HomeAwayReviews 1,748

I learned that I should Never use Homeaway for overseas travel. Airbnb is more extensive overseas. I know this now but before I knew I used homeaway. I paid 800 per night for 2 weeks because I wanted to make sure I got something really nice. Wrong. The tv did not work. 1 tv 30 inch in whole house. My senior mom had two walk up two flights stairs with luggage because the elevator in the building did not start until second floor. We were on second floor. No help for us. No air conditioning in summer. Beds were hard. Big cardboard boxes stored in living room. No clothes dryer. Washed towels turned hard with line dry. Apartment was a 100 per night apartment that I over paid thinking would get luxury. No. Never again. Then the homeaway insurance says you cannot stay there but most go somewhere else if you don't like. We went to London at peak season. We did not know if somewhere else was available. We had no time to check. Should have provided one day to secure a different plaCE. You get off international flight tired and no one is answering calls fast enough to find new place Sk the alternative is you and family on the street. Never again.

We rented a 1 bedroom condo through HomeAway and the trip total was $583. At checkout our card was charged $830. Whe I called HomeAway they said they only "advertised" this property and the company that manages the property can charge what they want. I have a snapshot of the confitmation, with trip total outlining room rate, taxes and fees totaling the $583. After calling 2 times and being hung up in (and I was calm, no cursing) I am left with the choice to chargeback for fraud. I have always used Homeaway and never had issues. They are losing a loyal customer.

The day before we were due to travel to Porto I emailed the home owner to discuss check-in procedures, only to get an email back saying my 'fully paid-up' booking had been cancelled with no reason behind it at all. I emailed back and the owner then replied saying it was HomeAways fault as her apartment was never available on our dates and should never have been offered through the website.
I called Homeaway immediately and then said I should look on their site for another property but there were none anywhere near to matching our requirements. I eventually found one through Air BnB with no problem whatsoever, their contact and service far better.
On my return from Porto, I emailed HomeAway to ask for some sort of satisfactory explanation and they pretty much laid all the blame at my door as I had been unable to find another property on their website which in their view would have solved the whole situation. No apology, no explanation of the cancellation and certainly no admittance of blame.
We lost our holiday apartment the day before we travelled, HomeAway have lost a customer for life!

Had to cancel the rental right after we walked in the property. Foul, unpleasant smell everywhere, dirty couch in living room and the bed was the worst! Filthy sheets, filthy pillow cases, filthy bedspread. See the pictures I took of the "couch" in the living room and the "pillow" on the bed. What is even worst is the fact that the owner wanted to rent the property right away without even checking it to correct the issues.
Property ID *******
Property Owner, Lisa W

The property was seriously misrepresented.
The listing photos gave the appearance of a private cottage that sat alone on a pristine lake.
In fact it was surrounded by cabins and trailers in close proximity and the bottom of the lake full of rusted licence plates.We paid extra for our 2 dogs only to find a sign inside the cottage saying not to let dogs pee on the grass and the neighbors small dog was loose on the next lawn and there were cats running around.
The T V didn't work, there were holes in the screens, and worst of all there was a sign in the kitchen sink " don't drink the tap water' which was not potable.
We drove 5 hrs to find this depressed shabby property and drove 5 hrs home exhausted and sorely depressed to not have our vacation.

Save yourself the frustration.

If you are a holiday home owner wanting to rent your property avoid Homeaway like the plague. Rude, obnoxious and you can never get help. Their rates are far too high and once you've uploaded your property info it's almost impossible to delete from their site.

I have received no customer service what so ever & the communications I have had have been blatantly rude. I couldn't leave a negative star so have chosen one star.

Do yourself a favour & avoid them.

Ever since homeaway took over, the service has been horrible. We've been members since 2013 and it's just gotten so bad. If you need a supervisor... good luck! It took a week to get one. Their policy is that a supervisor will call you back within 24-48 hours... even in an emergency!

Also, they don't treat their owners fairly when it comes to search priority. We used to show up on the first page and now we're on page four. You search in our city and other cities come up before our home.

I wish there was someone to contact that cares, but i really don't think they do.

We ended up in a scam house on the Cape this summer. Called customer service immediately because we knew we could not stay there. To make a long story short, they jerked us around, every customer service person has a different and equally unhelpful response to our problem. We didn't stay in the scam property and homeaway refused to refund our money even though they tout their supposed "book with confidence"guarantee. Absolutely horrific. We booked a last minute rental through a local real estate agent instead (when homeaway absolutely refused to help us) I will never NEVER ever again use them. THE WORST EXPERIENCE EVER.

I booked my stay, got approved by the home owner and paid for my vacation rental months in advance. The week of my stay the owner decided that they had family members visiting and canceled my stay. Homeaway did nothing for me but offer a hotel. If I wanted to stay at a hotel I would have booked one from the beginning, and never been involved in a situation like this. Have a plan B if you use this site for your vacation because mines was ruined.

This site was such a hassle. Half of the hosts I requested bookings from never replied to the messages. When they did reply, the dates that were apparently 'available' on the site were never updated and were in fact not available to book. This happened with multiple dates and hosts. Then when I had to cancel a reservation I had made the day before, they still charged me a hefty service fee, even though the booking wasn't processed. And after weeks of going back and forth in emails, when I asked for a number so I could speak to someone directly about the fee, I was dismissed and told I would not be refunded. Needless to say I will never be using this site again. It was such a pain and they really should work on their costumer service.

Terrible customer service with a change in a reservation. Changed our reservation from 2 weeks to one week and instead of doing a correct adjustment, they doubled my nightly charge and left my 50% payment as the first payment and then used it again for the second payment. Weird, right? The owner and I questioned this weird math with phone calls and emails but they said I had paid in full. Fast forward to after the vacation. I attempted to get my $500 refundable damage deposit back assuming I had paid it. After another round of emails and phone calls they said I had not paid one because it is paid in the second payment. They then blamed the owner for not refunding it and it was not her fault or mine. It was HomeAway's. I finally asked for a supervisor in an email because for their hefty $399 service fee I got nothing but grief and agents that did not understand. Never heard back after asking for a supervisor. I Will not use their site again and would not recommend.

We booked a short break through homeaway.co.uk

The owner took a huge damage deposit upon booking. After leaving they told us we had caused a stain on the fitted sheet. We were very careful and this was definitely not us, and we did clean the property thoroughly. They have retained 99 Euros of our deposit to apparently pay for a replacement sheet. HomeAway have been of no help and said it's not their job to mediate. They say it's not covered by their 'book with confidence guarantee'.

An expensive mistake, especially considering that the owner took 30 Euros of our money just to have the actual sheets in the first place.

They also, currently, have not published my negative review on the site - so be vary wary of the reviews on there.

They seem to represent properties that are not even there! For a rental in Valencia, Spain, after 2 weeks/6 times trying to contact the property manager and their intermediate agent (Ecoapartments) re how/when/where/what I still did not get any response. The only 'response' was a charge to my credit card by HomeAway for their fee. I tried chatting' re my problem... oh, they were "sooooo sorry" and hoped that "things would work out for me"! After calling them to explain the situation, I was assured that they would cancel the reservation and refund the fee. Two weeks later, nothing had been done! Well, actually, they did send an email to the property manager; and, guess what happened: NO RESPONSE.! As far as Homeaway is concerned, they did what they could... and maybe they will file a property complaint'. When I demanded, in a very irritated tone, that they look after their renter' clients, I was told that they don't want to deal with unprofessional people like me.
This is NOT a good outfit! Don't ruin your vacation by using them.

Husband had a stroke 3 days before our booking. Spoke with homeowner (Taylor Plumblee or Linda Purvee Hutchinson -take your pick - same person) who was very sympathetic and offered 50 percent refund. She said it would take a month to get refund. After 6 weeks no refund. Called Homeaway. They refused to meet the homeowners obligation. Called homeowners who never returned phone call. Out $3200. If I had known I would have kept reservation and used it with my family. Never ever again. I take people at their word. They rented the property to someone else. They got double their money.

Sandra Colbourn from homeaway cannot be trusted. They will advertise their homes on VRBO, and provide a price (with taxes and fees) in US Dollars, but then will charge you more in Sterling Pounds.
Contacted scamming Sandra the next day about the pricing discrepancy, and she refused to give a refund.
However, she proposed that I giver her my credit card information, so I can rent it from her - she cannot be trusted, to not give them your money
Homeaway told me to contact the seller, scamming Sandra, but she refuses to refund my money.
*In addition, even though I have a reservation, and she refuses to refund me, SHE RENTED THE PROPERTY to another customer.
Scamming Sandra is getting paid twice for the same property