HomeAwayReviews 1,748

This company not only scams owners who advertise with them by:
1) forcing owners to use homeaway payment system
2) lowering the placement of the home if you do not use their payment system
3) charging owners to use the payment system
4) not paying the owners for the bookings for two or more weeks (the banking system now takes 1 day to transfer money so what are they doing with it for two weeks?)
5) threatening to removed the advert you paid for if you don't use homeaway's payment system

But now they are ripping of guest who wish to book our villa's by charging them a service charge for using the web site, which is more than a night stay in the villa.

Homeaway is an awful, unhelpful and rip off company to work with and I look forward to the day when they loose the monopoly they have in the market.

The ONLY confidence you will get is that you will NEVER ever see a dime of your wrongfully withheld "refundable damage deposit". They will make you jump through hoops in the process, hoping you will give up at some point. If you will have the stamina to keep up with this charade, like I did, you will end up with a pathetic boilerplate response that has zero to do with the facts presented, nor with reality in general. STAY AWAY!

We are completely disgusted with Homeway.com. Ever since their merger with vacation rentals.com we've had nothing but problems. We are now in our peak season and our listings don't even show up on Homeway.com or Vacationrentals.com. Multiple calls to the company have produced no results. We had great experience with vacationrentals.com before the merger. Then the merger which tripled our fees, charged our customs 9% and now just plain lousy service. Come on Homeway.com get your act together. Stay away from this company until they get their act together!

BEWARE! I just made an inquiry and did not confirm a booking! They attempted to charge my Visa $6234. 00 then $2346. 54 then $1267. 65 then $165.27 and so on. Luckily Visa sent me a fraud alert. I called Visa right away they said the blocked my card and said I should call them and gave me there number. When I called I got a complete run around I asked them what the charges were for and to stop trying to charge the Visa card. I got a run around as one would expect from a FRAUDSTER! First he could not or rather would not tell me anything. When I asked to speak to a manager he said he would take my number and have some one call me within 48 hours, no management again FRAUD! I ended up cancelling my VISA and when speaking to Visa's Fraud department I was told they have lots of problem with HomeAway that's why they flagged it. These guy should change there name to ScamAway! I will make it a personal mission to have them shut down. They kicked the wrong dog!

We went to Austria last month (Aug 2016) after renting an apartment via HomeAway.com. Unfortunately we were guided by the positive reviews (averaging 4.9 stars). When we got there the owner (who lived above) was very kind and pleasant and asked if she could bring a plumber in to sort out the bathrooms. We agreed but when we returned some of our personal property had been moved which was intrusive. Several other things occurred which we weren't happy about but we just decided that maybe we had been unfortunate about our experience when everyone else on the reviews had praised the apartment so highly. Then the owner left us a negative review saying that we hadn't followed the house rules, weren't communicative and even said that we weren't very clean. (We emptied all trash, cleaned the floors and wiped all surfaces before leaving... and paid a 50 Euro fee for cleaning!) So, we thought we would respond by leaving a true and accurate account of our stay via the reviews for that property. The review stayed up for a day and then disappeared... NEVER AGAIN are we using a company that allows you to be misled and humiliated without a way to respond.

So it all started when I had to give my credit card info to book a room. Then the owner said t wasn't available so I had to cancel my reservation. Well Homeaway scam away took over $600 from my card put it on hold and then won't release the funds! They say it will eventually fall off! What the hell! So now my card for my wedding is slammed with a hold over $600! You all are scam artist and full of BS! I will be contacting he BBB

Now that Home Away/VRBO is charging travelers fees (which they make look like the owners are charging), increasing the owner's fees, making everyone use their payment system, they no longer are there for you if you call with a problem. All that matters is that they get their fees. They are putting holds on credit cards when a booking has not even been confirmed, then taking days to release the hold. They have taken away owner phone numbers, to make sure you can only communicate through them. Many homes on their sites are just that. Homes! Owners need to be able to vet travelers staying in their properties.
In short, use some other platform (www.homeescape.com charges no fees) to book your vacation or to list your house.

I booked a property. They charged my credit card and sent a confirmation. The owner then emailed me and asked if my dates were flexible. WTF? I booked the property on a specific date and paid, why are the asking me if I want to go on a different date. The owner sent me a link to a different property and asked if could take that one instead. It was not even remotely in the same category as the original property. When I told her I was not interested I then received an email about 10 minute later that said my reservation was cancelled because the owner did not respond to me within 24 hours. What? I booked the property, paid, and had been in contact with the owner. So basically Homeaway helped the owner scam me out of my reservation. When I called homeaway to ask what was going on they acted like this was no big deal, that it happens all the time. Really, no big deal? They said I would have the money returned to my credit card in a week or so. These guys are scammers and should not be trusted. It appears that they are allowing the home owners to pull scams on customers in an effort to rent properties that no one wants. Beware!

Update: HomeAway would not post my review on their website stating that it contained "customer service" information, and that can only be handled by calling HomeAway!
They are not allowing any negative reviews, for their service, to be placed on their site! Wow, what does that tell you.

My brother and I spent a week on the phone and on their sites (vrbbo.com, homeaway.com, and vacationrentals.com) trying to book a cabin to spend a weekend. Unfortunately, for a week and a half, we could not get their site to work and kept having to enter our payment info only to receive "Unable to process payment". After calling, we received the "it's the card" only we used 5 different credit cards total and none worked. They tried to have us contact the owner, etc. Finally, we just ended up booking a hotel because I'd rather pay more than deal with them. Absolutely horrible experience.

WORST SERVICE EVER!
Long story short - my $250 weekend turned instantly into $633.50 charge on my debit card (with no 'review charges before submitting' option). The owner said the dates were not available and it was an error on the site that it showed as available. Now I have $633.50 missing from my bank account that I must wait for DAYS to be returned to me. Hope they are having fun with my money these few days! Oh, and they told me they could give me a 'release code' to give to my bank to get the charges back right away, but my bank said it's not possible as they didn't put a "hold" on my card, they ACTUALLY CHARGED MY CARD. BEWARE! HORRIBLE COMPANY!

I've been a vacation property owner on HomeAway for over 7 years and was always very pleased with my guest's and my listing success. Now that they have started charging these new fees from the guest. I have been having to deal with guest complaints about their fees not being clarified up front along with the rental rates being jacked up from what is listed. In addition I am having problems with getting information on when I will get paid from HomeAway for guest who paid HomeAway for their stay in my property. This is resulting in numerous emails back and forth with guest's and HomeAway reps. Very frustrated!

VRBO is owned by HomeAway, which is owned by the online travel agent (OTA) Expedia, which also owns Hotels.com, Hotwire, Travelocity, Orbitz, Trivago, and others worldwide. It is now their business to generate revenue at every opportunity. Owners pay a fee, customers [now] pay a fee, credit card fees are charged, "service fee" may be hard to recover when cancellations occur, and owner flexibility is limited by cancellation policies now restricted to models set by HomeAway. HA sells trip insurance from its affiliate (read it carefully) and the new service fee of 4-9% purports to "protect" guest, but as you can see from these comments -- HA has little ability to respond meaningfully. Communication between Owners and Guests is restricted through HA, since it wants to control that process through its online portal. Be aware that HA listings are sometimes highjacked by others. You might Google a property by name to find it on other sites, or an owner operated web site. A legitimate VRBO/HA listing owner will make themselves available, will answer your questions, will assist you with special requests/information about the area, and SHARES your desire that there is a true match between your requirements and their rental property. If anything about your contact with an owner gives you the creeps -- drop the property and book elsewhere. The owner will do the same if they sense unreasonable demands or misrepresentation from you, or any sense that you are witholding information about your party or how you plan to use the property. We all want a successful booking and a great vacation for you. Help us make that happen, ok?