HomeAway

Booked a place through HomeAway and owner confirmed booking and funds debited from account.

Two days before checkin the owner emails saying booking cancelled and gave no reason why only saying will refund money.

Now bearing in mind it busy holiday period and we have a large group (8 people) not many places available who can accommodate and well over budget.

Homeaway then find me alternative properties well over budget then tell me they cant do nothing further as refund already been done (wont hit for another 5-7 days). And that they wont cover difference in cost?

We dont have a place to stay as refund not hit my account and wont till after easter.

Im supposed to check in tomorrow but have no where to go and no funds to book elsewhere so they left me stranded.

I have transportation booked and people flying and travelling in but we dont have nowhere to go.

Their customer advisor said guarantee only covers if refund not done (all card companies offer this basic protection as standard) she said it wont cover anything else as refund done which is ridiculous as owner who cancelled gave no reason for cancellation just clicked one button and cancelled booking and sent refund. Now with this little time and busy period we have no alternative options left.

Team members been offering me properties costing £1350 a night or many miles away! Then having the cheek to tell me to pay for it all and you won't cover difference! - Then when I explained the situation of funds being stuck they advised me saying borrow money from a friend, but how can I place further trust incase this new booking will also get cancelled again at 11th hour and wait another week for refund! - They advisors had no response)

The 3 Best Alternatives to HomeAway and VRBO
Ingrid Genest is a travel blogger specializing in alternative lodging trends, marketing, and advertising including Vacation Rentals, Inns, B & B's, private rooms, and sublets.

With the recent acquisition of HomeAway by travel giant Expedia, which also includes flagship sister sites VRBO and VacationRentals.com, comes a slew of changes that has vacation rental advertisers seriously questioning value. Here is a glimpse at just a few of the problems at HomeAway leaving owners and property managers scratching their heads for viable alternatives:

- Expensive pay-for-positioning packages that do not convert to increased inquiries and bookings

- The heavy-handed push toward a "one-size-fits-all" booking and quotable rates model (think hotel)

- Mandatory traveler booking fees offering no particular benefit for Owners or their Guests

- Ever changing search algorithms forcing advertisers to play by HomeAway's rules, or risk having their listings pushed to the bottom of the pile

Rented a great place in Ocean City, NJ. Best vacation in years, but my feelings of contentment and relaxation quickly evaporated when it came time for my security deposit to be given back to me. The lease stated the money would be returned 14 days after our vacation ended. Waited patiently but on the 19th day decided to call HomeAway. Customer Service at HomeAway must be outsourced overseas because everyone I spoke with had a thick accent and it was evident that English was a their second language. Nothing wrong with that as long as the reps are efficient and good problem solvers (like Amazon!). Unfortunately, that was NOT my experience. Not only did I have to "dumb" down the reason for my call multiple times, but I ultimately discovered that every rep I spoke with was operating with different timelines for security deposit returns. The first rep, MJ, said my money would be returned in 7 to 10 business days because of an "owner" error. An email from the owner indicated that he was not at fault so I decided to call HA a second time to see if they could speed up the refund since the error was theirs. The second rep I spoke with, Nico, never returned to the phone with an answer, which then resulted in my third call to HA. Cherry explained that my money had just gone out to my bank and that it would be deposited at the close of business. When the money didn't show up, I called for a fourth time and asked for a supervisor. Mr. "Lou K" told me that ALL of the info I'd be given previously was incorrect and he'd have to look into my particular situation. Just received a message from Mr. Lou and apparently, I "might" get my money on Monday or Tuesday of next week. Thank goodness it's only $200! What a disorganized place HA appears to be! No one seems to have been trained adequately and no one can resolve my issue. For this I paid $156 administrative fee? Lesson learned, from here on out I won't be paying for things like this with anything other than American Express! At lease AE will credit your fees until the problem is resolved... and oh, yeah, never again booking a vacation rental through HA... because they truly don't know what they're doing!

The changes and new service fees at homeaway have caused my inquires to drop to zero. For the past 10 years we booked 90-100% during peak summer June/July/Aug. We will be lucky to hit 60% this summer. Have you ever called HomeAway and not got at recording that says "due to hi call volumes..." HomeAway promised better customer service AND more rentals with the new service fees charged to travelers. Those promises have not been delivered. They spend too much time and energy rationalizing their new fees, zero time delivering the promised benifits. No way to get satisfaction or talk to anyone. I hate HomeAway, VRBO and VacationRentals.com there has got to be a better service for homeowners than these jokers.

An update: After posting this review I was sent a phone number to speak with a customer service rep without the 15 minute hold time ( I resent having to show my tail to get the service that we should be automatically afforded). We entered into a circular argument with the rep stating how rentals were up system wide with better matching of travelers to owners vs. the my reality of fewer inquiries and zero bookings. Basically they blamed the owner for the problem... I should adjust my rates (down) as they may be too high (we have not changed them in 2 years) AND I need to buy a silver or gold upgrade for $500 to boost my rankings. So basically, it is not their new fees and algorithms, it is my pricing and unwillingness to spend more money with them to get better results. Blame the customer. If there is anything illegal about what they are doing, I would be happy to sign on to a class action.

End of summer update: Where historically, most of my inquires from travelers were straight up rentals at the price quoted, now most of my inquires begin with... "how much will you take for it" or "Ill give you X price". Everything is a negotiation. I attribute this to HomeAways partnership with Expedia. HomeAway advertised better, targeted inquires in return for their "service fee". While we are getting inquires, the quality of the inquires is crap. The conversion rate from inquires to rentals is abysmal. Everyone expects a discount.

We booked a villa for Presidents' Day Weekend on HomeAway.com in June, 2015. Last week, we learned inadvertently -- through a random spotting of a refund to our credit card -- that our fully-paid reservation was canceled without any notice or explanation and without any wrongdoing on our part. When we contacted HomeAway.com about this occurrence, which left us with thousands of dollars in booked airfare without a vacation destination, the customer representative told us that they would not help us in any whatsoever, other than to make a token offering to search for another rental. The representative went on to say that HomeAway.com bears no responsibility at all for this exchange because they are not a direct party to the booking arrangement and do not take money directly from renters. Although this may be technically accurate, this attitude shows a complete lack of concern for the customers that fuel the business. Even though HomeAway.com did not personally cancel our reservation, it seems like very poor business savvy to essentially tell us that HomeAway.com is not willing to do a single thing to improve a bad situation, even if it means some financial loss on their end in the form of a credit toward a future rental. Moreover, HomeAway did not even follow through on the one token offering they did make, which was to remove the property management company that canceled our reservation from the site. HomeAway did not care about us as a patron and they do not care about the future patrons who may be hurt by the same renter. We are posting this comment so that, at a minimum, other readers will know that HomeAway does not stand behind the representations made on their site by the people renting properties. To choose a different company in order to ensure that they will receive at least decent customer service should anything go wrong with their reservations. It is clear that customers cannot and should not feel confident booking their vacations through this site.

Homeaway's new algorithm program was written by an idiot to benefit Homeaway and VRBO only. Homeowners get rated on their performance and their exposure to potential renters is based on that performance rating. The glitch is that the program makes errors and then penalizes the homeowner. According to their customer support techs, there is nothing that can be done to individually correct that glitch. Here is my personal experience.
1. The number of views to my property differs substantially between this year and last year, almost 75% difference. I call homeaway to inquire about the discrepancy and an informed about their new algorithm system. It seems for three days during Memorial Day weekend, I did not receive text nor email informing me that I had an inquiry and therefore did not reply from the email I set up and have been using for the last 3 years. I am told "it's not their problem" and I should have logged in to my Homeaway account and therefore being penalized with a low rating. The low rating making my listing come up at the end of other listings who might have paid less but responded quicker to their inquiries.
2. I make sure to log in, update my calendar, respond immediately to inquiries and my rating increases.
3. I receive duplicate inquiries from the same person. One at 12:00 and the other at 12:01. I respond immediately to the inquiry and continue to have email conversations with that potential renter. I notice my score is low when I log in to Homeaway immediately call and am told I should have responded to the duplicate inquiry so the computer doesn't penalize me. He says there is nothing he can do about it.
I have spent hours on the phone and all I am told is "I understand your frustration but there is nothing that we can do to correct the situation". Unacceptable answer.

As a homeowner, VRBO, HomeAway, and Vacationrental.com have taken 100% of the control of who rents your property away from the homeowners. They have removed all owners contact information, ie, phone numbers, and have forced owners into accepting or denying a reservation strictly by what they can read from what the guest types into the reservation request. No longer do us home owners have the ability to determine if a guest is the right fit for our homes or not. The only way to do this from this point on is to accept the reservation, which charges the guest's credit card, in order to get their phone number and email address. Then, and only then, can you call the inquiring guest and feel them out as to if you truly want to rent to them or not. If you decide not to, then you have to log back into the site and cancel the reservation. Keep in mind that if you cancel more reservations that you take, big brother, IE, HomeAway will pull your listing and you get no refund! Such a load of $#*!. These problems did not happen until Expedia bought out the vacation rental company, I will be pulling my listing with them and going another avenue. Not to mention, they charge customers 9-12% additional as a "SERVICE FEE" to book through them. This is all on top of the $300/yr I pay to list my property on the site.

If you are a homeowner, I strongly recommend you NOT list your property with this company if you want to have any amount of control of who rents your home. If you are only after the money and don't give a crap about your property and how someone treats it, then go for it! As a guest, I'd find a different way to book a home. You are being charges way too much for extra fees and you too have no good way to communicate with the homeowner directly. Be cautious.

Founders Carl Shepherd and Brian Sharples of Austin must be unnerved with what has happened to their dream. Small business owners should ask them - can they do anything to help homeowners who signed on with these two and took a chance? I have used HA for over six years and praised the company's practices and business model. One of my listings expired on April Fool's Day, (but I was no longer a fool. I ended it.) And when my only other listing ends, I will cancel it as well. I have a small business and have been devastated. I may have to sell my duplex cottage and lose my income. I will join into the Class Action Lawsuit being filed in CA and TX and urge others to check into it as well. There are sites under "Complaints against Homeaway" on-line which show owners' anger and disappointment over contract violations, poor service, and inept customer relations - something that never happened before. Very sad indeed.

I've now added a PS to this post -- Is there another company out there who is attempting to fill the void left by VRBO? It'll be a great business for someone smart and savvy and NOT GREEDY like Expedia. Also, which company are you using for credit card payment services if you go off H/A? If I understand it correctly, Yapstone, out of northern CA, is currently the holding company for vacation rental payments, the gateway credit card company HA/VRBO uses for credit card payments. They are a separate entity from VRBO.
And which sites are you using for advertising if you have left or plan to leave HA? I'm researching like crazy and will share what I find. You show me yours and I'll show you mine!
How about some of you owners provide us all with "... a little help from our friends?" (RIngo Starr ;)

I went to renew my listing on HomwAway today and was told I have to use "HomeAway Payments" or I cannot list my property. That means my guests pay HomeAway a high booking fee in addition to my rent AND that HomeAway will keep my guests' payments until after the guests check in and then and only then would HomeAway pay me those funds. I get reservations 6 - 9 months in advance and use the deposits to pay expenses like insurance and taxes on my vacation home. I spent an hour trying to get a waiver of the HA Payments requirement to no avail. I found out today that HomeAway uses a third party company, Vacation Rent Payments, to handle my guests and my funds and that company refuses to release the funds until guest check-in. HomeAway calls it "HomeAway Payments" but it is not HomeAway at all but this third-party company in Europe. I have no contract or relationship with this "Vacation Rent Payments" and HomeAway did not tell me about them at all. Now they have my banking information and that of my guests! I am cancelling my HomeAway listing ASAP.

June 14,2017 at 11:10am, I submitted a $473 deposit for Galveston property # ******* to the owner Napoleon Velasquez. I received a confirmation and was told the remaining $899.00 balance would be due by June 28,2017. After getting home and showing my husband the property he disagreed with the space and asked that I cancel the reservation before 24hours. I submitted the cancellation at the same day June 14,2017 at 739pm. The owner Napoleon Velasquez agreed to cancel the reservation but he adv me I would not receive my $473 deposit back because HE GIVES NO REFUNDS ON CANCELLATIONS!
I was and still am appalled that Home Away would allow a property owner to treat their traveler/customers this way! I have rented and referred friends and family to your website. I could understand Mr. Velasquez keeping a convenience fee, but for him to keep the whole amount is very hurtful.
Not only did he take advantage of me and my family but Im sure this has happen to someone else! Every owner should have a 24-48 hour window to allow the travelers to confirm the reservation. We saved money for the past 6 months to take this trip! This situation has caused my family and I to cancel our mini summer vacation. I definitely understand I should have read the cancelation policy but I NEVER thought Home Away allowed owners to do something like this to the travelers.

I have been an owner renting 2 properties on Homeaway, for several years. I have had nothing but problems. Site doesnt work, app doesnt update, calendar doesnt update correctly, but the latest is too much and I will be closing my accounts with Homeaway/VRBO! Now my customers are loosing money due to the fact no refunds are issued as the company that USE to handle all the money transactions for Homeaway, which is Yapstone, has disappeared. Homeaway gives me a phone number and email for me to contact Yapstone, why as a customer do I have to do it!? When I tried to contact Yapstone for a customer refund email came back "undeliverable" and phone number doesnt work either! Tell that to Homeaway all they do is keep telling me to contact Yapstone! 5 employees later at Homeaway no result. Now $975 has been taken from my account. I call Homeaway and ask why? Emlpoyee states, I dont know! What! What do u mean you dont know why your company took $975 from my bank account?! No reference number or anything at all can be found! Im done with this company, blocked out both my properties as of November 1st 2020. I cant do it sooner I have guests and they need to be able to contact me if needed. AIRBNB ALL THE WAY FROM NOW ON FOR BOTH MY RENTAL PROPERTIES! I suggest you do the same. Never one problem with Airbnb in 4 years nor a guest complaint. Watch out Homeaway is changing their name to VRBO wonder why that is!?

Complaint of VRBO by Owners
In 2010 I began renting my Beachfront condo to short term transient guest to cover my expenses with this condo. Like so many other property owners I turned to the service that I used my self, VRBO.com (Acronym for Vacation Rentals By Owner). Initially VRBO was nothing more than a classified ad site for property owners to post their properties in various categories based on location and amenities. Initially the process was pleasing and enjoyable. Skip forward 5 years and there is not a day that goes by where I do not think of a way to escape the necessary evil in my life. VRBO! VRBO enacted a policy in 2011 that required owners to allow reviews of their properties. Prior to that, as an owner you could disallow or allow this feature. As a digital consumer I recalled the process Ebay.com has in place where the review process is not so onerous. A purchaser may think twice about leaving an embellished bad review in fear that they will be given one in return for merely falsifying a review to be vengeful.

VRBO has completely stepped away from their roots. VRBO does not own my property, I do. My property is not a Hotel, its mine. I do not have to let people stay at my property, I allow them to as my guest. VRBO is spending a lot of its efforts to compete with the www.expedia.com, www.travelocity.com, www.hotels.com market. Those sites are renting hotel rooms from companies that rent hotel rooms.

Needless to say because VRBO has drifted so far away from its initial vision it allows pure onerous reviews where a guest that just chunked my TV out the window and lit my sofa on fire may post a negative review about my property in the fact that I kept their $300 security deposit "unjustly."

I request assistance to return the power to the owners of the properties (the people that pay VRBO.com's salary) or even the playing field by requiring guest to create a profile and get reviewed themselves as well. Perhaps they may think twice before hurling that TV out the window this time.

Reserved 2 properties through HomeAway. Dates changed for an event so we were forced to cancel both reservation. This was 4 months before planned travel. 1st property owner acknowledged cancellation on the website. We asked this person about the deposit refund status and interestingly enough they stated that HomeAway keeps the money up to the point the customer stays at the property. This was handy information to know for the 2nd property.
2nd property: the owner would not acknowledge our repeated cancellation requests over several weeks. I called HomeAway for help on this. They recommended I contact the owner to resolve. No luck with that again. Contact HomeAway several more times with the same advice to resolve with owner. Frustrated enough, I request HomeAway refund the $1000 deposit I have into this property. They indicate the owner has the funds and it's up to me to resolve the issue. I stated that no... HomeAway keeps the money until such time that the customer stays at the property. After an awkward silence, the HomeAway rep states that I am correct. No progress made there tho, it's still up to me to resolve.
The owner did finally acknowledge the cancellation after my son who lived in the same city, called the owner. Seemed he would answer a local call but not out of country. Once the owner acknowledged cancellation on the website, we did receive the total refund back.
-So a few things here:
-We noticed the price of the 2nd property went up substantially from the initial price on the website. Beware of this.
-HomeAway cares not about their customers. If there are any issues, your on your own.
-HomeAway is concerned only about money and will lie to get out of paying up.

Lesson leaned here, stay away from HomeAway and it's affiliates. It looks shiny and professional on the outside but God help you if anything goes sideways.

VRBO and Homeaway are owned by the same company and share the same customer service telephone system. I am a homeowner with a rental property and it is from this perspective that I write this review.

First of all, if you need to contact customer service for anything, plan on a long, long wait on the telephone. It is like entering a black hole. You might need to call because your site needs renewal, or to problem solve their search engine (which does not use Key Words, despite its claim) or a variety of other unexpected reasons. When you do reach someone they are very nice and can be helpful, but should you need higher level support, you need to hope they call you back (usually they don't call back unless you send multiple e-mails, and even then it is questionable. If if they do, hope you are available, because the only way back to them is through the endless waiting on the phone line. They do not provide any direct way to reach the person who called you. They say, "feel free to call us back if your issue is not resolved. They really should be advertising that they guarantee a long wait for customer service no matter when you call, 24 hours per day.

I actually switched to VRBO from Homeaway due to their terrible customer service (for two weels before my listing was scheduled to expire I had sent e-mails asking for assistance (they promise 24 hour turnaround - HA!. It was not until after the listing expired that I received a call. Only after I switched to VRBO did I realize that they used the same support phone line.

The site that the owner needs to input information is confusing as well, It is very easy to think that you listed three bedrooms and two baths and later discover that it only recorded 2 bedrooms and two bath, making your listing unfindable by someone who is looking for a 3 bedroom rental

So seller beware if you plan to use VRBO or Homeaway.

Nope, l think l got the info l needed just reading the customer reviews. Sounds like you guys need to get your crap together.