HomeAwayReviews 1,748

Property: *******
Location: Manzanillo, Mexico
Property owner: DeAnna Gillard

I made my reservation for July 15-19 2017 back in May 2017, the website showed a picture of the patio with a fountain overlooking the ocean bay in Las Hadas Manzanillo. It looked beautiful in the pictures, I payed over a $1,000 USD for 4 nights. It turned out to be a nightmare, the worst vacation of my life, I wouldn't recommend it to my worst enemy. The place was a "dump", it was rundown, old, falling apart, no air conditioning in when the weather usually runs in the 38°C/100°F. No toilet paper, no towels. The place was dirty and unkept. It was creepy. The information included in the advertising ad is deliberately misleading, the photos are edited out. In the photos everything looks nice and nicely kept, but once we got there it was the house of horrors.

So hear this, my son was taken to the ER by ambulance 6 hours prior to us leaving for this trip an 8 hour drive, he was admitted to the hospital, and could not travel for several weeks, called homeaway lines were down imagine that, called homeowner and was told, Im sorry but no $$ will be returned. They even keep the cleaning fee of $500.00 and no one stayed at the property. Cancellation Policy bull$#*! my son is disabled we picked a handicap accessible home for him please please I do not want another family to have to deal with this we disputed charges but of course home way and the property owner keep blaming each other we have been disputing for 5 months, homeowners on the site are desperate, why else would they keep a disabled persons money, all we wanted was the cleaning fees and taxes returned. Stay away from home away,!, if they will cheat a disabled person and get away with it they will do anything. Buyer beware.

If you are a homeowner, Home Away says you can set cancellation policies. But this is just rubbish. If someone cancels, HomeAway will tell you the contract is between you and the renter. If the renter contacts their credit card company, the credit card company will almost always rule in favor of the card holder. Then HomeAway employees in it's subsidiary Vacation Rental Payments will harangue you the homeowner to pay the chargeback. I recently lost nearly $1700 in a chargeback and I lost the ability to rent to someone else since the renter cancelled at the last minute. I had a signed, written contract stating clearly NO CANCELLATION REFUND, and I still lost. The folks at HomeAway are unscrupulous thugs. Stay away from them at all costs if you are a vacation homeowner.

Just got a charge on my AE for $153 for a reservation I made on a condo in Destin, FL. WATCH OUT FOR HOMEAWAY! They sneak that charge in really fast! It's a completely different line item on your credit card. $153 to make a reservation! That's another night we could have stayed in the condo! I won't be renting anymore condos from individuals if they use this sight. It's going to be hard having a good time on our vacation knowing we had HOMEAWAY ripping us off. I hate crooked companies like this.

Rubbish site. Just rented out my holiday home. Still awaiting payment. They claim your first payment will take 30 days AFTER your renter has booked or 1 day after they move in. Which ever is later.
31 days after the hoilday renter is in my home no money!
The webiste says "it may take an additional 5 -7 business days for the money to get to your account." I assumend that was a disclaimer for those people who us building society accounts.
Not the case. What Homeway mean is that it WILL take another 5 -7 Business days... ie 37-41 over a month after the holiday maker books you will get your money.
A joke in this day and age of instant money transfers.
Try Airbnb or Tripadvisor.
Will see if I get paid... then removing my home from this site. No wonder it has such awful reviews.
Holiday home owners prefer any other site. Hence they cancel on holiday makers.
Do yourself a favour book using another site!

We booked a family vacation in a unit that cost $492 per night. For this, we had no hot water, no blankets, bugs (one even traveled back in our luggage!), no wifi... the list goes on. When I filed a complaint, the company escalated it to the property owner, but Homeaway.com team told me there was nothing they could do on their end because it was an issue between the property owner and me, even though we booked it through homeaway.com -- essentially relinquishing all responsibility for their company and not creating any motivation for the property owner to make things right with us.

I will never use this site again to book travel -- it's back to hotels or Airbnb for us.

I paid for the service for multiple rental units. When Homeaway/VRBO changed their booking policies (flagrant overcharge in my opinion) they deleted contact information for guests who had already booked with me through their previous business practice. So, contact information for both renters and owners is gone making it very difficult to for each to contact the other to arrange arrivals, changes etc. Very bad people. I've transferred to AirBnB which is better. Would recommend avoiding Homeaway and all their spinoffs like the plague.

I GOT A PROBLEM WITH REGARDS TO THE DAMAGE DEPOSIT AND THEN THIS PROPERTY OWNER DON'T WANT TO ISSUE ME A REFUND FOR THE DAMAGE DEPOSIT. HE TOLD ME THAT WE DAMAGED AN OBJECT DURING OUR STAY BUT REST ASSURE THAT WE HAVEN'T DAMAGED ANYTHING. CALLED CUSTOMER SERVICE OF HOMEAWAY AND THEN THEY HELPED ME TO FILE A COMPALINT TO THIS PROPERTY OWNER. AND NOW WHEN I WAS GOING TO FILE A COMPLAINT, THIS PROPERTY OWNER FINALLY ISSUE ME A REFUND FOR THE DAMAGE DEPOSIT BECAUSE HE DOESN'T HAVE PROOF THAT WE DAMAGED SOMETHING. THANK YOU FOR THE HELP HOMEAWAY.

We are a small B&B. 1 unit detached cabin in Inverness, Ca. VRBO used to charge a flat fee of $300.00 to advertise property on their website. Upon renewal we found annual fee increased over 30% to $400.00. On top of that they are now including a service fee on all rents equal to 12%. This is something they collect for themselves. Adding it all up, if we rented our place 365 days of the year, VRBO would be making the equivalent of 46 days rent from our property. Simply put, these people are crooks.
On top of all that, they are now demanding all payments go through them. In other words, they are taking total financial control of out property.

We have used this company many times over the years but something has changed. For several weeks we have been attempting to rent a vacation home. We will submit the rental and then get a message a day later saying the owner seeks 3+month long term leases. That's not a vacation home. Further the houses we reviewed had no warning about this (no LOCAL tag). The house descriptions would say "great family vacation getaway" and "take a break". These are owners looking for something that this site isn't branded to do. Owners that are not renting a vacation home should not be allowed to list. After submitting more than 20 reservations all sent back we give up. Even worse when we submit the final payment the amount jumps dematically up with hidden charges. Overall we are walking away from them.

The company gives you the runaround when you call them. They don't verify the guests information. The will chargeback your account after the guests will leave!

They will not verify the guest credit card and if the card is stolen, the host has no clue of knowing.

I had a guest for 7 days, after he left- "Homeaway" chargedback my account and they are asking me, the host, for the credit card information that of course they have it and not me...

I got hit for $2,000 and they take NO responsibility!
SCAM

This is an update to our earlier review. For 22 years we have offered the most affordable rental rates in Provincetown Massachusetts. We have 30 five star reviews and many guests that come back every year. Thanks to the greed of Homeaway we now have our units up for sale, very sad. This is a disgusting avaricious company which does not deserve anyone's business. Captain Bob www.captainbobsrentals.com
Otherwise, Home Escape has had a year to get itself up in search results then all of a sudden Homeaway puts the screws to everyone and in rushes Home Escape with a beautiful website with no way for the average renter to find it. Free listings, no problem then all of a sudden they want $199.00 and many people will just hand it over. The point is at this point we are basically screwed and although there may be answers, they will not come easy and many of us will lose.

Despite earlier assurances that owners did not have to accept online bookings/payments, they are now starting to roll this out as something that will shortly become mandatory. This does not help the owners at all as it is totally inflexible. The price potential guests are quoted is fixed whereas we often offer variable discounts for late/early bookings, etc. etc. - we can't even communicate direct with a potential guest until they have actually booked as all correspondence will have to be channeled through the website as I understand it. One of the companies they acquired "owners direct" is now nothing of the sort and they should be forced to change the name of that website as it is totally misleading. I could go on but suffice to say I will be withdrawing my advertisement very shortly. I suggest owners who like the old (English!) way of working may like to try Simply Owners instead!

They suck now. Used to be a great website. Used homeaway to book a vacation rental and the fees they charge now are excessive. Also, they don't show you the full booking cost until after you select the property to book it. Then you get to see $150 booking fee, $300 cleaning fee, etc. They added like $500 to the cost of my rental. This company has definitely gone shady. Do not recommend booking through home away. They should rename their website to walletaway.com.