HomeAway

I am a rental house owner.
HomeAway deactivated our listings last Friday afternoon without any warning. In an e-mail after the fact, HomeAway stated that our listing "contains messaging directing travelers to pay offline to avoid our online secure booking checkout system in violation of our content guidelines." That statement was incorrect on two facts: we only advised travelers that there were options available; and once I was able to find a working link to their "content guidelines" I found no such restriction. (I did print out the guidelines in case they try to alter them later.) Nevertheless we deleted the wording immediately and asked for our listing to be reactiavted. However, their "special team" that handles such cases conveniently does not work on weekends, so our listhings have been missing all weekend and as of now (Wednesday late afternoon) only one has been re-activated. Every time we call they inform us that they can't estimate when our case will be reviewed. It is extremely frustrating.

We have been among their top 5% earners for 9 years now and introduced many guests to their site, this is how we are rewarded? We have demanded a refund of our subscription for the time lost, but that is probably a hopeless cause. I have also suggested that they make their services optional, like HA's trip insurance used to be. I let them know that we've had several guests state that although they have been using VRBO for years (one since the 90s), they will be looking elsewhere in the future; there is a deep-seated animosity to the Ticketmaster business model. If travelers truly value their services, they will opt-in. But again, this seems a lost cause.

We feel that HomeAway/Expedia doesn't care about owners any more because basically they feel they don't need to. It is time for us to find other websites with some owner focus. We are joining HomeEscape dot com which is a new site operated by some HomeAway refugees. It is free but not well known, so we plan to let as many people as we can know about it. Please spread the word and let us know if you know any other options.

I've booked three different trips through Home Away. One of them was fanstastic - great property and ethical renters. The other two have been a living nightmare. The renters from our other two trips were just downright liars, thieves and scammers. They both took our deposits with absolutely no proof of damage or any receipts that proved they had services rendered. They both claimed dirty footprints were left on the walls. I don't know about you but I use magic eraser and that solves the problem. These people have to have the entire room repainted and then charge us for it. They also each tried to charge us $50+ because we left a few dirty dishes in the sink. We settled the last dispute we had in 2015 only because we left a horrible and truthful review about the renter. His business suffered so greatly because of our review he decided to give us our money back. The people we are dealing with now have not responded and we have filed complaints with HomeAway, the BBB and reported fraud to our bank. HomeAway allows people to rent their properties on their website who are extremely unethical and do not engage in best business practices. If I damage something or break a rule I will gladly own up to it and pay what is fair. But when renters make up lies, take my money and show me absolutely no proof (pictures, receipts etc.) I have a hard time coming back to this site ever again. There are too many other ways of renting properties. The amount of time it's taken me to file complaints, close down accounts because of fraud and deal with the incompetencies and bad business represented on this site has been frustrating. Good-bye HomeAway!

I thought we were paying more for this beautiful place in the Cardons Forrest here in La Ventana, Baja so that as my husband was doing his windsports I could relax and read books, watch the birds and the gorgeous view from the top of the house. I thought about it so much this last year and when we got here on Friday afternoon it seemed to be exactly how I imagined ( in fact we called and booked another 3 months next year). Until the construction noise started up Saturday morning at 8am. For a month now we have been listening to a table saw, along with some sort of chain saw and with hammers pounding by several people at a time many times all at once from 8 in the morning to sometimes 8 at night. On top of that several days a week the loud music blasted so all 15 or so workers could hear it was some sort of Mexican electronic music that shook the ground. We have tried to work with them on the music and they have been nice about but the noise from the construction has made it impossible for me to enjoy this beautiful place many hours during the day, 7 days a week. After a month here the owner got back to us and will only give us 30% back of what she got paid ( not all the agency fees) for the last month. That would not give us money to rent some place else. This construction has been going on for over 3 years and we heard that other renters also complained but it is funny that non of those reviews made it to the web site advertising this house Casa Susanne here in La Ventana, Baja. We feel not supported and cheated out of the vacation we looked forward to. I have been a big user of HomeAway/VRBO and will now book through other agencies.

I have used HomeAway since they were CyberRentals, a tiny home based business in VT, nearly 20 years ago. Over the past 3 years they have radically changed their procedure & are now as large as any corporatocracy out there, owned by Expedia. They are completely unhelpful & recently started charging, in my case, to the guest, $120 (weekly) service fee. I have ALWAYS charge a REFUNDABLE $250 damage deposit which I have ALWAYS refunded in full to EVERYone. My sweet sweet barn has ALWAYS been COMPLETELY booked no later than mid March, at the latest, with many shoulder weeks or partials, booked as well. This year I noticed, at exactly the same time as the service fee was added that I STOPPED getting inquiries... NONE, so I upped my placement from Bronze ($799/annual) to Gold ($1200/annual!). Since I upped placement, at least 1+ month ago I have literally had 2, count them, 2 inquiries which are not even bookings & today is June 1! I have the highest level customer service with nearly instant replies, 5 star ratings, online booking, I take CC's... ALL of which H. A. told me (when I noticed No inquiries), if you do this this & this then all will be well... NOTHING has worked! I have had nearly 450 VIEWS on my page in 1 month & only 2 inquiries which were not bookings! WHAT? NOW, I will LOWER MY PRICE which I have had for YEARS, by $200 IN HOPES OF RENTING THE MONTH OF JULY... in Wellfleet, one of the most sought after towns on CAPE COD! Seriously FINISHED with HomeAway GREED, but they got my annual fee so I'm stuck with them for this year.

The management company and I had been communicating for a couple days prior to our visit. I told them we were coming for my sons birthday and would be having a pool party. Well when sent the email with the location of the home, they sent us to another house that was not the house that is listed, and then after a call to them, which they answered fairly quick, they sent us the right info. But we had access to a place that wasn't the place we had originally booked. Then when we got to the house, it was pretty and very clean, but the pool was terrible. Had a little pad where there was only a foot of water with these little pipes sticking up, the pool was freezing, and the hot tub wasn't filled but half way and was freezing as well. Then when I called management about it he said it wasn't working and the pool isn't heated. Then said we could get a full refund if we decided to stay elsewhere. So I called homeaway and told them the situation and that we needed to find another place. We left 20 degree Utah weather to come have a pool party. Not an ice cold pool party. Homeaway said they could only issue a refund with the managements approval. Well they put me on hold and came back and said we wouldn't be getting a refund. I started crying, after spending $1,200 for 3 nights, I felt violated. We were gonna have to find somewhere to take the kids swimming that was actually swimmable. Well I called management and told them how upset I was when I got off the phone with homeaway and they said "no where on our profile does it say the pool is heated or that the hot tub works." I was ticked. After some calls to the actual home owners, we got a full refund, thank goodness. But I will not stay with Homeaway ever again. We will stick to Airbnb and hotels.

I'm not even sure where to start, but we found out ON OUR OWN that our house we rented for weekend one of Coachella 2018 is under court ordered foreclosure so we contacted the listing agent to get more info and found out that the owners have not had access to the property in over a year. It's April 4. We booked May 2017! They listed the home knowing they were stealing our money.

We immediately contacted VRBO and let them know and they said we would have to work with the rebooking team to get something new booked. Well it's now 2 weeks later and we've been given the runaround and still have not spoken to the rebooking team. We understand that they go in order of check in for dealing with issues, but we've patiently been waiting 2 weeks. The rep we talked to today gave us one option that was 3 bedrooms with no pool and no room for 12 people and not anywhere close to comparable to the house we thought we rented. The second house they offered was over 50 miles away and all the reviews said the house was falling apart!

We booked super early to avoid the high fees of the homes once the dates/tickets were released so now all of the remaining home are triple what we paid and they are not helping us out in any way! Not to mention the rude rep we most recently spoke to who told us "then there's nothing we can do" well, there is! There are houses still available. Yes, they may be more expensive but we are covered under the contract and there is no cap on the price of the house they can rebook us at! We are beyond frustrated as we still need to house 12 people and VRBO has been nothing but awful to us. We've asked to speak to a Supervisor at this point as the agents refuse to transfer us to the rebooking dept to see what they can do as we were told they have more flexibility. I just cannot believe a large company like this treats their customers this way and it's like pulling teeth to get this resolved when it's something they should have caught in the first place, not us! DON'T BOOK WITH VRBO/HOMEAWAY! Use AirBnb instead!

Update... I am leaving VRBO and going with TRIPZ. We have been renting our house out since 1999. I was with vacationrentals.com until about 4 years ago until Homeaway bought them. I was forced to go with VRBO/Homeaway. I hate them. It has being nothing but constant changes. Every year they add some charges for either the guests or the renter. Sometimes I can not find my listing. One time they took my rental off line because I had not declined the rental. I did not realize that if I did not decline they would remove my rental. I have spent hours on the phone with them over things like this. If you do not accept a lot of bookings they move you way down on the list. They say it is because they want me to make a lot of money. It is because they want to make a lot of money, because of the charge they now access the guest, (That happen about a year ago). I told them that this is my home and I do not want to rent it out to anyone and we do not want to rent out all of the time. They are the 800 pound gorilla that has taken over the vacation home rental business. I have just found out that if I renew with them next time, I will have to do all payments through them. If leave them they said that all of my reviews are theirs. I have excellent reviews and they are mine not THIERS!. They have changed the way my dashboard is so many times. I have to keep figuring out how to use it. When I call them, sometimes I have to wait for 20 or 30 minutes to get through and I sometimes I have a hard time understanding the agent that I am speaking with. I feel like I am dealing with gangsters. I have my more complaints, but I dont want to take up your time. My Daughter-in-law is listed with them and is having the same terrible experiences.

This joke of a site is built for owners to be able to operate in the gray area, with plenty of false advertising (pictures don't correspond to the property, descriptions are inaccurate). Never having to show their faces or even disclose email addresses or phone numbers allows them to hide in the shadows in impunity.
In my first experience, we rented a place that the owner had rented out on AirBnb already and when we showed up, she told us that the place was "already occupied and that she didn't understand because the HomeAway's site should be talking to AirBnB's site". In this case, she was rather sympathetic and luckily had another place available but the conditions were far from the ones that i signed up for.

The worst part is their system logic regarding the owner's ability to refuse a reservation. Again, this is a system built for owner's, if they don't like some about your name, profile, or whatever they can simply refuse to lodge you. OK, i'm trying to put myself in an owner's shoes and understand the use of this in the extreme cases where the renters name is "Una Bomber" and he asks in a private message if there is a basement to store his explosives in. Otherwise the only the reason this exists is for Owners to be able to post their property on multiple sites (as in the example i've given) and shop for the best offer.
The system logic gives them 24 hours to refuse a reservation - even if you've reserved for tomorrow night. The result of this imbecilic logic manifested itself in my 2nd experience with HomeAway: i reserved for the following night (unaware that the owner could refuse up until after my supposed check-in time), when i learned of this stupidity in the their logic i immediately contacted the owner via the internal messaging. No response. No phone # anywhere. Upon arrival (yes i found the place in spite of the lack of address), the place was empty, the owner nowhere to be found, and an incoming message told me that the owner regretted that they couldn't let/rent to us.
Really cute. We ended up spending 4 times the amount for a local hotel. Thanks HomeAway POS $#*!heads!

I finally "caught on" that our inquiries were dramatically fewer because I didn't, "check the box" to have HA and tentacles collect our fees. Airbnb has done so for as long as we've been with them ( 2+ years), but their "terms" are much more responsible and they are really responsive. HA's terms are "we have no responsibility to you homeowner..." so I just wouldn't sign up with it. I looked again today, getting ready to re-think it if I could refer to PayPal but they insist on having all our checking account information from which they will have authority to, "debit". Oh Hell No! Thanks to SiteJabber business reviews I'm realizing that we're not alone. We've already lost so much revenue, compared to a couple years ago, that it seems clear that it's time to cut our losses.
In two years and over a hundred renters through Airbnb, only ONE guest referred to the airbnb fees to our guests, and she was clearly unhappy that guests are not anonymous to hosts, any more than hosts are anonymous to guests. Hotels are for anonymity, not renting homes and guest rooms from their owners. No communication is facilitated until rents and fees are paid to Airbnb, which transfers to us hosts the day after check-in.
Airbnb has an insurance policy for renter damages to homes or guest rooms and holds security deposit charged by us hosts for 48 hours to be returned automatically unless we report damage as soon as a guest has departed. Upfront, honorable, fees charged to both sides of the transaction, but no annual fee just to be listed.
Homeway and VRBO have been trying to squeeze higher prices out of us just for the listing for the past couple years. No More! Time to get out of their web now.

Previous review from Leon D is spot on "Horrendous Site, NO GUARANTEES of money back. Do not book through this company unless you want a tremendous amount of stress trying to get back what is rightfully yours.
I booked a property in France for the Christmas period way in advance of the dates. My balance of my holiday become due the end of November. Not having heard from the owner at all since booking, despite having emailed him with my new email address, I felt uneasy paying my balance without any kind of contact. I asked my son who lives in France to call and this is where it all began. The upshot of this is that the owner had unfortunately died and a member of his family had moved into the property that we were meant to have. We were shocked at not having be told this by HomeAway and that they were still sending me emails for the balance to be paid. My battle with them commenced. I had expected to phone and get an apology and maybe sorry we did not know about this, but do not worry Madam your money will be refunded immediately and we will sort this with the owners family! How wrong I was, I had weeks of stressful phone calls and emails backwards and forwards. I could go on but I probably won't be allowed to write that much. My bank have now refunded me and they are dealing with this cowboy of a company, however I am still unable to sleep easy yet as it appears they can still dispute this with my bank.
This company makes it as easy as possible to book but unbelievably difficult to go through their claims procedure. I understand there has to be a system in place for refunds but my claim was because of a very unusual situation, I was unable to go to the property and the owner was no longer around to agree or provide the refund!
Even after all of this I am still getting emails for me to review the holiday home that I apparently stayed in. DO NOT BOOK WITH THIS COMPANY YOU HAVE LOTS OF OTHER OPTIONS. Oh and they are also part of Owners direct so I would think carefully before dealing with them also.

If I could give Home Away ZERO stars, I would! I typically use air BNB to book my lodging however, I decided to try home away because I received an advertisement in my email. Biggest mistake I ever made! I made the reservation for a home in Palm Desert and pre paid for the rental, deposit, and cleaning and some other random deposit. When they finally charged my account for all of the expenses, a typical 2 bedroom house that would cost $250 a night was now almost $500 a night! I decided to proceed with the reservation and tried to contact the owner of the home to coordinate my arrival and discuss logistics. I text and called him over 40 times and received NO response! I contacted Home Away customer service and they were no help at all! I explained to them that I did not feel comfortable traveling for 3 hours to Palm Desert if I was unable to make contact with the owner beforehand to confirm my arrival. They advised me to move forward with the reservation and show up at the home and try to contact the owner upon my arrival. Well, I did as they instructed and the owner would not answer my calls or respond to my text messages! I tried to contact Home Away customer service because they stated that they would try to help me find other lodging in the event that the owner did not respond, and after being on hold for over 20 minutes, I finally gave up. This was, hands down, the worst experience I have ever had! WORST CUSTOMER SERVICE EVER! Not only did the owner never respond to me, but I ended up having to pay for a reservation that I was not able to use! The owner never refunded me my money and when I contacted Home Away customer service to seek a refund, they told me it was between me and the home owner. Are you serious? The same home owner who did not respond to ANY of my numerous texts or phone calls? THIS IS A SCAM! I took this matter all the way to the CEO of Home Away and they refused to issue me a refund! This is the worst company ever! Do NOT use Home Away!

I manage a timeshare resort and have had numerous issues for the past 3 years with people trespassing from a townhome across the street. I have even called the police on a few since we are private property with several signs posted. Last week, I noticed a family using our sports court that had walked from across the street. I asked them if they were staying here and they replied, "No, we are staying across the street". I began to tell them that they were trespassing and they then showed me a posting on Home Away and Evolve. It was of the townhome that they rented, but had pictures of our facility and stated that they had full use of our BBQs, Pools, Tennis Court, Sports Court, Putting Green and Playground. Obviously, I was not happy. They provided me with the owner's name and number that they rented from. I called the owner and he acted like he cared and said that he would have it removed that evening. I called Home Away and they assured me that they would work on it immediately and get back with me. Two days later, the ad was still the same and I had not heard from anyone. I called back the owner and he was not nice at all and said that he would take care of it and hung up on me. I called Home Away again and got a salesman named Rob Heise. Rob assured me that he would take care of it and update me before the end of the day or have his supervisor call me. I never heard from anyone. Now it is two days later. I just checked the website and the picture of our pool has been removed, but all other pictures of the property remain along with the language stating that they have full use of the property. Just know that Home Away obviously does not check out the facts of the properties that they list. An owner can put anything they want on their listing. Do your homework first to make sure that the owner HAS rights to the amenities because property managers like myself have no choice but the call the police on people that trespass and I don't want that to be you!

VRBO is owned by HomeAway, which is owned by the online travel agent (OTA) Expedia, which also owns Hotels.com, Hotwire, Travelocity, Orbitz, Trivago, and others worldwide. It is now their business to generate revenue at every opportunity. Owners pay a fee, customers [now] pay a fee, credit card fees are charged, "service fee" may be hard to recover when cancellations occur, and owner flexibility is limited by cancellation policies now restricted to models set by HomeAway. HA sells trip insurance from its affiliate (read it carefully) and the new service fee of 4-9% purports to "protect" guest, but as you can see from these comments -- HA has little ability to respond meaningfully. Communication between Owners and Guests is restricted through HA, since it wants to control that process through its online portal. Be aware that HA listings are sometimes highjacked by others. You might Google a property by name to find it on other sites, or an owner operated web site. A legitimate VRBO/HA listing owner will make themselves available, will answer your questions, will assist you with special requests/information about the area, and SHARES your desire that there is a true match between your requirements and their rental property. If anything about your contact with an owner gives you the creeps -- drop the property and book elsewhere. The owner will do the same if they sense unreasonable demands or misrepresentation from you, or any sense that you are witholding information about your party or how you plan to use the property. We all want a successful booking and a great vacation for you. Help us make that happen, ok?

THIS COMPANY IS HORRIBLE I HAD TO WAITE ALMOST A MONTH AFTER MY TRIP TO RECIEVE MY SECURITY DEPOSIT BACK, BEFORE SENDING IN MY SECURITY DEPOSIT THEY TOLD ME I WOULD GET MY REFUND BACK IN 2 WEEKS. I NEVER RECIEVED MY 450$ DEPOSIT. I HAD TO CALL THEM TO REMIND THEM AND THEY TOOK ANOTHER 2 WEEKS TO SEND MY DAMN MONEY. EVERYTIME YOU SPEAK TO SOMEONE THEY HAVE A DIFFERNT STORY AS TO WHY I DIDNT GET MY REFUND BACK. ONN TOP OF THAT THE COMPANY ITS SELF DOESNT ACCEPT CHECKS BUT THEY INSISTED ON SENDING ME A CHECK INSTEAD OF PUTTING MY GODDAMN MONEY BACK INTO THE ACCOUNT THEY TOOK IT OUT OF! SMH THIS IS THE WORST PLACE EVER. I HAD TO THREATEN THESE PEOPLE JUST TO GET MY REFUND! STAY AWAY FRM THIS $#*!TY $#*! PLACE!

VRBO/HomeAway was a great place for regular home owners to contact and rent out their properties to other like minded individuals and travelers. I paid up in advance several hundred dollars to list my property without extra fees added. Suddenly, without more than a 25 day notice an added 9% service fee is added to my customers total bill for the privilege of using the site to find a vacation home to rent. Our long time customers will be given the same treatment. VRBO has done nothing to earn this money from them. It's the conscientious home owners who provide clean and affordable private vacation home accommodations that made this company. HomeAway - now purchased by Expedia - needs to realize that these same owners can also bring the company down. Many of us homeowners who loved using this site are now looking for new alternatives. Why did you have to get greedy? You already are making good money on our listing fees and almost forcing us to accept your credit card processing to be seen on the site. This last 9% fee is the straw that broke the camels back. As soon as I can find a site like VRBO used to be, I along with many others will be switching. In the mean time I HAVE ADDED A NOTE TO MY VRBO/HOMEAWAY LISTING SUGGESTING POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS DEAL WITH ME PERSONALLY TO AVOID THE EXORBITANT FEES, I ENCOURAGE OTHER OWNERS DO THE SAME. MAYBE THIS WILL GIVE VRBO A WAKE UP CALL. Also, this is not a hotel site, we are renting our personal vacation homes. Some of the new booking regulations are practically forcing us to accept guests without the time to do a background check. We owners have everything to lose if we rent to irresponsible guests. VRBO can collect all these new fees with no value added to anyone but themselves and take on virtually no liability for themselves. VRBO was a great company and idea, I'm so sad it's breaking down...

I will never do business with Home Away again.
I booked a place online through them, The Starlight Private Resort in Joshua Tree, CA,
And immediately got an email with a google link address to the house I booked. I clicked the link and realized the property had a different name then I booked, the Calmada Boutique Hotel, with the same address.
Long story short, the owner of the house has a tremendous history of screwing people who rented his property out of their deposit between $500-1000! There was close to 20 horrible reviews online about the man who owned this property taking money from people, watching people with security cameras, and just screwing people over. This man even used to have an old account with Home away and reopened a new one naming his new property the Starlight Private Resort (which is what I booked). There are bad better business bureau reviews about him as well.
I immediately called HomeAway and told them I did not feel comfortable renting from this man and they did nothing to help me. I told them I didn't want to rent from someone who has a history of screwing people for deposits and as a woman I wasn't comfortable being watched by security cameras all over the property. (I learned this from his reviews online).
They asked the owner if my money could be refunded, he said no, because he's a scam artist. Keep in mind this is 30 minutes after I booked the home! HomeAway did nothing to protect me as a renter and did not care that I was not comfortable renting from this man.
Thank god I payed through AMX and disputed it and AMX refunded my money. If it wasn't for them I would be screwed for close to $4000!
Also, getting someone to talk to me about this was close to impossible. I have spent countless hours on the phone with HomeAway asking for supervisors and nobody would help me.
Don't ever do business with the Starlight Private Resort (formerly known as the Calmada Boutique Hotel) or Home Away.
They don't care about their customers, customer service, or if you are getting scammed from someone.

We booked a cabin for the weekend on VRBO.com. After payment accepted, received confirmation from cabin resort. In the confirmation it notified us they were having construction on their property all weekend. On the VRBO website, the only contact number is for their parent company HomeAway. I called and was assured the payment was pending, would cancel out, and we could cancel without any repercussions. I also called the resort to notify them we would not be staying. They said there would be no charge.
We then booked a second cabin for our weekend. We were charged for the cabin, insurance, and a 25 dollar booking fee.
After our weekend trip, we checked our credit card. The charge for the first cabin had gone through and was not refunded. I called Home Away again. They assured me the charge was pending, and would come off. I told them the charge had gone through. They referred me to the cabin resort, saying they had already sent payment to the cabin resort and could not refund my money.
I called a total of 6 times, every time they would tell me they couldn't find my reservation, then they found it, but now they can't see the credit card charge, and finally refer to the resort.
I spoke with the resort. They said they never received payment and had not received any emails or phone calls from HomeAway (as reported by HomeAway).
After I looked at my credit card statement again, I noticed the charge wasn't from VRBO or HomeAway. The charge was made by VacayStay Connections. I called the corporate office of VacayStay and finally spoke with someone that could easily see my reservation. They are refunding our money, but charge a $25 dollar fee for refunding. This process took 2 weeks of phone calls and hassle. Will never use HomeStay or any of its companies again. Hoping we get our refund this time.