HomeAwayReviews 1,748

We had a great experience on our trip, but we were just informed (one week after returning) that we will not get our deposit back. The owner is falsely claiming we caused damage to her furniture (which I assure you, we did NOT) and now will not return my calls, texts or direct messages. If we had caused damage, would it really have taken her two weeks to discover? Something smells fishy here. I'm sorry we ever used them and certainly won't again.

They are forcing owners that use Home Away to use their on line booking. The owners are not getting any extra fees we in fact are being charged more. We are charged 3% if the vacationer pays with a Credit Card. We also pay a high yearly fee to have our clients ripped off by Home away. The other catch is that if you of to VRBO or Vacation Rentals. Com they are owned by Home Away. I think a class action suite is in order. Also contacting the BBB

After spending hours researching rentals for our 2018 trip to NC, we chose our top property, but the owner emailed to say that Home Away showed the incorrect price, then he increased our first quote by $3500. After providing credit card information for our second choice, Home Away contacted us to say that they no longer rented that property, although it is still on their site several days later. Our third choice just emailed us to say that the fees were incorrect and they increased the quote by $1200. Plus all three added an exorbitant service charge, which was not referenced until you provide your credit card info. We have booked through them for several other trips with no problems, but suddenly they changed business tactics. They are totally dishonest,, very very disappointing

HomeAway charged $250 in fees on top of the advertised booking price of $520. I did not see the fees until after the booking was made. In communication from them, there were also discrepancies and confusion about which size property I booked. When I complained, the first complaint was ignored and the second blamed the problems on the owner (who was innocent, and received only slightly more money from HomeAway than the advertised cost). The owner commented that he's surprised they haven't been hit by a class action lawsuit yet.

We requested a place in Beverly Hills, CA for a week stay. Found a place that was available for the dates we needed. The owner claims to contact you within a few hours... so we went ahead and booked our airfare, bought tickets to attractions, etc. Had not heard from her all day. Sent another message and she responded that it would be 2 days before she would be able to let us know? Days pasted. Nothing Now we are getting nervous. She finally responds days later with an email. "Changed mind my rental will not be available". That was it. If I didn't check my messages I would have never known... Yet she still has the full month available and there is no where to leave a review to ward future potential renters that is what gets me the most. What a joke. Being a popular place there are now no rentals left with this short of notice so we have round trip airfare and no where to stay. I will never again use HomeAway

I have used HomeAway and VRBO for more than 20 years. I used them to get away from the horrible practices associated with vacation property management companies. As it turns out now, they are much worse than any management company and I have not talked to one homeowner who is happy with the new arrangements either. I had the unpleasant experience of calling customer service only to get a foreign based helpdesk who read their "steps" to me. Basically they told me I had to ask the homeowner for my security deposit return, but the owner says it should come from Homeaway. Why is this my problem? I asked HomeAway to contact the homeowner to let him know how to release it and they would not. They insist the "next step" is for me to call the homeowner and tell him he has to push a button. Again, why is this my job? Didn't I pay 10% of the rental for a service? I know I will be looking for alternatives in the future. What a shame, this used to be my go to!

Based in Ireland I have happily used HW for many years but couldn't possibly sign up to this'Forced' new homeaway payments system. After sending them lots of emails trying to get straight answers regarding charges it seems they will be charging me nearly 80% more! And that for exactly the same service. I get nothing extra. In fact am penalised for not living in America. None of this is done to improve anything for guests or owners so don't be taken in by any of their PR guff! (At one point I was told to 'reach out to our homehelp people' when what they meant was. Phone them'. Talk about violating the English language). This is about a company preparing to sell to the highest bidder and making sure they look as attractive as possible before they put it up for sale. Shareholders gain but mugs like the average traveller or person trying to make a little money doing an honest days work end up taking the hit. How do you stop this? You probably can't, but I'll be protesting in my own small way by parting company and using a rival company. What a sad place the world can be sometimes. But there you go. Homeaway... it was good while it lasted.

Do not use this company or Retro Delavan Lake House. I reserved a property 4 months ago and my reservation was quietly cancelled ( no email although BOTH parties claim they e-mailed me a cancellation notice. It is my belief (cannot prove) that they dropped my reservation after realizing it was the weekend of the US open and they could get a much higher price. Very dishonest and Both organizations lack integrity...

As an owner I am ashamed to deal with this company, and refuse to pass my rentals through their payment system. Both sides of the rental are being screwed, both renter and owner.
Does anyone know the status of the class action suit?
Recommend contact your state consumer protection agency a
Advertise anywhere else than HA/VRBO
Contact Expedia who bought this company and then wasting little time ruined it.
Stay faaaaaaaaaaaaarrrr away from Homeaway

Lazy and/or dishonest property owners do not update their calendars, rendering HomeAway's website a complete waste of time. They need to determine a way to "punish" property managers for not updating their calendars - a few of their competitors have found a way to remedy this problem.

Note: I say "dishonest" since the last property I attempted to rent seemed to good to be true (pricing, etc). Well, I fell for the trap. The property manager immediately declined the reservation and referred me to 2 of her other properties (neither of which I had any interest in).

I Placed a booking with homeaway and paid for the property in full through their secure payment system. (the money was taken from my account within seconds) The next day the owner of the property I had booked with sent me an email to cancel my booking because she wanted more money than she was advertising for the property. (she did not give me the option to pay the extra money just cancelled) I contacted Homeaway to get my money returned to me so I could place another booking elsewhere. I was told I should get my money within 5-7 working days, I explained to them that this is the modern age of banking and was not acceptable as I wanted to make another holiday booking now (money can be transferred immediately if you want to do it) out of principle I asked them for interest on the money they were keeping for 5-7 days, this was refused. As the payment was in Euros from a Sterling bank account I also asked for the amount to be returned to me was the exact amount that came out of my account, again this request was refused and they said the transfer would be in Euros and it was up to the exchange rate that day, again unacceptable. Homeaway are using this secure booking system to increase their revenue and cash flow by earning interest on other peoples money and its not about protecting their customers, this payment system also gives homeaway an opportunity to charge the holiday maker a booking fee as well, which I am pretty sure they never used to do. I will never use homeaway or this online booking system again.

Having been with Homeaway.co.uk for a number of years, I recently enabled the Online Booking system and received a phone call from Homeaway to finalise it. I asked the person how much the fees were and was told 4% and that the traveller would pay this - I thought this was fair enough as they have to make money on top of the annual subscription charge that all owners pay them - I received my first booking and on top of my quote the guest was charged 11.5%! When I contacted Homeaway I was told that no the charge would be between 6-12% but this could be subject to change at any time! I have had 5 bookings since and each time the guest has been charged around 12% and in one case it was nearly 19% (inc vat) which is just total greed. I had to wait over 35 days after the person paid to get my money and by this time 3 lots of guests had been and gone. When I finally got my payment there was 3% charges taken off me - when I queried this I was told it was for credit card fees - AT NO TIME WAS I INFORMED OF THIS. Again MORE LIES. I received a booking for February which I cancelled as I refused to let any other traveller be charged these exorbitant fees AND had I accepted it they would have paid and I would not receive the money until after THEY LEFT IN FEBRUARY. My subscription is up and I will not renew my subscription - I will not be helping to line their greedy pockets. PLEASE, BEFORE USING these sites GOOGLE the plenty of complaints on them...

Tropical storm Cindy hit the coast of Galveston the day we were scheduled to drive down and so we OBVIOUSLY decided not to go for the SAFETY of my family. (We have a one year old and three year old)
The homeowner has refused to refund our money, $1838. 00. She also tried to convince on the phone how nice the weather was down there...
Unbelievable.
I suppose she needs the money more than I do.
I filed a complaint with Homeaway and we are awaiting their verdict.
Property #******* -