VRBOReviews 2,004

I would like to offer feedback on our experience with HomeAway and why we feel we cannot trust it and will not book through it again or recommend it to other travelers.
Other travel sites allow an easy and honest means for reviewing a stay. HomeAway does not. It is not an easy process to find out how to review a property and if the owner is responsible for and does not supply the review link, it is impossible. This was our experience. No review link was supplied in our correspondence. The property was not as advertised. It is in need of cleaning and maintenance that could not have been rectified during our stay given the low standards, and we would have liked to have given our honest comments regarding this property to alert other travelers. Even if post communication with the owners could have resulted in compensation, it wouldn't have improved our stay. The standards and cleanliness of this property are clearly very low (I have photos) and travelers should be alerted.
Our impression of HomeAway is that it seriously lacks attention to the protection and comfort of travelers.
HomeAway Response:
We appreciate you taking the time and effort to let us know about this situation.

We sincerely appreciate you taking the time to share your experience and ideas with us. Many of the improvements to our products, policies, and processes are made in response to customer suggestions such as yours.

On the other hand, the review link is sent to the email address of the person who booked the property. As such, kindly advised to have the review sent. Also, a complaint can also be filed about this case, it will also be best if the person who booked the property can reach out to us or the owner regarding the complaint so the incident will be referenced to the correct reservation and property owners.

My friends and I booked at 5 bedroom house with VRBO in December, 2017 for a wedding in August, 2018. Everything was paid in full and confirmed. 48 hours before we were due to arrive, VRBO contact us to let us know that there was a glitch in their system and the people currently renting the property had extended their stay so the house was no longer available. The offered us a 4 bedroom house from Saturday - Tuesday instead and not comping anything. We all arrive Friday morning for the wedding and now have nowhere to stay. All of the hotels are now exorbitantly expensive. I would stay away from VRBO at all costs - they do not honor reservations book 7 months in advance.

Upon booking Faxos retreat in Gulf Shore, Alabama, through VRBO and Harris Properties, I specifically asked if the property was clean and bug free, as a previous review caused concern. I was assured everything had been taken care of and it was clean and bug free. Upon arrival we found roaches running across the floor and I took pictures of heavy dust and dirt throughout the house. Window sills and glass sliding doors had dead bugs, dirt and what looked like mold on them. I complained to Harris Properties managment, but did not feel comfortable they were going to fix things, so we chose to leave. Brian Harris, of Harris Properties later toured the property and declared it clean and in good condition. Not many people would consider an air conditioning vent with about 1/4 inch of dirt and dust on it clean. The ceiling fans had similar dust on them and was also found under end tables and other furniture. The outside was overgrown with weeds and trash from previous renters. Brian would not refund our more than $6,000 dollars, but said he would return little more than $300. I would never visit Gulf Shore again and will never us VRBO, as they cannot be trusted to provide accurate information on their listed properties.

I rented a beach house through VRBO. When I arrived a note on the door said house unavailable due to natural gas leak! An alternate is available. A phone number was given. Called 8 times -- no answer. Called VRBO. Transferred and put on hold for 1/2 hour so called back later. Put on hold indefinitely. Got very upset. Spent the night in a motel. Tried calling next day but put on hold again. Gave up. Don't expect any help if you have a problem with your rental. A classical bait and switch.

Reserved beachfront condo for 9 days 8 nights using the calendar function. Total cost looked right compared to nightly rate so I put in my credit card info and booked our trip. On the way to the beach I checked VRBO for details only to discover we need to be out Friday am. Two days and two nights short and everything at the beach is booked. Even worse when we calculated price we discovered we are paying 1.5X advertised rate. Careful using this site. This will be our last time using VRBO.

My group booked this house for September 10-14,2018. One of our group contacted Lidia to cancel the booking on June 12,2018. She was told there would be a $250 cancellation fee, not the full refund. As the cancellation was almost 90 days before the check in date we understood we would get a full refund as it says on the contact. I then contacted the owner by phone today and she said we owed a $250 cancellation fee that she put in her contract in the paragraph above the statement of 100 percent refund for cancellations before 60 day check in. I told her that is conflicting with the 100 percent refund statement and we thought the fee must be for some sort of other issue related to a cancellation. She said she can add what she wants to her contracts. I tried to get her to see how unclear, misleading and frankly unfair it is. She didn't care and would not change her mind. So I contacted VRBO and they said they would write up the owner but could not tell me what they would write, and then told me they do not get involved and to work it out with the owner! So they are of no use whatsoever in disputes and allow owners to charge a cancellation fee in conflict with their policy. Will not use them or Home Away again. So beware people.

Since being bought out by HomeAway, the services and cleaning fees have escalated. The rules that typically go along with these rental properties are also a burden. You have to pay a hefty cleaning fee, yet still clean up after yourself before you leave. Heaven forbid you have a friend over or move a piece a furniture... kiss your deposit goodbye. I'm going back to hotels and resorts where I'm actually treated like an appreciated paying guest.

I have had a vacation home listed on VRBO for almost 4 years. The first 2 1/2 years were great. Very simple website to navigate and I generated plenty of inquires and bookings, was actually considering buying another vacation home. Now since being bought out by Expedia I get almost no inquires, I get more hits from Craigslist than VRBO/Homeaway/Expedia, or whatever they call themselves now. Long story short, I am putting the home up for sale now because of VRBO's corporate greed. It's a real shame this was a great outlet to rent the home and help pay expenses and have guests have a wonderful vacation. I suppose all good things come to an end.

This company is very unprofessional, horrible at business communication, and their owners of property are just as bad. Flakey and misleading. Had to file a dispute with my bank because they weren't refunding me my money after canceling a reservation. They say its an automatic refund. 4 weeks go by and still no refund. Battling with VRBO and bank. Other property owner canceled on me after verifying reservation because a different owner wanted the place the same days as me. She was rude and unprofessional. Would NOT recommend using VRBO. Horrible service

This week I was very busy at work. I had an inquiry on one of my props which I did not reply to in the 24 hour period. For that infraction, vrbo took my listing down and made it inactive. I HATE THIS COMPANY! So how do you benefit from this? Beat them at their own game. VRBO tacks on an approximate 10% service that goes into their fat, undeserving, scum bag pockets. Can you avoid it? Yes, but they make it hard. The key is to get in touch with the owner directly. If you type in your email address or phone number, the scum suckers at VRBO have coded their systems to XXX out the address, be it email, phone etc. Consider using google search to find the property another way. Can it be found on facebook, yelp etc. Is there anything in the reviews that would tip your hand to contacting the owner. Can you use a prior renter to get to the owner? Is there an onsite or nearby office that may be able to give you the owners info?. On the other side, consider using a google search that you can instruct the owner to use to allow them to find you. If you are a repeat renter, then never use vrbo again and instead go direct to the owner. Don't be a doormat to VRBO stepping on you! Consider using numbers spelled out for instance don't use "8", instead use "eight" or "ate". "3" could "three" or "tre"... etc... My quest to find another vendor continues. My issue is that Homeaway and vrbo are huge and have big exposure. I will continue to undermine them, save my renters the 10% and search for a viable alternative to this company that has regressed from a trusted and useful partner to a devil that I continue to reluctantly use and utterly despise. Good luck. Please share if you have found other websites that operate like VRBO used to!

In helping small business owners for the past 14 years, especially in the vacation rental industry, it is sad to see a market behemoth like VRBO.com slowly take away the business of owners across the country. Not only do they want to control the calendar, money and rules, but now they want to control the communication. Who owns the small businesses anyways? An owner isn't even permitted to communicate with a prospective client unless it goes thru the VRBO.com system. So many leads are lost this way due to unnecessary rules and steps.

Hopefully another company takes notice of the trend that small VR owners are leaving VRBO.com on a daily basis and creates a platform that is fair and continues to support the small business owners. Another market giant has tried, but is following the same format at VRBO.com. They also are losing clients on a daily basis due to this practice.

Having a corner on the market is one thing, but when others figure out how to get the traffic, hopefully VRBO.com falls as quickly as it was built.

6/27/18
I went to renew my listing on VRBO today and was told I have to use "HomeAway Payments" or I cannot list my property. That means my guests pay VRBO/HomeAway a high booking fee in addition to my rent AND that VRBO/HomeAway will keep my guests' payments until after the guests check in and then and only then would VRBO/HomeAway pay me those funds. I get reservations 6 - 9 months in advance and use the deposits to pay expenses like insurance and taxes on my vacation home. I spent an hour trying to get a waiver of the HA Payments requirement to no avail. I found out today that VRBO/HomeAway uses a third party company, Vacation Rent Payments, to handle my guests and my funds and that company refuses to release the funds until guest check-in. VRBO calls it "HomeAway Payments" but it is not VRBO/Homeaway at all but this third-party company in Europe. I have no contract or relationship with this "Vacation Rent Payments" and VRBO did not tell me about them at all. Now they have my banking information and that of my guests! I am cancelling my VRBO listing ASAP.

Made my reservation 4 months ahead of our trip to Los Angeles, CA in June 2018. First reservation was changed due to plumbing problems. They moved me to a different property, 2 days before my arrival they cancelled my reservation because somebody overbooked the dates! They need to check their reservations! They returned my money but with 2 days to find a new property it was a nightmare... No properties in safe places within my budget... ended up in a hotel with 6 people! I will not used them again!

We just returned from a week spent at Aunt Bugs 402 Blackberry Ridge cabin, Pigeon Forge, TN. From day one, we had carpenter ants in downstairs bathroom and two bedrooms, three leaks- two in the kitchen in three places coming from upstairs shower, one in the bedroom from an overflowed toilet that came from floor/ bedroom ceiling gushinh water across part of the bed and all over the bedroom floor(caused two people to need a hotel for three of the nights). Manager sent a plumber out twice which did not help leaks. Manager sent out Orkin for ants but they were crawling days later, no usable pans or skillets for us to cook... disgusting pans and skillets! Manager sent out sheets for the bed that was soaked; however they did not address the mattress that was soaked. Finally, after our second call, someone was sent out to disinfect the mattress! Not a healthy place to sleep for sure! There was a propane barbecue pit that did not have propane so our son cooked hamburgers on the stove. Water leaked on the counter top on our food. There was NO cabinet space so we had to line up our food, bread, etc. on the counter. Manager did send out a set of pots and skillet, and they also sent out someone to replace two burners and fixed one burning that leaned. The right burner caught on fire the very first time we tried to cook. Basically, we spent the entire week reporting one issue after another. Unacceptable accommodations for our family of nine.