HomeAwayReviews 1,748

I recently booked a 4 nights stay in San Jose California, I received an e-mail from the owner that the cottage has no cooling and no screens on windows to cool down the home and that my stay may not be very comfortable. The owner stated that I could still stay but would likely not be very comfortable because the fan he does have will not cool down the home. She suggested I go elsewhere, what the owner did not communicate is that he would refund my $675.40 that has already been paid in full. The owners refund policy is full with 60 days in advance, 1/2 with 30 days in advance but nothing about refunding when the place he is renting is not fit to stay in. I called home away three times, they kept saying that I had to ask the homeowner myself for the refund I asked what their role was and she said we process the payment, keep our portion and then give the rest to the homeowner. So I asked if they were going to help me get the refund back since the owner notified me that the home would not be comfortable due to lack of cooling and they said not really that I would have to do it myself. At this point I have been deceived by Homeaway and the homeowner because he is the only that has offered a place that is not livable. If I don't get my money back so I can go elsewhere I will have to stay at this un-inhabitable place, deal with an owner that does not want me there and I quite frankly fear for my safety but I will have nowhere else to go since my stay is right around the corner. At this point I'm still waiting to see if the owner will refund my full amount or if I'm out the money... this is a great financial hardship for me because I was going to visit mom that is gravely ill.

I am a host for the last 5 years with homeaway. They are interested in one thing - MONEY. Hosts pay for the service, now they are charging the renters too. Note there is no phone number on the web site. You get customer service people who dont have a clue and you cant get anyone who gets the IT /software issues.
They constantly changing things in order to secure renters personal information, control access to renters and hosts and there changes are for one thing- MONEY. They arent intersted in service or a great travel web site- money money and no customer service. As for the hosts and the renters- pretty good experiences in my travels and with my 2 renters- but I am moving to Air bnb who provide a service wo collecting all the renter information.

This company absolutely has the worst policies and poorest customer service of any site like this. Interestingly, they are all over you when it comes time to pay the annual fees or commissions on rentals.

For instance, if you have a life and can not reply to any and all inquiries within a 24 hour period, they will hide your listing from all searches and they will not tell you that they have done so. Yet, they will still be more than happy to bill you for the annual listing fee despite the fact that your listing has been hidden by them.

Don't bother to try and get anywhere by calling them as an owner to voice your displeasure with their policy. You'll be connected to a call center somewhere in Asia, with someone who speaks modest English, will repeatedly and automatically state "I understand" and "you make a good point" but will not do anything to resolve your complaint and will not be able to direct you to any other level of customer service. But hey, they "understand".

I have used this site for 4 years and this policy change is for their benefit. They want their customers (wait, I thought I was your customer. You're only getting a percentage for listing MY property) to have a positive experience. Frankly, I am not in the rental property business. This is for limited use when the property is not being used. Most of us have real jobs, take vacations, have holiday celebration, etc. Sorry Homeaway (and your VRBO) if it takes 30 hours to respond to an inquiry 5 months in the future.

If you own a rental property, don't list it here. This company is the epitome of a rip off.

Rented an apartment in Rome, Italy. They advertised a location near the center but when I finalized the booking and payment they revealed a location in the outskirts of Rome! Tried to call customer service 3 times but as soon as as I state the reason for my call They simply HANG UP on me! So I sent messages to the owner of the place explaining the problem and requesting a refund( 30 days before arrival time) they refunded only half of my money. I just called my credit card to cancel and dispute the charges and will update with the result! DO NOT RENT FROM HOMEaWAY! BUNCH OF MOBSTERS!

I didn't learn until after I booked that you had to go to a place two miles away from where we were staying. It was very difficult to find. When we did find it they wanted payment in cash.
When I finally arrived at the apartment and entered, we were hit by a strong scent of garbage. After we aired the apartment out, it still smelled, but was better.
We walked into the bedrooms and almost were shocked at the mattresses and linens (or should I say lack of!). I'm sure many jails and homeless centers have better bedding!

HomeAway has become too big for its britches. They bought up a number of successful vacation rental companies. I was in one of those, Homelidays based in France/England, which worked fine. Then HomeAway took over and it became: twice as expensive for proprietors t list, non-existing customer service, and the worst thing: intimidation tactics to force owners to accept any and all reservation requests. Takes away MY RIGHT, as an owner, to make my own decision. I have GOOD and VALID reasons to turn customers away. Well, HomeAway thinks they have a better idea. They take away your visibility if you say "no" to any customer. Now I am stuck in limbo with available, good deal rentals and no customer can see me. Sad.
I will not be using them next season, after 6 years with the company (earlier known as Homelidays.)

I would advise everyone to NEVER BOOK WITH HOMEAWAY! They have a mandatory deposit policy and don't require home owners to justify their reasons for keeping the deposit.

I recently rented a home with homeaway for a weekend getaway in La Jolla and I got scammed my $500 deposit even though I have not destroyed anything in the house. I spent a total of 3 hours calling the customer service on different dates and they were not helpful at all. The customer service representative told us "The guy literally said: we're not like Airbnb. We don't serve customers" and said that they will not help us get our $500 back.

Bottom line: if you don't want to be charge an extra couple hundred dollars book with airbnb. I have rented from both, had customer complaints on both platforms and airbnb always made sure I got what I paid for.

Look out! This company holds your listing for ransom until you agree to their flawed logic. I have paid but now not getting the service and too many of their reps only read from scripted materiel and cannot make decisions. I asked to speak to a supervisor (Steven, if that's his real name) and it took half an hour and he could not nor would not address my issue and hung up on me! I tried to get him back on the line and was told he would call back (48 hrs ago!).

I booked a property through Homeaway (booked 5 months in advance). I paid in full. Two months later I received a refund - no explanation until I contacted them. I currently have not received the full amount back I paid and they have just said contact the property owner it's not their problem! As a service I would have thought it was part of their duty. Poor support and customer service. Steer clear, plenty more reputable companies about.

HomeAway, VRBO, Vacation Rental By Owner all owned by the same company. They have changed their business model so many times I as a property owner can't keep up. They once turned away all business from my property because of a "glitch" I lost $40,000 in rentals and they couldn't care less. Now they charge both the property owner and the renter insane fee's, you can't get anyone on the phone that speaks english or knows what's going on. HORRIBLE COMPANY. USE AirBnb instead.

Avoid using Home Away if you can!

I have been renting homes abroad for 25 years. I manage several homes and am extremely experienced in this business.

Nearly all my dealings with Home Away have ranged from mediocre to extremely dreadful.

Their payments system does not function properly. I get demands to pay guests their security deposits even though Home Away have the money.

They refuse to refund guests after a guest cancels. Their payments to owners NEVER equate to the amounts due.

Their customer service is awful. They send out threatening and unpleasant letters for no good reason. A guest recently complained to Home Away about their management of his booking and they wrote to me saying that the guest had made a complaint against me! The guest and i were on 1st name terms and he has only extolled my virtues for the way I managed his reservation, his only complaint was with Home Away and not me at all.

Their call centres are in the far east and the telephone operators are obviously working from a script. They are not actually able to assist when anything that is even in the slightest bit off their system!

This is a company which should be avoided at all costs, especially to the inexperienced rental home owner.

Customer support does not exist for hosts. They responded one month after the initial contact to tell me that I will wait more. 3 months and nothing.
You should learn from BNB. Deleting my listings.

We tried to book some holiday accommodation with Homeaway in Australia, and we found ourselves wasting our time for almost one full week, without success. We didnt get an answer within 24h for the first 2 properties we made a booking request for, so these booking were cancelled, and with the other 2 properties we tried to book, the price quoted on the website was significantly lower than what the owners requested when they contacted us, so these 2 bookings were cancelled as well. Each time, we had to provide our credit car details, and commit to pay 50% of the fee, So obviously we could only made one request at a time. While we were wasting our time, other properties were being booked, and we are lucky we finished up finding something, not through Homeaway, though! I sent a customer feedback to Homeaway, and I never received an answer.

I used the Homeaway site is January to booked a holiday for July, paid my deposit and received my confirmation email from both the site and the property owner.

However 7 weeks before the holiday when I had problems paying the final balance, I contacted them to be told the holiday had been cancelled or lost in the system and the dates we had booked were now booked by someone else. They never once contacted me regarding this and after spending a full day ringing both them and the property owner whom both just blamed the other I was told they would refund my deposit but I would be without a holiday and there was nothing they could do about it.

I asked to speak to a manager or supervisor and was told they didnt speak over the phone and that there was no email address for them.

The customer service was absolutely shocking and all that they did was blame each other, which did not help me and which ever one was to blame it certainly wasnt me.

They offered me more expensive holidays and said that they did not need to compensate me as they take no responsibility for any problems.

I would never recommend this site to anyone, in fact I would recommend you avoid at all costs. Unless you want your holiday totally balls right up. DO NOT USE.