HomeAwayReviews 1,748

My listing recently dropped off the HomeAway/VRBO web site during peak season. When I FINALLY reached a customer service agent, his English comprehension was very poor, & he did not appear to understand the problem. I politely requested to speak to a senior representative. I was then disconnected. When I made several attempts to call back, I continued to get a recording that "customer service was closed & would re-open at the top of the hour." There was not even a provision for leaving a message. Additionally, HomeAway is no longer the company that it was previously solely as VRBO. Guests should not have to pay a service fee as owners (myself) pay a fee to list our properties. I hoping that, in time, a new company will appear to provide premier services to both guests & owners which formerly we experienced under VRBO.

I have seen a dramatic decrease in not only my bookings, but inquiries. VRBO's tactics are deplorable. I have slipped to #2999 out of 3000 possible rentals in our summer beach town. I was told this was due largely because I have not allowed online bookings. I will not allow a gate keeper to keep and hold on to my money until they decide it is time to pay me for my rental. The service fees imposed on my possible renters, has them looking elsewhere. The only way around this after paying our $399 is to block the week and take the booking ourselves.

Booked a home, gave credit card and received confirmation number, but never received confirmation email. Had to speak to FIVE different English-as-a-second-language customer service agents who all gave me different answers. Apparently, the reservation had been cancelled without anyone ever telling me. I emailed the host twice, and never heard back. They told me to call the host directly, but the number was in the UK and I'm in the USA. Very poor customer service. Back to Airbnb for me!

I have been with VRBO for years and then HomeAway took them over and not they are forcing me to use on line booking where they are charging renters a service fee of $350 and forcing them to pay a percentage of rental up front - I have a five star rating and have always stayed booked because o offer a great home for a great deal. Their fees are going to run me away - they also told me I could pay the 1500 a year fee so these renters would not be charged and when I agreed they slyly told me that I would not show up as much on their list... this is not right - time to move on!

Rented a villa in Spain for 2 weeks for our first family holiday abroad for 7 years. The villa was in awful state of repair with live wires hanging out of the wall, dirty, unhelpful and unapproachable managers looking after the property. No TV for 3 days meaning we had to stay out in the evening to keep kids amused. Reported to the company once back along with photographic evidence and full statement. Then have spent the last 3 weeks getting no where. Now reported it to my credit card company who are now going to get my full money back. This company like many holiday villa companies are only interested in your money with rude staff and no checks carried out on the property. An absolute shame and will be taking it further within the next few weeks.

HomeAway now requires landlords to provide a bank account so they can charge and I assume pocket a portion of the 3% credit card fee. They receive the membership fee on top of that. Their reason is, "customers want it." If that is so why in eleven years of being a member have only three renters preferred to use a credit card with the 3% premium? VRBO was great! HomeAway is a ripoff maximizing their profit at the expense of the landlord and renter. Worse than that they are rude on the phone to the legitimate complaints of a paying landlord!

My credit card was fraudulently used to book a vacation because all this company asks for in verification is a card number and security code. That means you homeowners are renting your property to proven thieves. As would be expected, the woman taking a trip on my dime damaged the property and there is a police report filed. The first HA rep I called said she was in the Philippines and gave me a number "for billing." The second said she was in Austin Tx, (with a Philippine accept) and couldn't hand me to a person with an American accent. I should have asked her what time it was in Austin! She tried to give me the phone number I had already called. I asked for a supervisor. That "supervisor" also had an accent, but "could not disclose the country he is in." Homeowners beware! This would be a zero star rating if that were possible for having such lax security measures in place to protect their Homeowners and make sure the person booking the trip is the one paying for it.

We have had our 4 vacation homes listed with VRBO since 2003 and were very happy until they were swallowed up by Homeaway and now Expedia has bought the company. They are charging our guests 6-12% commission for NOTHING! We already pay a big fee to be listed on their site. They do that by forcing owners to take on line bookings and payments.
To avoid these ridiculous fees ALWAYS look for the name of the home and then google the name of the house and town it's in to find the owners website.
You will save yourself a lot of money and send the company a big signal that this greed will not be tolerated!

Booked and paid in full for apartment in Barcelona. The next day they requested we paid. I cancelled left it a week then rebooked - in case it was a genuine mistake. They took the full amount as required and asked the times of our arrival and explainsed whereb they would meet us. Great!
Two weeks later they emailed me and cancelled the booking. They asked me to rebook as the apartment was still reserved for me. I asked why it had been cancelled but got some dimwit who never explained anything. I waited for the money to refunded. It was refunded but there was a shortfall of about £30.00. Again I asked them to explain. They couldn't. Yet another dimwit that was a waste of another call. I decided to rebook (god knows why) and as clicked the pay now button the price increases by 20. They could of done this every month till I went away- and lord knows how much I would of ended up paying. I decided at this point to cancel completely. I have since booked with airbnb and the whole transaction was sorted in 10 minutes. Home way need to spend less money on stupid TVs adverts and more on customer service. And maybe some on getting themselves a uk call centre. Absolutely RUBBISH!

I am a host and the customer service is terrible.
I had one potential renter send me several questions about my rental in several different request to book messages. Asking about how far it was to a wedding destination. Then asking how many beds, then asking about adding extra people. Then forgetting she had already asked me and asked me again how far it was to her wedding destination. Then she never booked.
Now my account is restricted because they said I refused to book the place after several requests. Their whole system is computer animated and they told me they don't have the time to actually read the messages that I need to pay 350 a year to use their service! It looks to them like I am renting outside of their service in order to not pay commission! How insulting! I am beyond furious. Use Airbnb i have had nothing but good experiences through them

I've used HomeAway four times over the past six years and have been very satisfied. But this week, I've experienced nothing but frustration. The first home I tried to book showed my dates were available, but the next day I received an email telling me that my reservation was not confirmed. By the time I called HomeAway later in the day, the owner had pulled the listing from the website. Huh? I tried again with another property showing my dates were available, but first emailed the owner to find out if this was accurate. I received his reply telling me that my dates are available, but that he doesn't take reservations for high season in Florida this far in advance (8 months). Huh? I replied back, offering to adjust my dates and book for 2 calendar months. Haven't heard back from him. Don't really want to work with unreliable owners or websites like HomeAway/VRBO/VacationRentals, but what's the alternative for finding good rentals?

You think you've booked somewhere then you haven't. You think you've adjusted your own rates, then it turns out someone at the company has made a mistake and so you haven't. There's something seriously wrong with this company: they have a lot of incompetent people and aspects to their system, such as their website and their way of booking. Or just changing the rate. Be very very wary. I'm now going to advertise elsewhere and when it comes to finding houses I avoid them entirely - they just waste too much time.