HomeAwayReviews 1,748

I had a vacation rental in St. Petersburg, FL for the week beginning March 28th for an event that was subsequently cancelled. During the week and a half leading up to my check-in date, I made multiple efforts to reach out to Evolve (Home Away) to explain the situation and seek a negotiated remedy. Evolve responded with generic e-mails, but did not offer me any specific remedy to my situation. Eventually, the owner of the property reached out to me two days prior to my check-in date to inform me that she was cancelling my reservation as St. Petersburg was effectively shut down. She also generously offered to refund the full payment of my vacation rental and followed up our verbal conversation with a written confirmation of her cancellation and intent to refund the money to me. At that point, I assumed all was resolved. How wrong I was. Evolve is now claiming that the funds that I'd paid for rental of the homeowner's property belong to them and are not hers to return. So they are refusing to honor the agreement between the homeowner and me, despite the fact that they'd encouraged homeowners and guests to resolve the issue on their own in one of Evolve's e-mail communications. Evolve keeps insisting they can only offer me a credit, which I cannot use. I fail to understand under what circumstances they believe they can disregard an agreement they themselves encouraged customers/homeowners to seek. Unless, of course, they now find themselves in financial distress and are desperately holding onto funds. This company is grossly unethical and deserves to be put out of business. Seeing them file for bankruptcy (Chapter 7 full liquidation) would be the only bright spot from this entire situation.

Two weeks ago I canceled my reservation, nr XA-XHLV3K, property******* (Cork. Ireland).

I am eligible for a full refund. AFTER TWO WEEKS I STILL DON'T HAVE MY ONEY BACK!

I called your service department three times now, and each time I get a different answer. Yes, the refund has been booked to my credit card, and yes, only a few days, Sir. Next call: we are busy, it may take two weeks. And today's call: there is a technical problem with your system I now have to wait until 6 April.

And the technical people who have to solve the problem: they don't work on Sunday, Sir.

WHAT A GREAT SENSE OF URGENCY! And in the meantime I am waiting...

I WANT MY MONEY BACK NOW!

No more excuses about large volumes of cancelations, or systems that have a problem.

FIX YOUR $#*! AND PAY ME MY MONEY!

Bad customer service, bad attitude. No refund given due to orders from corona virus to stay home. Owner said to get insurance, but no insurance covers what is happening. HomeAway says it asks it's owners to give a refund, but it's only at the owners discretion. We got nothing back from $705 that we had already put in. So we had to make a decision to either stay home and let her keep our money or go to a forced vacation, against orders to stay home from the government and risk our lives just to go. In this case, I think we should have been refunded. There is no insurance that covers this kind of shutdown. Owner says she has bills to pay. Very rude and awful. No compassion for what it going on. We need that money back too for food. Highly don't recommend!

This comapny is the worst, had to cancel my reservation due to virus outbreak here in miami, paid $1000 for this booking, as i was laid off and had no income my phone was disconnected, was never able to actually call owner to cancel. Little over a week or two passes by and i get the funds to turn my phone back on, and receive an email saying i receive a refund of only $200? So i guess the owner gets to keep the other $800 for herself and her own pockets?! Called the customer service cause on their website it says they are requesting owners give a at least a partial refund... thwy just keep telling me call the owner, call the owner, well no $#*!- i did and sent them messages with no response - thats why im on the phone with customer service - who is completely useless by the way. Will NEVER book with this company or owner again, no decency during a viral outbreak which directly effects me as i live in florida and am under quarantine with no job. Just check the other reviews relating to the same issue of them not doing anything during this crisis.

We had booked a condo in Maui on December 4th, 2019 for travel on April 29-May 7,2020. As the world was experiencing travel bans because of Covid19, we were informed by Hawaiian Air that they are banning all traveling to Hawaii per the Governor's order, therefore we had to cancel our HomeAway. I was very upset that our host was from Maui Vista Condos (Tricia) Unit #2112 only wanted to refund 50% of my total amount paid in full. Per government mandate, we had to cancel but she wanted to keep 50% of our money? This is unacceptable. There were no services rendered. I will never use HomeAway again. I am disgusted with the way they let property owners take advantage of travelers.

Homeaway helped a property owner steal 2500$ during a state mandated lock down from the COVID pandemic. They refused to speak to the home owner only sending an email, stating he never responded to it. The owner would answer me stating that COVID and a state government shutdown was an insufficient reason to cancel my trip, consisting of first responders, and refused to refund me, charging me cleaning fees and damage deposits to add insult to injury and would not let me reschedule. Home Away's response? "oh well". Shame on you homeaway. Shame on you John Grossi. Shame on you pocono lodge rentals. Property ID *******

My wife daughter and I have just spent four nights at County Loft flat in Whitby and had a lovely time, this flat is furnished to a very high standard and is in an excellent location. We were fortunate that restrictions in restaurants and pubs due to Coronavirus took affect the day we returned home and so we were able to get out and about. Having said that the flat is very spacious and has excellent TV in living room and bedrooms, also lots of DVDs and CDs for your entertainment.The owner Graham is very friendly and helpful and we would highly recommend this accommodation and will definitely return
Many thanks Paddy & Denise Greer

Property ID: *******
Host: Rebecca Rose (member since 2006)
Reservation value: almost $8000

I called Homeaway several times to cancel my reservation; spending hours on the phone only to have the agent tell me I was only getting 50% back despite the reason for cancellation being COVID19. The first time, they told me to contact the host. I contacted host, and she told me to contact Homeaway SMDH. Called Homeaway again and they told me the host would have to cancel reservation for me to get my refund - ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS.

They gave me host's phone number; I tried to call her (got her vmail so left a message with no response) and followed up with a WhatsApp text message, which she read. Not only did she read it, but she also blocked me (I have screenshots)... a horrendous experience overall.

I will NEVER use this site again and will make sure I tell anybody who will listen about my awful experience.

*AIRB&B respects their customers and is currently honoring refunds due to COVID19*

On March 6th, I spoke with an owner about a rental checking in on March 15th. I told Allison of Homeaway Property ID ******* that I was concerned about the Coronavirus but thought we could drive the 6 hours from our home for a short spring break trip. Between the 6th and 15th, the President declared a National Emergency. Our city grocery stores were wiped clean, restaurants closed down and gas stations were out of gas. We could not get to the rental through no fault of our own. The owner refused to refund my money, said VRBO did not allow it, then VRBO/Homeaway would not let me leave a review to warn others "because we did not stay at the property" The owner ceased all communications with me. Do not expect any human decency from Allison D at the Landing Condos, 120 CATALINA CIRCLE #8F HOT SPRINGS AR *******, phone number *******462 and do not expect any help from VRBO/Homeaway either.

This is the rudest and most irresponsible company you could ever possibly do business with. I absolutely understand their cancellation policy under normal circumstances. We are being 100% ripped off by this multi-billion $ company. We are ordinary folks who don't have multi-million $ property on Lake Tahoe - my military family once re-stationed in July will be unable to go back to this property - nor would we - these are greedy people. When we planned our family vacation to come from all over the United States we had no idea cornavirus would paralyze this country. Amid flight cancellations, whole towns and resorts being shut down. Never mind my military son has been confined to base, none of us, including my wife and I(60+ years) can travel now and put our family at risk. This piece of garbage company is now rudely refusing to refund our money for a trip that we are all crying about since as a family we haven't been together for over a year. This was meant to be a celebration of life. HomeAway has turned this into a financial bloodbath to just add to the confinement misery we are all experiencing due to social distancing. They have insurance, we do not. This will not only set us all back
Financially, now we won't even be able to plan a follow up trip when this all clears because they have destroyed our budget. NEVER DO BUSINESS with this shameful company please. Maybe they'll make a few $ on us - everyone of you who doesn't book with them can put them out of business. God bless you in your support!

Back in September of last year, I reserved a property in France, listing *******, for a family reunion in honor of my mother's 80th birthday. Due to the current Coronavirus closings and cancellations, we can no longer make the trip, which was scheduled for next month. I am being told by our family in France that it is just a matter of days before their borders are closed. The owners of the property refuse to refund any of the $2500 I have spent on the rental back to us. They have a 60 day prior to the date no refund cancellation policy, that I was leery of to begin with, but needed a large property for a large family, which are not easy to find at a cost we can afford. The owners are showing zero compassion. HomeAway will do nothing to help us. The owners are telling us they are in process of selling so rescheduling is at the risk of having nowhere to go should it be sold, which is totally unacceptable.
I saved for over a year to give this vacation to my mother and family. All that has been shot in the $#*! in an instant because of greedy people and a greedy corporation. I will never use HomeAway again. From now on, I will use Airbnb where the cancellation policies are not as ridiculous.
We are not rich people. This was going to be a once in a lifetime trip for my family.

I book this is san antonio tx and wen i get to it is nasty so i call the customer service and they told me that i have to wait like 4 or 5 hours till the home owner goes and clean the house after i had a long day travelling so i say no im not staying in that nasty house we we want or money back so i talk to a supervisor for nothing worse then the customer service so anyway i didn't stay in the house and they keep my money they are just stealing from people