HomeAway

Agree with the people on this site. I have had a couple great experiences, but all it takes is one bad experience to realize that they don't stand behind you or have any real guarantees that you can use. They won't allow you to talk via phone with certain departments. If you arrive at a house that isn't clean and full of bugs, you have to work with your credit card company to attempt to get the guarantee to try and get your money back or stay there in something that you are completely uncomfortable with. It's too risky for me - had a terrible situation happen in St. Pete where I had family come to town and the house had roaches and was under construction - took months to get my money back for the unused nights that I paid for through Visa.

I have seen a dramatic decrease in not only my bookings, but inquiries. VRBO's tactics are deplorable. I have slipped to #2999 out of 3000 possible rentals in our summer beach town. I was told this was due largely because I have not allowed online bookings. I will not allow a gate keeper to keep and hold on to my money until they decide it is time to pay me for my rental. The service fees imposed on my possible renters, has them looking elsewhere. The only way around this after paying our $399 is to block the week and take the booking ourselves.

Worst experience ever. Stay away and stay at a 5 star hotel. Terrible customer service and no responses except form responses. Owners are just as bad. They tell you one thing and do another. Place I rented was filthy and misrepresented online. One of the worst experiences of my life and on top of that - allergic reaction from intense fragrance. I did a dispute on my credit card with photos and in-depth documentation and then received "payment reversed" email from the site. I called credit card to confirm credit. Will keep watching to make sure. Stay away from this site.

As a traveler for years I would search vacation rental by owner site and find places to stay east, west, Tennessee mountains, South Florida. When I got the chance to manage and rent a property. I picked vacation rental by owner. All has gone well till 3 days ago when they started a new service fee. Without any notice and supposedly to help them market better. If you read the statement from the new CEO of homeaway, he basically says it's all about money. I think they have given a reason for travelers to look elsewhere instead of renting my property. I know as a traveler I would not want an extra 7% added for a service fee. This traveler fee is a mistake.

No service! No signs of integrity! A website that hopes the owners or management company that list here will treat you right! This is not the case on an owner cancellation 9 days prior to arriving and could not get us a replacement and will not refund the money for 7 days so we could book elsewhere. Another SAD excuse of today's business landscape! Another company hiding behind a policy prepared to their advantage. Please do not accept the policy until they change it to the consumers protection.

We have had several of our properties listed with Stayz for the last 10 years with no problems whatsoever, they have been great. However, in the last 2 weeks we were forced to upgrade to the so-called new and improved HomeAway site.

It has been nothing but trouble with huge increased service fees charged to our guests and problems with reservations not including extra guests to quotations. As well as this there is no place to add special prices for children (only extra guests).

If they want to compete successfully with AirBnb then they will have no chance with this type of mentality!

Every time we book with HomeAway we find some new way they have come up with to get more money from the renters. This past trip we took in June went well, great house etc., then the owner sends us a message saying they are sending $1,380.00 of our $1,500.00 deposit back to us and the $120 deduction is for utilities. We were surprised as these new fees were not listed with all the other fees. The kicker in my book is that they take money for fees from your security deposit, that does not seem right to me. When we protested with the owner she informed us that HomeAway told them to do it this way. Thanks, Keith

I initially signed up with the VRBO because they had great ratings for owners and customers alike as a tool to book vacations. I liked that I was able to absorb the cost on my end to keep customers from paying any fees on their end. Now they have come and mandated all owners book through their site and your they collect the money. Additionally they charge the customers from 5% to 12% Service fee. Up till now I also paid extra so that I could manage it myself/-talk to my renters beforehand. I could text them, call them, email them. Now HomeAway/VRBO is taking that away from the owners. They act like they are in charge and we should kiss their a** for providing a website. Well no thanks. You suck VRBO on so many levels. I am done. You are not the only platform out there and within a year I predict your customers will decline drastically. That's what you get for being greedy and controlling.

Rented a villa in Spain for 2 weeks for our first family holiday abroad for 7 years. The villa was in awful state of repair with live wires hanging out of the wall, dirty, unhelpful and unapproachable managers looking after the property. No TV for 3 days meaning we had to stay out in the evening to keep kids amused. Reported to the company once back along with photographic evidence and full statement. Then have spent the last 3 weeks getting no where. Now reported it to my credit card company who are now going to get my full money back. This company like many holiday villa companies are only interested in your money with rude staff and no checks carried out on the property. An absolute shame and will be taking it further within the next few weeks.

For an upcoming tripI used VRBO.com, which is now a HomeAway site to book a house in Long Beach, CA With flights booked and deposit made, what a surprise that the homeowner cancelled on us because they received a longer booking that overlapped our dates. I then proceeded to book a second place. Surprise, same thing happened. I had used VRBO countless times with great success before it was bought out by Home Away. Do not rent through any of their sites. They do not take responsibility for the homeowners. They sell you cancellation insurance but it does not cover owners cancellation. And they do not issue refund on this if they cancel on you.

To make matters worse. The dates of the trip are approaching and I am now getting emails saying my payment is due on this cancelled booking. I called and spoke to both their customer service and the homeowner to make sure there was no book. And there is not.

We are a small B&B. 1 unit detached cabin in Inverness, Ca. VRBO used to charge a flat fee of $300.00 to advertise property on their website. Upon renewal we found annual fee increased over 30% to $400.00. On top of that they are now including a service fee on all rents equal to 12%. This is something they collect for themselves. Adding it all up, if we rented our place 365 days of the year, VRBO would be making the equivalent of 46 days rent from our property. Simply put, these people are crooks.
On top of all that, they are now demanding all payments go through them. In other words, they are taking total financial control of out property.

They do not vet or check the background of travelers at all. There are no financial consequences for bad renters. We accepted a traveler that had been 'verified' -means nothing at all. He had a party with over 200 people, trashed our property, police were involved and Home Away did nothing. They will not even ban the traveler from victimizing others. They offered us no support and were even reluctant to withholding the travelers damage deposit. We will NEVER list with this site again. The agent even told me 'we are just a website, what do you expect us to do?'

I booked a stay with Homeaway in Portugal this September. On the website, it states I can receive a 100% refund if I cancel within 14 days of my stay. Eventually we found a better place, and we cancelled the reservation about 1 month before our stay. The owner cancelled the reservation after many requests from me, but did not process the refund, which is a separate step. I contacted Homeaway and found out that it's up to you owner to approve the refund, and there was nothing they could do. Now I am out $1,200 even though I followed their policies, contacted the owner, and customer service. Use Airbnb instead, at least they keep their word.