaway should make sure owners do not lie in the add listing, I've complained to homeaway. Have said they will post my review, and contact the owner with my complaints. Also they will deal with his account... nothing!. Heard nothing from either
I have just noticed, a very nice review written by one of his friends... on his homeaway page!. I looked at his Facebook page has her and him looking cosy on a profile picture. So now getting friends to put nice reviews up is another no no!
Again, dishonesty I'm sure. So all in all I won't be booking through this company again, as you could get lured over to a country with a fake add, and god knows where all this could lead!