HomeAway

I would highly suggest that you do not book this property unless you want to have your vacation ripped from underneath you even after it was confirmed and you paid the deposit.

On 4-11-17 Kimberly Smith-Lehigh, property owner, confirmed by dates, added it to her calendar and I mailed her the deposit on 4-16.6 days ago she cancelled my reservation without notice to me until yesterday, stating that my dates are not available. Why was it added to her calendar then? Why did she take my deposit then? She basically sent me an email saying I can come a month later or she will refund my deposit. Really? No consideration at all.

Unacceptable. How can you trust her or this site if they will not stay true to the reservation once confirmed and paid for.

Tried to post a review on HomeAway to warn other travelers and you can't do that since you did not stay at the property! You can send in a complaint to HomeAway about the owner but its not post anywhere. You have no way of warning others.

Never again.

Homeaway/VRBO has started charging a 'book with confidence' service fee. The fee is is capped at $499.00 which HA/VRBO requires the traveler to pay on top of the cost of their vacation rental fees. Here is what they claim the 'book with confidence' fee covers

Comprehensive payment protection protects your full rental payment against listing fraud, phishing, property significantly misrepresented and more*.
Premium customer service is available 24/7 to help you with issues or questions regarding your stay
Emergency re-booking assistance helps you find another vacation rental should your booking be cancelled by an owner or manager at the last minute
Security deposit protection helps make sure you get your deposit back if it is wrongfully withheld
They are charging a fee to the traveler. But when you look more into their advertising they state that is is free to the traveler... as seen here in the chart toward the bottom in the section labeled COST https://www.vrbo.com/info/ha-guarantee/travel-with-confidence
So many things wrong with their new service fee... they are being very dishonest in the manner in which they are advertising to name just one.

We bought a house in Costa Rica as a rental property. Mostly based on the previous rentals through Homeaway. The house and its concierge service, both of which we took over, received great review and those are posted on Homeaway.
We did tons of work changing the listing on Homeaway. But we are not able to change the payout settings.
Made several calls to customer service. Each time they suggested different things. They also sent us a form to fill out with DocuSign. We did that, but nothing was changed. Next time I called the, they insisted on us setting up a whole new listing. But then we would have to do all the work again with the photos, settings etc. But more importantly, we would lose all the excellent reviews of the property and the concierge service.
This is simply unfair and stupid! There are lots of ways they can confirm that the request is coming from the new owners. We can answer the security questions, have password etc. Why can't they let us change that? As it is now, all the payments go to the previous owners. Simply unacceptable!

Spoke to a lady named Shanice for my property. She wasn't able to find any of my listings, on top of that, she accused me of making listings up that she wasn't able to find. Then suddenly after accusing me, she said she sees the listing and only the name and dates were viewable. Obviously, she wouldn't be able to help me so I asked to speak to someone who was higher up or even a supervisor, she couldn't provide me one because they all don't work on weekends ( Must be nice). On top of that, she couldn't provide me a name and told me if I wanted to speak to a supervisor I would have to call back to speak to an agent that will transfer me and at that point hope and pray someone is there. First, the hold time before an agent actually answers is close to half an hour, and they are super unhelpful

I was never a fan of HomeAway, but now I intend to be a former customer. I own one property and manage another one through a listing on their website. I am a paying customer of theirs. I buy ads from them. That's how they make money.

In their infinite glory they have decided to penalize me for not using all of their services and for what not meeting what they've decided doesn't meet their customer service standards. However, the one thing they forgot is those customers are MY paying customers, not theirs.

HomeAway should focus on keeping me satisfied. All of their new listing scorecard features don't consider that I am able to service my renters much more effectively without their lousy software. HomeAway is not Amazon, who does a reasonable job of managing customer service. The difference is that Amazon services their customers directly and they expect us merchants to do so with equal fervor. HomeAway doesn't service my customers nor do they service me yet they expect me to meet a quality guideline that helps put money in their pockets.

What a $#*! show.

We had an awful guest for 3 days:
-he was having parties, even if it's prohibited by our house rules
-he was smoking marihuanna - also against rules
-walking in durty shoes on my expensive rags, white floor and Egypt-bedsheets
-broke the door and a door frame
-left the whole apt in awful condition
Then he left - he called Amex and said he never stayed in our apt and HomeAway returned him money

HomeAway did Nothing to protect us - the Owners,
The Insurance we paid every year - Doesn't help At all - we just wasted our money on them.
That group of Animals destroyed our apt, and left us with Zero $!

All photos, screen-shots from messaging history did not help - HomeAway advised us to use lawers and get our money back by ourselves

WE also found out that this website NEVER checks their guests! No back ground history or whatsoever.

For the owners - we had to provide them Lots of documents to prove, that we are not a scam.
For guests - they don't even check their ID!

I listed my Italian property for 10+ years with Homeaway, before their acquisition by Experian. Since then, it's been a trainwreck. What used to be an easy for owners to connect with holidaymakers, it's now Homeaway that wants to be in the middle. I can no longer communicate directly with perspectives. What used to be a nice call to see if the property was suitable is now impossible.

What Homeaway doesn't understand is that for places that rent +$8,000 a week and up, so don't just click and pay. I know Experian wants to be AirBnB of holidays homes, but it's simply a different market.

The website for owners is terrible. And the constant bombardment of advertising is awful. They want me to check my "rating"... this isn't some competition for Likes on Facebook. Owners tend to want good quality, repeat guests who know what the place is like before arrival. It's impossible now to do this.

What really disgusts me is Homeaway now charges several hundred dollars to the guest... for what? They want to now take a commission after years of being a simple listings site.

This site is a gateway to FRAUD. We looked up a property and made a inquiry. The "Owner" responded that it was available and to wire the money because... We did so and he acknowledged receipt but the promised confirmation never showed up. Then we were contacted by the bank who informed us the account was suspicious and they suspected bank fraud. We contacted the "Owner" who played games. We then contacted the Homeaway "Investigative team". There are simply no words to describe the moronic, insipid responses from the imbeciles with whom I was forced to deal with for over an hour. Their conclusion was that the site was fine and it was our fault for following his instructions. Despite knowing that "Michael Rosvold" in Lahaina is a fake and a thief the site remains up and ready to defraud another unwitting customer of thousands of dollars. Doubtless there are tens of thousands of phony listings on their site. I drove by their "World Headquarters" in Austin. It appears to be a former gas station. This company is a joke. DO NOT DEAL WITH THEM!
Edit

DO NOT USE HOME AWAY THEY WILL RUIN YOUR DREAMS OF A GREAT HOLIDAY! AVOID AT ALL COST!
THEY HAVE MUCKED US ABOUT SO MUCH THEY REALLY DONT CARE. IF THE REQUEST OVER THE PHONE BECOMES COMPIICATED THEY JUST SAY THE VILLA HAS BEEN LET. THEY ALSO GAVE ME THE OWNERS PHONE NUMBER IN CYPRUS ASKING ME TO PHONE THEM AND CHECK IF THE VILLA WAS AVAILABLE THEN RING THEM BACK AND LET THEM KNOW SO THEY COULD THEN TAKE THE £70.00 FROM ME FOR THERE PART IN THE BOOKING? WHAT AN ABSOLUTE SHAMBLES!

If I could rate home away less than a "1" I certainly would. I have been a good - and repeat - customer of Home Away and VRBO for years with no problems. I found a rental in London that offered a pay online option. This seemed great so I did it. I was charged $106 (69 GBP). The owner offered 100% refund if canceled more than 30 days prior. Unfortunately I had to do so but gave 90 days notice. The owner then told me deposits are non refundable so I disputed the charge with my credit card company. After I made a complaint to HA and disputed the charge, she agreed to refund my money but wants to send it to my US bank account, for which I will pay a fee for an international transfer ($25), or my paypal account (which I haven't one). The charge was directly from Home Away but they absolutely refuse to refund my money saying they are just an advertising medium for owners. That is complete bull! Luckily my credit card company stands firmly behind me and says Home Away owes the refund. If they don't give it willingly then Chase will deduct it from them. I have made a solemn vow to NEVER use either site again!

I am a home owner and i am upset with homeaway
A guest put in a wuestion and a request, I coversated with the guest on his issues meanwhile i did not accept his request and the homeaway just hid me from the website. I was not able to communicate with the guest and visa versa. I lost my rent By fortune my guest of next week conacted me to ask me what happened. After consulting homeaway they explained that if we do not accept within 24 hours we are hidden from the website... but also for current homeaway guest. Hoe confusing is that! I will add this in appropriatebehavior of homeaway in my contract but i find it unacceptable they change the policy without informing us.

The day before we were due to travel to Porto I emailed the home owner to discuss check-in procedures, only to get an email back saying my 'fully paid-up' booking had been cancelled with no reason behind it at all. I emailed back and the owner then replied saying it was HomeAways fault as her apartment was never available on our dates and should never have been offered through the website.
I called Homeaway immediately and then said I should look on their site for another property but there were none anywhere near to matching our requirements. I eventually found one through Air BnB with no problem whatsoever, their contact and service far better.
On my return from Porto, I emailed HomeAway to ask for some sort of satisfactory explanation and they pretty much laid all the blame at my door as I had been unable to find another property on their website which in their view would have solved the whole situation. No apology, no explanation of the cancellation and certainly no admittance of blame.
We lost our holiday apartment the day before we travelled, HomeAway have lost a customer for life!

My husband, disabled son and I had high expectations when we reserved and paid via Paypal for a one bedroom suite in the Tresor tower through Homeaway/VRBO. Our host, Meir Cooper, received the money in full before we arrived and spoke of the many amenities the Fountainebleu offered. Upon arrival, we found our room was not reserved by Meir Cooper, and we were forced to pay the hotel directly for another room. We have contacted Homeway/VRBO who does not work for the vacationer but for the owner. They wouldn't even publish a negative rating! The Fountainebleu has failed by not fully disclosing the owner's reputations in the Tresor tower. Google Meir Cooper and you will see what type of owner he is and what the Fountainebleu lets represent them.

Have been disappointed with this site and service from the beginning. It´s night and day from the other sites (especially airbnb) If you can avoid it, do!