HomeAwayReviews 1,748

Voor een periode in april 2019 via Home Away een huis geboekt in Monschau (Dld). Al in december 2018 het volledige huurbedrag betaald. Veertien dagen voorafgaand aan de huurperiode zegt Home Away eenzijdig het contract op omdat het betreffende huis in andere handen is overgegaan. De nieuwe eigenaar gaat er in verbouwen zodat wij er niet meer terecht kunnen. Home Away biedt een alternatieve locatie aan, maar die is 'helaas' niet beschikbaar in de door gewenste aangegeven periode.
Home Away stort de helft van het betaalde huurgeld terug (zeggen ze, het staat nog niet op onze bankrekening) en de andere helft? Géén idee. Home Away reageert tot nu toe niet op mailtjes die wij sturen.

After spending quite a few hours researching various properties in Newport Beach, I booked #******* for 4 nights even though there was a no cancellation policy. I secured full payment with my credit card. At 10 PM that night (14 hours later) I got a "courtesy" call from owner saying he made a mistake and there was a 5 night minimum (not true as I had been in contact with him prior to booking) and he was canceling my reservation. Apparently, he got a better offer that would fill up more days for him and I got bumped. I told him it was a bad business practice and that he should honor the commitment because if I had canceled I would be fully charged. He abruptly said that he wasn't wasting any more time on me and hung up! When I tried to book another property I had considered, it was gone by then.
I called HomeAway and was told they would look into it, and that was the end of that. There seems to be no protection for renters while owners can get away with whatever they want. There was no way for me to leave owner feedback on the website because reservation was canceled, so no negative feedback for him! I'll stick to hotels after this experience!

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.

I booked Meadow View House (Listing *******) on HomeAway for a weekend away with my mum and the family. She has a brain tumour, time is limited and we wanted to spend some quality time with her on mother's day weekend - I would like to add that the Dr said she was fit to travel at the time of booking.

I made the owner aware of this at the time of booking and she very quickly accepted the booking and my £850!

Unfortunately, my mums symptoms worsened and she was admitted to hospital 11 days after booking and roughly 7 days before we were due to travel. With this I quickly emailed the owner and called HomeAway to explain the situation and see if there was an opportunity to get some money back under the circumstances. As you can imagine a stressful time enough!

The owner very quickly referred to her 'no cancellation' policy and after some messages agreed to re-advertise the booking. HomeAway and the owner Ellen have even refused to refund the cleaning costs - NOBODY WAS AT THE PROPERTY!

I would avoid this company like the plague as they lack compassion and have are devoid of any empathy. Even their response to my emails have been lacking and have required chasing to get a response.

I will be taking this further but I wanted to share my honest opinion of this company before you book and PLEASE go to more reputable businesses that are willing to go the extra mile when times are tough rather than being passed between the owner of the property and Home Away.

I booked a villa and paid a deposit, which was immediately cancelled by the property owner. They issued a refund two weeks later only after I chased them. One month later and I still don't have my refund.

Customer service is a joke. Only online chat (very time consuming) or by phone, both of which hang up / disconnect on you. Noone tries to resolve the problem. They just tell you to call back / email them.

I have no confidence I am going to get my money back. If it wasn't owned by Expedia I would think it was a fraud.

The property owner of our stay was mean and asked you to do every cleaning before leaving. We ended up with hundreds of dollars of cleaning bill taken from our deposit. Plus the property utility was broken. We then called home away customer service 10+ times. They kept saying they will get back to us but never. Eventually we left an honest review on the site for the owner and then they removed the review.

Overall, this company takes care the interests of owners much than travelers. If you are unlucky and need to deal with unreasonable owners, then you will find it really hard to complain about it.

I wish I had read these reviews before agreeing to book with Homeaway. These people are the worst thing with what I have tried in terms of vacation rental. I have four months waiting to be paid for the December 2018 reservation, every day they have a different story, I changed the account three times because according to them 'my bank does not accept transfers' and the worst thing is that, it is all lies. Payments provider is Payoneer and they are even worse, they kept the money for two months with the excuse of a technical error and now that they return the money to Homeaway the same thing happens... not even a proof of delivery I received and the money has never arrived. Sent many emails and I have called many other times and nobody solves the problem... Someone should sue them or collect all those who have been scammed by these people to pay three times for the bad times and dishonesty with which they handle,,

DO NOT BOOK FOR cottages owned by Denise & Ross. Especially, Property #*******.
They will rip you off and make you do all the works but take the deposit away and Homeaway will do NOTHING to solve the issue.

I've done more than enough. My friends are all very tired and exhausted by this horrible experience. It was the most horrible weekend getaway experience in my life. 8 of us had to shiver in cold while sleeping because the rooms were extremely cold and fell many times on the drive way and on the staircase because they were covered with ICE. There were no salt any where to use. A chair was defected and my friend hurt his back. But the owner yelled at us for breaking the already broken chair.

Homeaway and the property owner rip you off and will make the most stupid reasons to take away the deposit and Homeaway will do NOTHING to solve issues.

Our cottage owner called me on my personal phone early in the morning and yelled at me and threatened to pay for the $500 deposit. We even cleaned the house and took ALL the garbage out with us even though we paid $205 cleaning fee. I tried to argue and tell our awful experience (even though we never complained) but they seem to be expert at this, they ignored and didn't listen to me at all. I even felt racism.

We complained to Homeaway by phone and email numerous times but no response at all and no solution AT ALL. I've been emailing them for more than 16 days now but no reply at all. I can see they have read my email but they just keep ignoring. Awful, awful customer service.

Please don't use this site. I'm warning you. I'm so disappointed that I went with this site. Our $1500 was trashed...

HomeAway is effectively a subsidiary of Expedia, and in its bid for global expansion has bought up all the (previously good) accommodation sites. HomeAway slap on their extra fees, but provide no service at all for this. Phone "help lines" have no-one answering and you get cut off. Just look at the huge number of 1 star reviews! People are feeling rippedoff and angry!
HomeAway benefits only the greedy people at the top, who are clipping the ticket multiple times for doing absolutely nothing, other than laughing all the way to the bank.

AVOID!

What I like is that they do it all. They have telephone help which is great for us older folks that don't understand the web. They also have insurance so I don't have to collect a SD. Tenants pay $89 for $3,000 worth of SD. The site gets me more calls then i could.
The Cons: it is expensive. They collect the state Sales tax and most people think it is a fee it is not. They charge between $350 and $500 +/- to the guests. They charge extra for Foreign Credit cards including Canada. To get up higher in the listing you must have good reviews... it no one review you then you fall behind and there appears there is nothing to do about it.

The advert for an apartment in Madeira stated £56 per night, but the final charge was £86 pounds per night, when we checked with Homeaway they did not want to know and. Just said get in touch with the owner of the apartment. We did and he stated that the cost and the photos on the website do not match. THE COST on the website was for the ground floor cheap flat, the photos, all 30 of them was the top floor flat with sea views.
AS A WARNING DONT BELEIVE THE WEB SITE THEY LIE AND HOMEAWAY DONT WONT TO KNOW

The per night rate is deceiving, to say the least. I was very surprised to see the added fees - after the room was booked.
The website is easy enough to use, but when you book - you are charged EXTRA fees: "service fees", "owner fees", "cleaning fees", All these extra fees INCREASE your per night charge by 40%! That is a substantial difference in what you expect to pay and what you actually pay. Leaves you with a very disappointed feeling after what should be an exciting beginning to your travel adventure. Not sure I would use this service again. Managing expectations is the key to customer happiness - this is poorly done with the 'additional fees'

Our bad experience with Book a Batch apparently a trading name for HomeAway Australia began with my mistake listing and incorrect email address. I realised my mistake immediately but could find no obvious way to fix my mistake on their website. Finally I got through to HomeAway who corrected my error with the holiday home owner and I waited and waited. 6 weeks later I emailed HomeAway Australia and was informed by the holiday home owner that there was a double booking. Our long planned holiday with the grandchildren was off. We expressed our disappointment and dismay to HomeAway Australia and the holiday home owner. Thankfully the holiday home owner has fixed the problem and our holiday is back on. HomeAway Australia's response is to blame everybody and take no responsibility for their part. We also find that their charges are far more that what the holiday home owner has instructed and charges. What happens to the difference? Yes another case of Caveat Emptor. Beware Danger stay away these guys are as dodgy as hell!

We booked on HA months in advance and paid for a month in FL. Four days before arrival, we got notice the unit was not available due to water damage, and were being transferred to another unit, same resort. I verified situation and learned this was a lie, that other renters were in unit. There was NO damage! The second unit was much less desirable, had no WiFi internet or phone service, even for 911 calls. HA will not post my review about unscrupulous rental agent who lied, they are impossible to contact, their customer service is atrocious. Plan to file complaint with Osceola County authorities and contact local newspaper. There should be a class action against HA. Just horrid.