HomeAwayReviews 1,748

Never stay at Shady Shay Norton's place in West Hollywood unless you want to have your vaca ruined and be scammed out of money.

Due to the fact that home away seems to pay the home owner before services are rendered you could lose out in money. This owner promised me a full refund after jerking me around all day about checking in and then ghosted me and home away.

On top of that her apartment is illegal to rent. So home away does not check into those details.

I booked an apartment in Cape Town for Christmas period back in July. Money was taken from credit card immediately. When we arrived in CT, there was neither an apartment nor an owner to talk to. I still don't know what happened. We spent hours on the street with 2 kids and more than 500 for phone calls to the support line. With no outcome. Fake rents seem to be the new business model. Everyday they require new documents to be sent. Although they did not deliver anything and they know... stay away from HomeAway.

I rented a property in the Algarve for 8 days in February 2019. I advised the property owner that I might have to cancel because my husband was unexpectedly seriously ill. Ultimately I did have to cancel and I acknowledge it was too late for a full refund in terms of the cancellation policy. The property owner was not at all cooperative in helping me cancel the reservation.
In the end the reservation was cancelled and the property owner re-listed it and was successful in re- renting it for the whole period of time.
I expected a refund or at minimum a partial refund. HomeAway has no provision for such a situation i. E. reimbursing a client in the event the owner suffers no financial loss.
HomeAway was not helpful at all.
Ultimately I reported the matter to the Better Business Bureau. HomeAway responded to them and stated that although they do not mediate such matters they try to get the parties to settle.
HomeAway took no responsibility at all and states that they are not a "party" to this matter despite all email communication going to them and all payments made to them. D
The property owner never attempted to settle. In fact she basically rarely responded to me at all.
The property owner has been unjustly enriched. She has received twice the financial benefit. Legally, unjust enrichment would normally result in, in a case like this, the owner being required to refund my money.
HomeAway has no policy or guidelines to remedy such a situation. They should revise their policy guidelines to address situations where the owner successfully re-rents a property no matter the cancellation policy.
It should be noted that a "policy" is just that: A POLICY. It is not a binding contract. As such, it should be seen as a guideline that can be revised, or expanded. It is not cast in stone.

I recommend looking for a more reputable vacation rental company. If anything goes wrong with your reservation you will get no help from the company or, as in this case, the property owner.

HomeAway used to be a decent vacation home search tool but no more. The Book With Confidence is really nothing. The customer support people who answer the phone have been nonchalant, don't listen, and two of them must have failed their English As A Second Language class. A vacation rental I paid for was advertised to have amenities that I did not have access to. The rental company left my child and I stranded outside the security gate for the entire week of our vacation. Our physical safety was of no concern to anyone. HomeAway told me I had to contact the property manager. That is who I was speaking to daily with nothing but lies. Home Away is letting trash property management companies list homes. Buyer beware.

Homeaway over $1875 of my money and will not return it. Booked a place and the owner cancelled the reservation. They have never returned the money. Customer service told one lie after another. They even stated now that they are not responsible for the money given to their homeowners. This is absurd when homeaway actually took the money out of my account. They then offered an opportunity to rebook me but had the dates totally wrong I have used them before, but this experience was horrible and they take no ownership for the fraud that is committed on the homeaway site. This was a scam. I have reported this fraud to the Attorney general's office now for resolution.

Nous sommes locateur et nous avons eu beaucoup de difficultés a desactiver notre fiche de ce portail. Ce site est rempli de fraudeur international qui paie avec de fausse cartes de crédit (vol d'identité). Home away ne nous verse pas les sommes payées par les clients du aux nombreuses fraude internationale. Nous ne recommandons pas cette plateforme. Le service a la clientele est lourd et pratiquement inaccessible - Jean francois morissette (proprietaire de chalet) *******519

I am an owner who rents my place out. They took back the $150 damage deposit on a rental, which they do on all rentals. However, for particular rental, they took out another $150 to make it to where my payout was very small. I never initiated an additional $150 "adjustment" to the customer/tenant. I got on customer service and they pretty much called me a liar and would not do a single thing about it. I never initiated another $150 refund. They were completely terrible to me.

I stayed in a place I booked through homeaway and there was no heat on my last 2 days in the unit and I asked the owner for a refund. The owner never got back to me, so I contacted Homeaway and they said there is nothing they can do, and they wouldn't delist the owner even though they saw the correspondence, agreed with me and said I should be refunded. I've been trying to reach homeaway since because I was never sent an email to be able to leave a review for a place I stayed (to warn other travellers) and no review button appears on the booking listing as is indicated in their help section. The first couple of times I called, they said they would elevate it and someone would contact me to resolve the issue, fast forward two weeks, that never happened. Now when I call, they basically leave me on hold indefinitely or hang up on me. When I start a chat, they mysteriously stop half way. Despite the fact that they take a call back number, "in case we get cut off", they never call back. Total run-around from a clearly unprofessional and untrustworthy organization.

We never stayed at the property. It was dirty -clothes all over the place, half eaten food in fridge. Definitely felt we were visiting someone's house while they were at the grocery store. We were intruders. Asked for a refund since we never stayed. We received no help from the owner or HomeAway! They didn't care! Hello we didn't stay at all! Stepped in for 3 minutes and left. The owner cancelled our last day on us even though we weren't their! Give us our refund. What a piece of crap company! You've been warned! Read the reviews!

Had a pleasant stay in the Asheville area at a VRBO rental, my first experience.
Contract said the $300 damage deposit would be returned within 15 days if all okay.
Well, the property manager gave the okay for the refund the day we left, but it's 45 days later and no refund!
They said there was some glitch with returning it to our account and asked for bank accounts, routing numbers, yada yada. I told them I would be more comfortable with a check. So after a month they say they can send a check out in 6- 8 weeks!
So much for making things right. Are they holding customers' $ to make $ themselves?
I will never rent from VRBO or use Expedia reservations again. Pathetic!

The property itself was lovely, with a few minor issues. The smoke alarm kept beeping throughout the stay, and the door handle/lock to the balcony was broken--something that the property was aware of, as the host told me about it when I checked in. It was not only inconvenient but also left me feeling less secure as the door would frequently open either during the night or when I came home.

But the biggest reason I cannot recommend this property is the rather less than smooth experience with the property management of HomeAway. I had requested to arrive at the property 1 hour before check-in, but apparently my request was never communicated to the person meeting me, which resulted in me standing outside in the rain for 1 hour with my bags after an international flight. When the host did get there, apparently the cleaners neglected to leave the set of keys behind and it took some more time to figure out what to do. And for all this inconvenience, there no attempt was made to offer any reparations.

To top it all off, I am still waiting to hear about an unauthorized charge to my credit card AFTER my stay. I have emailed about it and even after almost a week, they have still not been able to offer an explanation.

Over-all, very poor service.

Had a very bad experience with a property in Anchorage while on vacation. Found many things that made us uncomfortable staying at the property after getting there at 11pm. It was bad enough that 5 of us packed it all up and stayed in a single room at a hotel. Property owner refused a refund for our second and third night, saying we would have to talk with Homeaway for a refund. After 6 months of emails, chats and phone calls to them without any response back I have given up on any refund. They weren't even able to discuss the issue and tell me yes or no they just kept dragging their feet to avoid making a decision. A total disappointment

I have just had the worst experience with home and away villas.
20 days before our holiday to Thailand the owner cancelled our villa stating the ceiling was coming down and we had to have another villa. We did not like the villa and said no the owner said we had no choice I still refused the other villa as it had really bad reviews. The owner told me to cancel so stupidly I did. The owner returned my damage deposit £100 but has kept my £2000. We rang home and away in America which cost us £70 and we have gone back and forth for days. Still no refund.
The owner has put the property back up for rent?
We have found out the person is not the owner and is an agent for 8 villas and will probably keep our hard earned cash
These people are scammers on the highest level
If you see a villa and the owner is called Natalie do not book
Do not book Villa Rose or Villa Jade Jomtien beach Pattaya you will get robbed