HomeAwayReviews 1,748

I have been an owner renting 2 properties on Homeaway, for several years. I have had nothing but problems. Site doesnt work, app doesnt update, calendar doesnt update correctly, but the latest is too much and I will be closing my accounts with Homeaway/VRBO! Now my customers are loosing money due to the fact no refunds are issued as the company that USE to handle all the money transactions for Homeaway, which is Yapstone, has disappeared. Homeaway gives me a phone number and email for me to contact Yapstone, why as a customer do I have to do it!? When I tried to contact Yapstone for a customer refund email came back "undeliverable" and phone number doesnt work either! Tell that to Homeaway all they do is keep telling me to contact Yapstone! 5 employees later at Homeaway no result. Now $975 has been taken from my account. I call Homeaway and ask why? Emlpoyee states, I dont know! What! What do u mean you dont know why your company took $975 from my bank account?! No reference number or anything at all can be found! Im done with this company, blocked out both my properties as of November 1st 2020. I cant do it sooner I have guests and they need to be able to contact me if needed. AIRBNB ALL THE WAY FROM NOW ON FOR BOTH MY RENTAL PROPERTIES! I suggest you do the same. Never one problem with Airbnb in 4 years nor a guest complaint. Watch out Homeaway is changing their name to VRBO wonder why that is!?

The property my family rented in southern France said"full refund of the deposit if cancelled by may 3. I cancelled on April 2. But the homeowner said I was under rules of a French company "Cap rentals and there policy was no refund. I phone numerous times and was told different things by there staff each time. This homeowner stole close to 5,000. Dollars. The rental is now in 2 weeks and Europe is still closed due to covid19 to North Americans.
They are a big company and should be responsible for the policies on there web site. It didn't, even mention this company in there web site and I booked through them not a third party.
Don, t book with these people

This was our retirement present. I feel robbed

When VRBO/HomeAway 1st began it was awesome service but appears they've hired the greed mongols and here's how they play you now...

So you find a rental and they list it at 162.50 per night. Oh wait but that's not all because what they don't show until you book is an additional $100 owners fee, a $49.00 service fee and then they top it off with $41.72 lodging tax. So now the $162.50 per night is really $353.22:-o! Oh of course you need to set aside another $150 for the damage deposit which hopefully you get back. I'm sure they don't treat the property owners any different and overcharge them too!

Hopefully a less greedy alternative shows up soon or someone figures a craigslist style platform that all property owners can utilize and so we can begin paying what the home owners are asking and not the hidden doubling of cost that VRBO/HomeAway has devised.

Last, HomeAway will sell you trip insurance on top of all this too LOL!

DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY! CUSTOMER SERVICE IS HORRIBLE! THEY WILL CHARGE YOU A BOOKING FEE AND TAKE IT OUT IMMEDIATELY BUT WILL JOT PROCESS YOUR REFUND BACK TO YOU FOR 1-2 WEEKS! We canceled our reservation immediately because one price showed up for booking and the. When it went thru it was $ 500 more than price! I called property manager and it was canceled with in 10 minutes of booking but home away still charged and will not refund me for 1-2 weeks. It's already been a week! And still NO REFUND! I wanted this rating out here and could only do a 1 star to get it posted otherwise there wouldn't be a star rating from me. THEY ARE CROOKED CROOKS!

What a joke. Made a condo booking in Hawaii for May 2020 (booked last year, long before COVID was a thing).

We were going to fly from Seattle to HI, stay 4 nights, then get on a cruise to come back to Vancouver, Canada. Queue the pandemic.

Our 1-way flight is cancelled, our cruise is cancelled, and the border between Canada and the US is closed, which is very problematic as half our party lives in Canada and physically cannot even leave the country to go to Seattle or HI.

Our non-refundable airlines tickets were credited back us, our non-refundable cruise tickets were given the option of 100% cash refund or 125% future credit but these guys... nope they won't budge... they won't offer us anything other than a voucher for the premium cost to use in the future. Funny, cause there will be NO future purchase with this company again! I will never give them 1 cent and will make sure everyone I know hears my story

They say they the quarantine and border closures are not covered, so too bad. The airlines and cruise ship companies ALL stepped up and took care of their customers and were responsible businesses that cancelled and then refunded/credited tickets so as to stop the spread of a deadly virus. HomeAway doesn't care about that though, they just want your money.

We're out $800 or so now - sure glad I forked out for the insurance that isn't worth jack! Save your money, they find a way to get out of paying the claim anyway. Disgusting!

We booked a trip prior to the COVID shutdown. We asked if we could cancel and they refused any refund. Upon researching the property further, we found that it wasn't even permitted/licensed to be a short-term vacation rental. In addition, there were no permits for the modifications that were made inside. We asked to cancel based on the fact that it was legally allowed to provide the service offered and we were told by homeaway that it would be up to the homeowner to approve any refunds. The homeowner denied our refund and homeaway wouldn't help us in any way, including refunding their own portion of the service fee. I was very upset to find out that these services don't vet the properties legitimacy to provide these services. Homeaway still wouldnt' help us with any sort of refund. Do not use this service!

Evolve is a 3rd party rental company booking through HomeAway and VRBO. Their cancellation policy is not like the usual policy with VRBO and HomeAway. IT IS NON REFUNADABLE and even if you want to change dates you are held responsible for 30% of the original rental. You CANNOT change properties only dates.
I have never dealt with an agency with so little ability to adapt a reservation.
This is all being done during a PANDEMIC where nothing is normal.

We booked with homeaway back in January 2020. Owner of the property rejected the booking straight away - i was fine with that. But when I tried to claim my refund on my card, thats when the trouble started. Owner of the property did not cancel the booking so we couldnt get our money back immediately. Homeaway wanted me to jump through hoops before they would help. So I went to my cc co. Finally got my money back. Homeaway wanted me to update them. So here it is. Homeaway are unhelpful, useless. Will never use you again and Ive told my friends what happened. Have a nice day

Due to the effects of Covid-19 I was forced to cancel a booking. The initial listing of the property offered a 100% cancellation refund if cancelled more than 30 days before the holiday. This is 7 months away so thought I would get an automatic refund of my deposit. The home owner refused and, after conversing by text, changed their property listing to say no refunds are available on the property. I started a chat session with HomeAway and their customer service representative was full of sympathy and assured us we would get a refund. She even went as far as saying that the owner was being very dishonest. But then, she 'forgot' to email us a transcript of the chat session and we can no longer communicate with them. They have refused to reply to all of our emails and terminate immediately when we start a chat session and mention the case number. Absolutely disgraceful behaviour from a previously well thought of company.

Do not book with any Home away properties. We had to cancel due to COVID-19 for our June yellowstone trip. We could not get a full refund because Home Away is useless in proactively motivating their property owners to refund during this unusual period. 5 phone calls and nothing but Lip Service. The property owner was so greedy she originally offered only a 50% refund or book a future date. We elected to move our dates one year forward to June 17-19,2021. Billy Richards decides to book us for May 17-19,2021 which was impossible for us with children in school. She wouldn't change the dates to what we requested so we decided to take a loss of 50% now only to be sent an email that we would only receive 35% refund, with no explanation. SO GREEDY! It was bad enough that they advertise "Great nightly rate of $185". Watch for that one... turns out two nights will be billed at $600! Not an honest bone apparent here or at Home Away. Won't book with either of them again!

We reserved a lake house on Lake of the Ozarks for Memorial Day weekend. The host was Bre Barnes and the listing was in Roach, MO Vrbo listing #*******. We drove 11 hours to get there and arrived and found the home dirty. There was used bar soap in the bathroom, dirty socks in the bedroom, trash in the bin, fingerprints and dirt all over the appliances and glass door, the floors were dusty, dishes in the dishwasher, etc. So I texted the host, Bre Barnes, and asked if had been cleaned. She responded defensively saying yes, and the crew had done a great job but it wasn't good enough for us so just find somewhere else to stay. It was Friday night in Memorial Day weekend. We were not going to be able to find a place to stay. I told her not to worry about it. I found cleaning supplies and cleaned things up myself. She cancelled our reservation anyway and told us we had to leave immediately. So there we were. Stranded 11 hours from home. HomeAway couldn't find us another house to stay in. I wouldn't think they would allow a host to cancel as reservation after guests had already checked in. But they did. And we we're screwed. The only reason Bre cancelled was to avoid a bad review. If a reservation is cancelled the guest can't leave a review. It's a gross abuse of the cancellation policy but it was allowed by HomeAway. I won't be using HomeAway again and I'd avoid Bre Barnes at all cost. https://www.facebook.com/Coach.Bre.Barnes

I would not recommend this holiday rental company at all, or the property we were looking forward to staying in, we paid a big' deposit and understand no refunds HOWEVER we are in unprecedented times and hoped the owners would bend a little... but no only 6 days paid £1400 deposit for June 2020 and they offered to rebook between Nov -March 21? Low season with a big family! In Newquay! So have lost all that money I wish someone could help but HomeAway have done nothing and I don't even have an account now... I would NEVER use HomeAway again

I am so frustrated. Homeaway service is poorly informed and rude. Their inde=ifference and lack of English skills lead to complete frustration and then they become angry when you use a word that they think is a swear word and you do not. They do not follow up when you have requested a supervisor and then after writing to the executive officers, I got a note 24 hours later that someone will get back to me in 24-48 business hours. That language... 1-2 businesss days is what is implied, but I believe they technically mean 3 days to 6 days. But must importantly, they are not paying me. I am so mad that I am working with them.