HomeAwayReviews 1,748

Ever since Homeway took over for VRBO it has been a nightmare. The website is very confusing, they have insinuated themselves between the Owner and the Renter. I opted to decline on-line booking and on-line payments and thank
God I did judging by the horrible reviews but in doing so they are now jamming their offers down my throat by blocking access to my website which I paid for, by sending a pop-up for on-line booking that cannot be removed unless you begin the process. I tried calling Owner support for assistance and even though they advertise 24 hour support the message said they were closed for training and would open again at the top of the hour. Which hour? I have been receiving this message for the last 3 hours and still cannot access my site. The message apologizes for the inconvenience and suggests you email however the email button is blacked out and not usable. I have had it with their interference and strong-arm tactics. From what I can see no one wants to use them to advertise and no one wants to use them to rent from. I am looking elsewhere to advertise my beautiful lakeside cottage. They should be ashamed for taking peoples and delivering such terrible service

I was a homeaway owner for about 4-5 years. It was great. The site was extremely user friendly and i had absolutely not a single problem. The last year have been a DISASTER. Their new system charges absurd fees. The site itself is not user friendly at all. I cant tell who has paid, and who hasnt. My income and vacancy are down almost 25%. Multiple calls to customer service people who pass you to someone else and nobody can help you. MOving to air b and b soon.

I am on terminal hold with your representative in my third call. You put a hold of over $5000 on my credit card and refuse to release the funds. I've asked three times to have the call escalated to a supervisor, the first time they sent me to main queue, the second time they disconnected the call, and now they've put me on hold for almost 15minutes without returning. If this is how you treat customers I will tell the world.

C. L. Morgan, MD

Update: the representative has since returned to the call and said that she "cannot" forward the call to a supervisor and placed me back on hold after I again requested a supervisor.

Terrible system that withdraws money from your card upon request for reservation then takes 72 hours to have money return.
Advice: change to have money withdrawn upon request acceptance.
How can I look to book another place if the money I had put away is sitting in limbo!

When I tried to pay the deposit on the home, our credit card was declined. My CC company said it was declined because it looked like suspicious activity because funds were coming out of Dublin, Ireland. When I contacted HomeAway the Customer Service Rep told me funds are generated where the homeowner lives. Recommended I contact homeowner to confirm he is the owner and it is a legitimate rental. Assured me I can "Book with confidence". I contacted the owner. He was fantastic. He didn't have any idea why anything would come from Ireland because he lives in Canada. We finally were able to book the house. After our stay and receiving my CC statement, there were 3 separate "Foreign Transaction Fee's on our statement. The fee's were 1% of each transaction. When I contacted HomeAway and quickly referred me to VRBO payment processing department. Jennifer at VRBO payment processing dept., tried her best to help me. She was the only one throughout this whole mess who was willing to take the time to try and resolve my problem. She also stated the owner is on an "International Platform" and HomeAway/VRBO has an International in Dublin, Ireland. She was unsuccessful because they are a 3rd party billing to HomeAway. We did a 3 way call with HomeAway. HomeAway still could not give any reason for the charge and acted as if they never heard of these charges. I was then told to fill out an email with requested information and someone would get back to me. I spoke with the owner of the house again. I told him about these fee's and asked him if he banks in Canada? He doesn't have any International banking associated to his house he advertises on HomeAway/VRBO. I filled out the requested information along with letting them know about the owner. Their response "Contact the VRBO Payment Processing Dept.". I have been given the runaround! They do not stand behind their guarantee! Their employee's are not trained well and barely speak English, except for Jennifer! I will never book again through this company!

Property #-*******- "Blue Paradise" Galveston, Texas -This large beach house was portrayed as perfect for our large family vacation! We didn't know it was over 20 miles to a grocery store! Only small convenient store close by with exorbitant prices! We find out the day before we leave that only 4 vehicles are allowed to be parked at the property! It's your problem to find a place to park the extra cars or get towed! (VERY INCONVIENENT!) The house was MUCH further from the beach than the website pics showed! The angle of the pic was very deceptive. Be prepared to walk a loooong way and carry coolers, supplies etc. back and forth. The house is located in a resort area and showed the pool and and other activities for kids close by within walking distance... NOT! It is over a mile away. We had to load up everyone and drive, then find a parking place. (Or you could walk a mile down the beach to get there) A big inconvenience when dealing with a large group of people. One bunk bed room is very small and again the pic on the website was deceiving. Two bathrooms are so small you can barely turn around in them. The other two bathrooms were very large and nice. This was not shown on website. The wifi did not work at all the entire time we were there. All the extra fees were ridiculous! We had 2 extra small children going and were charged an additional $1,000 deposit! We did get it back, but it was so excessively outrageous! Our family definitely expected more for over $5,000 for 5 days! Will never use Homeaway ever!

We carefully planned a trip to Italy. In January 2016, I reserved two apartments - one in Florence and the other in Rome for a July 2016 vacation. I conversed through the site with the owners, and I made all payments on time. Less than a month before the trip, the Florence apartment cancelled our three night reservation. I was left to scramble to find new accommodations. The day we were leaving The United States for Rome, the Rome apartment cancelled our reservation for five nights. I had to quickly secure accomodations before boarding our plane. Customer service at Home Away provided little help. It took days for our money to be refunded through our credit card. We were left with last minute accomodations at greater expense. I have rented accomodations throughout Europe through different companies in the past without problems. Both my rentals with Home Away resulted in last minute cancellations. Stay away!

Now VRBO / Homeaway is charging travellers 6% and getting nothing in return. They charge owners a large fee to advertise, but now going after the rest of us. We rented countless times with VRBO, but never again. Now owners will pull out since renters won't want to pay the ripoff fee. They do nothing at all for the 6%. Also, who wants to spend another $200 for booking a condo for a week. Looks like we will be using other sites fo rentals. Also, we could not undertand the rep and they couldnt understand us. It was not India, but some other part of Asia.

We recently rented a home in Holland Michigan 327 Big Bay from Michelle - for late Sept. Since my daughter is getting married in August, it was important to get the details of our "Girl's Weekend" finalized. Guess what? Unbeknown to us, the property we had rented was for sale and we received a notification from the owner that she was canceling our reservation because they sold their property! Really, why didn't you tell us, we wouldn't have booked with you. Ok, I have received my deposit back, but now I have to start all over just weeks before my Daughter's wedding. I contacted HomeAway thinking they would help me somehow, maybe find another location at a similar rate. NOPE! They could care less. Just give me your $$ and I'll send you a complaint form to a property that really won't be rented again. I would think that HomeAway would at least be a bit more compassionate. I won't use them again, and to think I was going to list a property with them soon. NO WAY. Just make sure the web page that you are using actually cares about you, the RENTER!

Looked at a few properties. One we were interesepted in, got online to rent and price had gone up almost $700 in a day. But the daily rate was still the lower price. So I sent email to property, never got a response. But when I got online found that the daily rate had been raised since my email. Guess that was my response. Does not appear to have good customer service. A little afraid to use now. Really wanted to rent a place through them. Will look for something else

I canceled my reservation 15 days in advance which according to the owners policy would've qualified me for a full refund instead he gave me half my money back and kept $250. I also paid for the cancellation insurance and hobo way claims they don't see that I paid for it even though I paid the extra $35 And they are not doing anything to assist the refund or give me direct access to the owner that ripped me off. I hate this company. They've stonewalled and evaded.