HomeAwayReviews 1,748

Been doing business with VRBO for 12 years, started as good service, has turned to crap since the acquisition by Expedia. I am not going to renew my 2 listings as they have done everything in their power to take more money from the owners and renters. It's no longer a good deal... I hope all owners revolt and cancel their subscriptions. That's the only thing that is going to teach these thieves a lesson. By the time they cancel this stupid change on payments, many will be gone and set up through another advertising source.

I started managing vacation rental properties many years ago on VRBO. At that time they were a privately-held company, and they were great to work with! I think I paid $300 a year for the listing, and that was it. I could manage my own payments then, too. Then Homeaway bought it, and now it's owned by Expedia, and they are AWFUL. First, the renters need to pay way more than they used to as they charge me almost $500 a year plus a "service fee" of $100-200+ to the renter on each booking. Secondly, I am not allowed to know anything about the renter before they have booked. I used to enjoy talking with renters up front and addressing any questions they had. Also, many of these properties are small, privately owned places, and I am no longer really able to vet the prospective tenant. The final blow came this week when they decided - with no notice whatsoever - that they would keep payments from my renters until after they checked in. I used to be paid when the client paid. Many of my bookings are for a year in advance, so, I either have to wait a year to be paid, or I have to pay them 6%. What a bunch of crooks. I am taking my listings down. There are other options out there.

Unfortunately 1 star is still too high for this company. I am a property owner and have suffered through having to work with them for almost 10 years now. The tools they provide to owners to set up their property listings are inflexible and extremely difficult to use. They are constantly increasing fees and providing less & less service. The latest insult came this week when they announced an immediate additional 3% fee (on top of the current 3% processing fee and annual subscription fee) to disburse payments to owners. Essentially, they are holding hostage the money paid by renters to owners unless the owners agrees to pay the additional new fee. Otherwise you wait until the renter checks in to get any money. That presents a HUGE cash flow problem to owners who have bills and mortgages to pay. This company is greedy beyond belief but what alternatives do we have?

Besides the price gouging and constant increases, they are very hard to do business with and to set up an account can take hours. Then they can things all the time. Many of us only rent a few weeks and not worth the time you need to put in. Makes me want to sell. Then they monitize everything! They need to be regulated and are worst than the cell phone or cable providers. Their prices have gone down! No one wants to do business with them and someone will come in and take advantage of this I hope.

I have been with them for five years. Not only do they charge $500 to be on their site, they take 3% of all your revenue. If you don't reply to a booking request in 24 hours they hide your listing telling you that your stats are now bad but don't tell you they're doing it ( I lost two months of bookings as a result). Now their delaying payments to owners until 30 days later, while they still collect payments from renters when they book. This site unilaterally makes changes that harms the owner, and they get away with it because there is no alternative they control AirBNB and are supported by Expedia. There is no power in the hands of the property owners while HomeAway gets the foot and continues to make decisions that benefit them. I'd like to find an alternative but believe they control this market. If anyone knows of an alternative, please post it.

We use it but we all hate it. Seems unfair, but what recourse?

Booked in July and paid Euro 1800 for a 5 day stay in Paris in August 2019. Made a booking via the HomeAway site. The property manager sent us an invoice and booking confirmation via the HomeAway site. Trusting the site and going with the flow we followed instructions from the booking confirmation and invoice and sent a wire transfer to supposedly the owner, our big mistake. Two days prior to travel we tried to find the reservation on HomeAway and tried to make contact with the listing agent, but both failed. Contacted HomeAway and was advised that the property had been delisted. HomeAway provided zero assistance and denied playing any part, though as a consumer we would hope that they do some due diligence on the property and owners i. E. identification and reviewing sale and purchase or rental deeds that the person listing is the real owner /renter of the accomodation listed.
A frustrating experience, we hoped that HomeAway would take some accountability but on the other hand they denied any wrong doing and push the blame on us for not using their platform to pay and remitting funds directly and that if we wanted we could take it legal and that their legal team would respond to any queries put across officially.

Our booking was cancelled on the day we were due to travel. The message we received was from the owner who said that the property was no longer being rented out and hadn't been for a long period of time. They explained that the agent advertising knew about this and that it should not have been available for me to book. Had I not received this message from the owner that morning we would have travelled to the destination to have nowhere to stay. HomeAway were unable to find an alternative and so we had to pay over he odds to find a last minute place at the very last minute, the process of which took most of the day. We had only booked the one night as we were commemorating the anniversary of our mother's death, which as you can imagine was already an upsetting time. The customer service was appalling. I raised a complaint and got no response and we were refused a reimbursement of the cost of our out-of-pocket expenses, not to mention, the firm didn't offer anything in way of compensation. Instead they offered that they had already compensated us by giving us back the full amount we had paid, which I explained was a consumer right rather than compensation. I could never trust this business again and would recommended that others stay clear. It's not worth the risk

I have never been so upset as our experience with this ap! We booked an apartment in Dijon (38 Rue Jeannin - do NOT go!)
We arrived after a 12 hour drive with a baby and a young child. Called the number of the contact to let us in. She said she needed me to text the address as she couldn't hear. Fine. Text it - nothing. Gave her half hour nothing. Called her, no answer. Stood outside the apartment- no one. Baby screaming, child exhausted and hungry (we'd bought food to cook there!) called hundreds of time, no answer. Called off a phone in another hotel as we were desperate and she answered and said she couldn't speak English - even though she did before! Then she said she didn't work for the owner of the apartment any more - even though earlier in the day she told me she did and asked me to text address! Then followed the most stressful night as we had nowhere to stay, had driven from the south of England with two kids who would not get back in the car! We'd had our money stolen from these disgusting liars and no hotel in Dijon had a space as it was now 9pm! I have never known anything so unkind and disgusting as this in my life! We were all upset but the woman knew we had a one year old with us!
I will be taking this further!

You can see our video review here which we took here of the premises and the building work and the incessant noise: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myQMTD8p7CU

HomeAway are scammers, who deny any responsibility or liability for the properties on their website. Our holiday rental had 2 construction sites, one right next door and the other diagonally opposite. No warning about this. In addition, the church bells were immediately above us and chimed incessantly upon the hour every hour, day and night. No mention of the church bell either. No aircon, so it was either suffocate in the stifling heat or be kept awake by church bells all night. We booked for 10 nights but only stayed 3 due to lack of sleep. Homeaway deny any responsibility even though they take fees and commissions. They say the contract is between the property owner and the renter. So bottom line, anyone can put up a shack on their site, call it a vacation rental, and scam people out of money.

We (family of 12) stayed in Costa de Caparica Portugal - Address: Rua manuel Agro Ferreira No. 24.
The property owner is not trustworthy! There was no walk through as regard to the floor conditions, cleanliness etc. The floor was dirty, we all ended up with dirty feet. The photo of the bathroom on the website was different, when we arrived the bathroom is a multi rooms public convenience. There was no instruction on the washing machine and dishwasher. We left on July 12 and I have been contacting the owner Simao Osorio regarding my damage deposit. He wrote to me today, after 2 weeks and told me that he has to keep the deposit because we used dish washing liquid instead of pad. The closet in the first bedroom is damaged - my husband and I used the first bedroom, there was no damage. The room with bunk beds scratched the floor. The last line of his email, he said, we did not respect other people's property that's why he kept the 200 euro deposit. I think this is totally unfair. There are other issues there are tenants within this building and we were not told about that. I will not recommend this property with this owner. Renters beward!

My family just returned from a trip to Cape Coral, Florida. We rented from Yvonne Wilenius who owns several properties in the area. They offered a boat rental that came with the house for an extra fee. The property manager Chris had a very thick accent that made it very hard to communicate but we understood that we had to put a 800 dollar deposit down in the event that anything would happen and to be extra save he sold us tow insurance. The boat was JUNK it was almost impossible to steer but we made the best of it. The second day we got the boat stuck in the sand so we called for a tow! He tells us there is nothing he can do for us and we had to get it unstuck ourselves. My boyfriend, our three kids, and myself tried to get it unstuck ourselves with no luck and after 3 hours he finally showed up and had it towed. When we left the boat the motor turned over and there was no damage to the boat. Later that night our credit card was charged 1000 dollars and when we called him he stated that he did us a favor and that if he had not helped us we would've been charged 4-6000 dollars in towing expenses! We requested receipts and never received them and to top it off we they charged the credit card 2 more times once we left which we also didnt receive receipts! This trip was meant to be special for my father who is battling cancer but it was a nightmare! Dont be their next victim!

We booked a property in Amsterdam through HomeAway.com well in advance. We paid for our accommodation plus a refundable deposit. According to the terms, we could not cancel.

Six weeks before the trip the Property Manager cancelled on us. Homeaway did not assist us in finding alternative accommodation, and we ended up short over $100 due to currency changes. Homeaway offered no compensation.

My experience with Homeaway was disappointing, cost us more than $100 for which we received nothing but a lost opportunity to make an early booking. I will never use them again, and cannot recommend them.

We rented an apartment in London in June for nine days. It had glowing reviews and the owner is a professional photographer! Pictures do lie, photographers lie too. Also HomeAway definitely does not assist renters. The apartment we rented had many problems. The owner lived in France and no one available to help renter. We checked out a day early as it was too difficult to leave from Victoria to Heathrow. Because we checked out early we were not allowed to review the property and we didn't get our one night deposit back either. HomeAway has a warranty but they don't tell you about that. You need to read very fine print The apartment had no hot water in the kitchen, nothing to hold on to when getting into two level 3/4 "bath", a 12" step up going into bathroom, dishwasher that did not work. We had to boil water in kitchen kettle to wash dishes, wall bed with metal frame ( which cut my leg) and was difficult to close so left it down. Bathroom sink I was told if I put the plug in it would not come out! Many difficult steps which were pretty hazardous and dark to get to apartment. Listing underestimated distance from Victoria and supermarket. Never again.