HomeAwayReviews 1,748

Stay away from homeaway. I have used their service for years and never had a problem until recently. Just had a terrible experience with renting a property with their service. Basically the owner took a portion of my security deposit and made up reasons for the charges that were outrageous. I complained to the owner with no response and I complained to homeaway. They claim to have looked into it. Homeaway sent me an email basically siding with what the owner said with no proof or itemized list of costs for supposed damages/fees. I paid fees for homeaway's service, cleaning fees to the owner and then got charged a portion of my security deposit. The owner charged me ridiculous fees for extra toilet paper, supposed broken shower curtain liner, more cleaning fees and trash fees with no previous agreement to pay extra fees for toilet paper and trash. They charged me a lot for this. I posted a review with my experience and my honest opinion on the house and they have not posted it. They do not protect the traveler, but they'll take your money and claim to.

I would like to offer feedback on our experience with HomeAway and why we feel we cannot trust it and will not book through it again or recommend it to other travelers.
Other travel sites allow an easy and honest means for reviewing a stay. HomeAway does not. It is not an easy process to find out how to review a property and if the owner is responsible for and does not supply the review link, it is impossible. This was our experience. No review link was supplied in our correspondence. The property was not as advertised. It is in need of cleaning and maintenance that could not have been rectified during our stay given the low standards. We would have liked to have given our honest comments regarding this property to alert other travelers. Even if post communication with the owners could have resulted in compensation, it wouldn't have improved our stay. The standards and cleanliness of this property are clearly very low (I have photos) and travelers should be alerted.
Our impression of HomeAway is that it seriously lacks attention to the protection and comfort of travelers.
HomeAway Response:
We appreciate you taking the time and effort to let us know about this situation.

We sincerely appreciate you taking the time to share your experience and ideas with us. Many of the improvements to our products, policies, and processes are made in response to customer suggestions such as yours.

On the other hand, the review link is sent to the email address of the person who booked the property. As such, kindly advised to have the review sent. Also, a complaint can also be filed about this case, it will also be best if the person who booked the property can reach out to us or the owner regarding the complaint so the incident will be referenced to the correct reservation and property owners.

I rented a place in southern France for my family - and it was mis-advertised (it said it was air conditioned, but only one room was). We stayed at the place for 11 days - and it was a good stay - but poor sleeping. I gave a three star review of the place, then the owner came and gave me a one-star review all around, with no text. What I have found out is that Home Away does nothing to help the traveler. They really don't care what the owner/manager represents on the site. I cannot recommend this service at all. I have used AirBNB all over the world - and have been treated fairly with that company.

Booked through Travelocity. Didn't know until AFTER booking that the reservation first went through HomeAway and then Turnkey Vacation Rentals. The fees were high. Transparency about fee schedule was low. The property location was accurate - that was about the only good thing. However, the pictures made the property seem much larger than it is. Additionally, it was NOT clean OR well-maintained! The picture makes it look much cleaner than it is. The place was not well swept/vacuumed/mopped. Our feet were filthy after walking around! The rug and couch both needed shampooing. Upstairs, the glass shower door was broken and wouldn't slide properly. Also, the main door wouldn't open from the inside. It was completely jammed shut and despite 30 minutes of trying to open it from inside, we could not. I finally had to climb out of the window to (with force) push the door open from outside. Despite this being a fire hazard, it was not fixed until the next day. Then, we discovered NO paper towels had been provided, and only 1 roll of toilet paper was in each bathroom (for a 3 night stay for 4 adults!). If you're charging so much money, don't be so cheap! We finally got additional TP later in the day, but they forgot the paper towels. After this, we saw that the fireplace pilot had been left on (in a sweltering week in July) - we'd been wondering why the place was SO hot for most of the stay and had no idea that a fireplace could be even partially on in July. Although that got fixed, we still spent the majority of our stay in a very hot place. Overall, completely unimpressed. Avoid this place. They don't advertise truthfully, check out time is way too early (10 am), they don't provide enough supplies, and most importantly they obviously don't care to maintain the property before they have guests come in! Despite all of these issues, they have provided no compensation. For issues of this magnitude, I'd expect a formal apology with compensation from corporate, but that didn't happen. This was in South Lake Tahoe - difficult place to get lodging for a family of 4 adults in peak season. Avoid Homeaway and Turnkey.

Experion and HomeAway ruined a good marketplace. They bought up much of the online rental market (HomeAway, VRBO, CyberRentals, etc.) so they could force extra fees on renters and owners alike. If you do find something you like, try to contact the owner directly. HomeAway does everything it can to prevent this so it can add on extra rental fees. Contact the owner directly, or look elsewhere for the same home, and you will probably pay less.

Do not list your property in this place.

They do not even provide contact information or company information on whomever is taking payments. Homeaway is also charging customers VAT, 25% in Norway, however they are not registered for VAT and do not provide owners with proper recites.

The"service fees are horrendous, around more than 20%! For a company refusing to provide contact information. This is not a good situation when payments are not received, customers pay, homeaway does not.

Also there is no way to completely delete listing and private information.

Do not rent. Do not list.

The customer service is horrendous. It seems that they cater to the property owners and are very inconsiderate of vacation renters. I had the worst experience with the property owner and the property on arrival of the property. We were unable to open the lock box as it seemed to be jammed. So I contacted the property owner who was extremely rude and called me an idiot. There was mold in the entrance way in the crack of the door, there were several blinds in the condo that were damaged, the shower water in the master bedroom would not shut off and ran for two days straight even though the property owner was contacted and so was Home Away who did absolutely nothing to resolve any of my complaints but stated that everything is at the owner's discretion and asked if I wanted to create a case, in which I have a case number but there was no follow-up on behalf of Home Away, mind you we stayed in this property for 7 days. The owner suggested that he had to call the plumber and asked if I could stay or leave one key in the lockbox for the plumber to get in. RUDE RUDE RUDE... Condescending, no remorse for paying customers. Considering I made the reservation an entire year before my stay, I was unable to get a refund one because we were there for a major event in which the schedule didn't come out in time enough for me to cancel my reservation. Going in I had bad vibes about the owner's ethics as he was rude in the first two emails that were sent to him at the very beginning. I paid my hard earned money to someone who has a "0" apathy and poor interpersonal skills for his renters/tenants. Again, I will never ever utilize Home Away... there was no resolve with them... they are the absolute worst. Very Angry consumer! Every time I think of this experience I become very upset because HomeAway did nothing to support me in this bad situation.

HomeAway has been one of the worst online service providers I have ever had the misfortune to work with. To start with, the listing process is terrifically confusing, with inflexible options and a really clunky website. They arbitrarily refused a request to rent my property with absolutely no explanation to me whatsoever. I had to phone them and go through a lengthy procedure to get an actual live person who ultimately explained to me the potential renter's credit card was refused. But they gave me no explanation until I had to play Sherlock Holmes. Their fees are exorbitant, and the amount the finally deposited into my account AFTER the renter had already left was incorrect - - too low by several hundred dollars.

Lister BEWARE!

My family rented 2 units next door to each other in February and in July 2 weeks before we were scheduled to arrive the owner sold one of the rentals and refused to refund us for the 2nd rental. HomeAway was 0 help in solving this issue. I will never book with the again and will only deal with Air BnB or other platforms where funds are not distributed to owners before people arrive. There is no incentive for owners or property managers to put their guests first or live up to expectations when they get paid up front. Based on the other reviews here, I am not alone on this.

Did you know that property owners can spam customers they do not want to communicate with on the HomeAway app so it removes all the communication between the 2 parties? This happened just a couple weeks ago when I found out LAIVIS in OGELSBY IL from HomeAway customer service. Btw, LAIVIS in OGELSBY wrote a description contain mis-information thus resulting in a deceitful ad on the internet.
I have contacted my the FTC and the BBB to complain
About Home Away and property owner, LAIVIS from
OGELSBY, Il.
This case is not about the owners deadline-it us about
LAIVIS from OGELSBY writing fraud filed
Information in his description causing us to
Rent from him, like bait and switch, and LAIVIS owes us
$1270. 00.
Please advise as to next steps.
Thank you

Contacted HomeAway today. Still no refund from owner.
The homeowner is wrong to keep our money ($1200) for
A trip we never took and for being extremely rude.
What is the next step in this company after a Property Complaint?
Is there a corporate level?
Thank you.

Booked and fully paid for a rental 2 months ago. I received an email yesterday stating they had to cancel my booking due to damages from previous renter... stated house will not be rented for over a month to fix damages. Super shady because if you look at the listing, the house is not available until July 2019. Anyway, my reservation was for next week. NEXT WEEK. All the hotels within our budget can not accommodate us as we need to book 4 rooms. Now we have to pay almost double as the only available hotels are the more expensive ones. I called their customer service number and they did refund my money but they did not refund me the $136 service fee. They did not even offer to place us or help us look for another house. Stay away.

I signed up with HomeAway early this year to let my gîte. They are working on a new 'dashboard' based system for owners and I experienced several glitches in trying to set up the account with them and add my payment details. After numerous calls and emails the glitch was resolved and I was finally able to enter my bank details (even though I had, already, numerous times...).
Fast forward to July - they have not paid me a cent. I am owed over 2000 for the 3 guests I have had and I am getting stonewalled at every turn. I've called and logged the issue via email but have had no update - when I call them to find out what is happening I am told nothing other than 'the technical team are working on it' and that 'resolution time will be dependent upon the complexity of the issue'. No idea of when I may get paid, I just get told to wait. I wonder how many people can afford to be owed 2000 with no consequences... Absolutely and totally unacceptable that they should treat those people who are actually their breadwinners so badly.
On the flip side AirBNB have been a total dream to use... What a shame.

UPDATE
So its now been 3 weeks since I logged my issue. Ive not had a single update from anyone. Ive asked to speak to a manager and been ignored.

Im at a total loss as to what to do now and its making feel sick. I cant afford not to have this money...

The only option available to me, it seems, is to seek legal advice...

HomeAway case number *******