HomeAway

I use to love Homeaway, been with them since 2010. After reading some of these, I guess these changes are a result of being bought by Expedia. My complaints are: 1. They block the renter and owner from seeing each others phone number until a payment has been made. 2. they force the owner to use their payment method but the owner does not see any money until the renters check in! They have collected the payments and earning interest off of MY money that the renters 'think' they have submitted to the owner! 2. You can not talk to a supervisor or anyone to file a formal complaint. They send you an email and no response. 3. Their damage deposit policy is a joke. I can only imagine the headache for the owner if a 'claim' is filed requiring all sorts of documentation, then want the owner and renter to resolve the issue on their own, then if no resolution and HomeAway is forced to pay for damages, they turn around and go after the home owners home insurance to recoup any money they paid. AND it only covers "damages' not violating house rules. So no incentive to follow owners rules. A renter could park a car on my grass over my drain field and I guess I would have to dig down to the lateral line to see if any damage. One of many examples of why a security deposit is intended to cover violations of house rules. They scare the renters to not do any monetary transactions outside of their venue saying theirs is the only secure method. Their damage deposit policy is like pulling teeth for both the renter and owner to get their money back and to make a claim. I refuse to use their damage deposit payment method. Poor renters end up paying an additional 8-15% of the rental fee after all the fees and hidden process fees are done. They get rich and the owner has no security against damages or violations of rules and they go hungry waiting on THEIR money months down the road. I think it should be illegal to sit on the OWNERS rental money. Another example of corporate greed. They get over 500 for owners to subscribe and then 160 service fee on every reservation. They go through a 3rd party company for processing payments and they charge at least 3%. They will lose my business after this year.

If the service fee is justified as Home Away claims, one thing we all can agree on is that the fee percentage is excessive. I just ran the numbers for our 2015 rental proceeds and calculated what the service fee would have yielded, assuming a mid-range service fee of 5%. Basically, the calculations came to about three times the amount we pay HA/VRBO for the annual subscription.
HA/VRBO claims that they have done their research regarding the impact of these service fees. Im sure they have. And that research, which guided their decision, took into account the risks vs. benefits of these service fees. As a result, some prospective guests will be turned off because of the added expenses and some hosts will also make the decision to switch to alternative hosting sites such as Airbnb, TripAdvisor, etc. Even if they lost 10-20% of their hosting/guest base, HA/VRBO is still ahead because these additional service fees more than offset the losses. What they are attempting to do is work with only high quality guests and high quality hosts who are not cost sensitive. Meaning, if the added expense of the service fees makes a difference to you, then move on to alternative hosting sites because you dont fit our profit profile/strategy. Once again, HA/VRBO has already evaluated the acceptable risks in implementing this fee, and have moved forward with the plan as a result. Also, the message they give prospective guests is a different message then they provide to hosts regarding their justification for service fee. The one element they arent exposing is that the service fee is also a huge profit opportunity for HA/VRBO. Clearly that has to be the case because of the excessive percentage they are taking. The benefits to hosts and guests that they state is clearly a smoke screen to the underlying purpose/motivation for this fee. Also, dont you find it interesting (and insulting for prospective guests) when they read that from a hosting perspective, this fee covers enhanced efforts for marketing/advertising expenses. How many of us watching TV want to pay advertisers to show us more commercials on TV? That is what HA/VRBO is suggesting as a value add to our client base. Wrong message HA/VRBO.

BEWARE STAY AWAY FROM HOMEAWAY!
So me my wife and sister found a house thru homeaway in merideth New Hampshire when we arrived the house had the worst smell with dirty clothes in all closets and dressers trash everywhere water not working correctly old food in freezer and refrigerator. Bug infested throughout the place. We quickly gathered are stuff and left we Emailed him to let him kno we had already left and about how the house seemed like a slob lives there and left for couple days so we could stay. He called my cell and quickly started to freak out on the phone about the email we sent him he threatened and used sexually nasty words towards my wife and sister so I responded to the harsh words that he did not like and hung up on me. Then 10 min later I recieved a call from the merideth police department saying that the owner of this property said I threatened him. Not what happened it was complete opposite of what was said and who said it. So now the next day my wife calls HOMEAWAY to let them know about what had happened and we wanted a full refund they told us to call our bank that the owner wasnt refunding us anything including a 300 dollar damage deposit. Very rude and not interested in what we had to say about the incident at all. They advertise mental cases to rent out dirty unfit house for people to go on vacation. So I am leaving this review to warn anyone who is thinking about using HOMEAWAY. We usually go thru PINKHAM and has never had a problem like this ever.

HomeAway.com, VRBO.com and VacationRentals.com have completely changed their websites to be combined into one collective pool and they are trying to control how travelers and property owners communicate with each other. It's horrible for travelers and property owners.

They are also desperately trying to convince travelers to use their online booking payment system and telling property owners that 85% of people want to book using their online payment system. The real reason is they will charge the traveler and property owner a fee to book that way.

This new format also makes it harder for travelers and property owners to communicate in a personal way leaving unsatisfied travelers and property owners. I paid my yearly fee and within 1 month and with no notification they changed their site and basically ruined my short term rental business that I've spent 4 years building up with 5 star ratings. When I asked for a refund they refused, which confirmed to me that they are acting unscrupulously.

I tryed contacting the Better Business Bureau and none of the 3 sites can be found. If I was a traveler this would make me question their business practices.

This review is not ment as a rant since I have booked a multiple yearly lease which profits about the same for me. I do feel an obligation to warn travelers and property owners of their business practices as I own another successful company which can be easily found on the Better Business Bureau site and we have an A+ rating after being in business for over 10 years.

My advise if you use them for booking is to bypass the automated system and fees, and contact the property owners directly, or find other sites to book from that are more reputable. Thanks and good luck. -Jim

I, recently, booked a Homeaway guest house in Mar Vista, CA. According to the presentation of this particular place, people gave it 4 1/4 stars. I attempted to access the actual reviews, but was unable to do so until I paid in full, which I did. It was advertised as a guest house with a bedroom, bathroom, shower, etc. After payment I read the past reviews, which referred to the shower as outdoors. I was shocked, to say the least. I, also, got a list of rules and regulations, which negated some of the reviews ie: a great library of books (regulations said they were not to be touched), fruit left in the refrigerator ( no, a small bottle of water, can of something and a bottle of some off-brand soda) with the regulations that one could not eat anything beyond the small kitchen area. The worst thing for me was, that one could not bring friends or family into the rental area and if the renter wanted to meet someone, they should do so in some place away from the rental. Okay, I didn't say, in the beginning that I'm an 82 year old grandmother. I was obligated to give a profile before I was accepted. Frankly, knowing the renter was a grandmother, I would have assumed she was a senior person and I would not have accepted the reservation due to the outdoor shower, alone. The four days I spent there, the weather in Los Angeles was a bit cold and I only took one shower outside, using my friends' showers for the other days. Also, I said, in my profile, I was in Los Angeles to visit friends as well as two of my grandchildren. I had planned to have my granddaughter stay with me for one or two nights, but due to the regulations, that was not possible. I feel this rental was misrepresented. I would have liked to have my grandchildren, who are adults, come and sit outside with me in the lovely patio. In my payment there was a cleaning charge, and insurance. To be honest, the house was not that clean, the bathroom had ants (which I got rid of) and the base of the toilet was filthy. Oh, the bed was a pull out sofa. I would never recommend this rental or Homeaway. I feel if you're paying for something you should know, in detail, what you're getting.

Here is how it worked at Home Away; a home owner paid an annual fee to get a web template. The owner did all the work loading all the information, responding to potential guests, managing the reservation system, etc. Both the loyal property owners and the loyal guests helped grow Home Away to be a extremely profitable company. So profitable that Expedia bought them for $3.9 **BILLION in Nov 2015 (Thank you loyal HA owners and guests!). So for the home owner, the credit card company takes a % of the booking revenue -- even on transactions that are refunded like security deposits; the local City taxes you on the income, the State taxes you on the income, you have to pay a CPA to file required forms, you pay all utility's, etc and manage that stupid web site -- depleting much of the income. Now HA imposes a HUGE service fee (more than a resort fee would ever be!) just for guests to book through the HA web sight, REALLY. I thought that was what the $600 or more annual costs was for and that was what they sold to me.

I have seen my listing drop in half due to this new service charge and they could care less. They say its for 24/7 service, but what service? When you call the number for new sales, they answer right away, but it has always been a 10-20 minute wait for PAYING owners (I have complained about this for 2 years). The agents are the rudest people ever and HA culture is that they really don't care about their customers, only locking them into a worthless contract. This is corporate greed at its best folks. Everyone should DUMP HA and bombarded their "sales" lines with complaints. This was the worst bait and switch company ever. As a local Austin resident, I'm embarrassed they are an Austin company!

I've had 3 properties listed with HA for 3 years and have always been really happy with the leads, service and 'quality' of guests.

Short version - be aware! They are great if things run smoothly, but will not budge when there is an issue ( even if they are 100% at fault).

Long version below.

HA Australia has now been sold to Stayz and my listings (which are overseas) will not be supported once their 12-month subscription ends. No worries so far. I'm happy to move my listing to the US at the end of the AU tenure.

But I had reviews on the AU listing that had taken years to accumulate. Any home-owner knows how hard it is to solicit reviews.

HA AU agreed to have the reviews appear on the US listings. I was advised to do it all at once when the 1st property was due for renewal, even though I had 5 and 10 months left on the other 2. The HA CS agent and I both assumed that they would be copied to the new HA US listings.

But they moved the reviews, rather than coping them. So now I'm left with a Global Listing with no reviews for the 2 properties that are still on the AU platform.

Listing on the AU site was much cheaper than US. HA AU have offered a refund for the months I have left on the AU site. But if I want my complete listings with reviews, it will cost me an addition $1100.

I have already paid and contracted with HA AU for a global listing for 12 months. But now it will cost $1100 for exactly the same listing for the remainder of my 12 months. Entirely due to their mis-information.

I have tried to resolve with HA AU, but they are only offering a pro-rated refund of the unused months on AU (and only from now and not 2 months ago when the reviews disappeared). I don't want a refund - I want my listing live with reviews for the full 12 months that I have contracted with HA AU to provide.

I will lodge a complaint with Australian Consumer Protection as they have not " given the results that you and the business had agreed to" under the Australian Consumer Guarantee.

Home Owners - Be ware!

VRBO used to be an excellent almost a bit exclusive rental site. Owners and guests felt safe. Since the take over by Homaway it has become in a cruel money making machine at the cost of the owners and guests lacking any customer service and providing no assistance just trying to steel your money.

They allow reservations without any verification system giving free access to fraudulent use of credit cards. As they have outsourced the payment process to Yapstone they even decline any responsibility. In fact their payment system, instead of giving you security becomes an absolute flaw for which they in addition charge a high fee. You can't verify the customers credit cards as they collect the money for you. Only upon check in you can find out if the guests ID doesn't match the name of the credit card. So you potentially loose the reservation and with it the revenue including the cancellation fee.

In a recent case the scenario got worse. As we always take a maximum of precaution upon check we realized that the guests name didn't match the name of the credit card ( which we can't verify to begin with, as handled by Homaway/ Yapstone). We informed Homaway/ Yapstone right away. The companies customer representative informed us that people might use different names and that we should let the customer stay in the apartment!
Not only was the apartment destroyed at check out, Homaway/ Yapstone the moment the credit card owner claimed the charge back procedure, is claiming the money back for the stay! Then you have to speak with customer representatives one day in Africa and the next in the Philippines having no clue what was discussed last time. A shame.
A business model sure soon will leave this company dead.
Thanks good there are enough competitors.

TO ALL OWNERS ON THIS SITE-- If you are BIN ENABLED OR HA PAYMENTS OR ANY WAY YOU QUALIFY FOR A FEE, GET OUT OF BOTH ASAP. THEN YOUR CUSTOMERS DONT GET STUCK WITH THIS FEE

ALSO DISABLE AUTORENEW AND TAKE YOUR FINANCIAL INFO OUT

This company for the last couple of years for owners who pay a listing subscription to sign up for direct bookings and payments through their website. This in my opinion has grown a wedge between renter and owner. These past weeks the company has had the audacity to introduce a renter fee to travelers of up to $500 with a % of 4-10%. This is for doing nothing.

For those that did not sign up for direct payments they have punished them by placing their listings below those of a similar subscription level BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY, they have put verbiage on my booking page that warns that this owner does not accept direct payments and therefore we can't protect you.

If you were a prospective renter this would scare you away from booking suggesting this owner Iis disreputable.

Already renters are reacting to fees and those with no fees with all classes of owner being financially impacted by this

This has resulted from many owners with many less enquiries and bookings doing financial loss and harm to thousands of owners

Many are discontinuing their listing on this site(s) and listing elsewhere and even that has not stirred any response from this company

USED TO BE A GREAT SITE. DESTROYED BY LARGE CORPORATION FORCING POLICIES AND POOR SERVICE. THEY INSIST ON OVERCHARGING RENTERS AND HOME OWNERS. A DISASTER. AWFUL SERVICE TO OWNERS AND RENTERS.