HomeAway Reviews

Not returning calls and hanging up in the middle of a call ,blocking my number.

I reserved a room and had to cancel do to the recent virus (coronavirus) spreading and I am in the military so they restricted our movement further. I called the owner to receive a refund and reschedule the trip I first messaged and sidnt recieve a message back so I decided to call the next day and spoke to the owner dmandthe owner agreed to give me a refund and I told me to cancel the trip . Later on I called her again to try and coordinate a refund and she said she needed to call costumer service so I can get it because she dont handle the money . We hung up I gave her time and space I said I would stay in contact I messaged her the next day in the morning and didnt recieved a message back again so the next day I decided to call her again and my call went straight to voicemail as if I am blocked on that number . I called "customer service " to be hung up on in the middle of explaining the situation the first time I thought it was an accident so I called two more times to be hung up on again while being on hold without speaking to someone . I reported the activities to my card company and dealing with that now

I rented a property in Colorado and due to Coronavirus had to cancel as property was in a heaviy affected area. There was never a cancellation clause in the rental agreement and though I cancelled 6 weeks prior to travel, they refused to refund any money. They kept all fees including cleaning fees, taxes, administrative fee, taxes, etc.
Never go through them again!!

Most listings are scams. BE AWARE! Clicked on several listings and received emails after asking money to be wired.

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 thought we were paying more for this beautiful place in the Cardons Forrest here in La Ventana, Baja so that as my husband was doing his windsports I could relax and read books, watch the birds and the gorgeous view from the top of the house. I thought about it so much this last year and when we got here on Friday afternoon it seemed to be exactly how I imagined ( in fact we called and booked another 3 months next year)..until the construction noise started up Saturday morning at 8am. For a month now we have been listening to a table saw, along with some sort of chain saw and with hammers pounding by several people at a time many times all at once from 8 in the morning to sometimes 8 at night. On top of that several days a week the loud music blasted so all 15 or so workers could hear it was some sort of Mexican electronic music that shook the ground. We have tried to work with them on the music and they have been nice about but the noise from the construction has made it impossible for me to enjoy this beautiful place many hours during the day, 7 days a week. After a month here the owner got back to us and will only give us 30% back of what she got paid ( not all the agency fees) for the last month. That would not give us money to rent some place else. This construction has been going on for over 3 years and we heard that other renters also complained but it is funny that non of those reviews made it to the web site advertising this house Casa Susanne here in La Ventana, Baja. We feel not supported and cheated out of the vacation we looked forward to. I have been a big user of HomeAway/VRBO and will now book through other agencies.

Fraudulent Website.
They took my money for a holiday booked month in advance. 2weeks before the holiday I was sent a message saying it was cancelled. No appology. I have spent hours trying to get my money back to no avail. Do not use this company!!

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.

As others have said, reserved accommodation with an instant booking only for it to be cancelled and the owner claim the price was wrong and try and charge more than double.

I would trust this site if you need the accommodation to be sorted before you go. I was looking at a ski resort so would have been very expensive to rearrange accommodation close to the time.

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) 418.814.9519

If I could give Home Away ZERO stars, I would! I typically use air BNB to book my lodging however, I decided to try home away because I received an advertisement in my email. Biggest mistake I ever made!!!!!!! I made the reservation for a home in Palm Desert and pre paid for the rental, deposit, and cleaning and some other random deposit. When they finally charged my account for all of the expenses, a typical 2 bedroom house that would cost $250 a night was now almost $500 a night! I decided to proceed with the reservation and tried to contact the owner of the home to coordinate my arrival and discuss logistics. I text and called him over 40 times and received NO response! I contacted Home Away customer service and they were no help at all! I explained to them that I did not feel comfortable traveling for 3 hours to Palm Desert if I was unable to make contact with the owner beforehand to confirm my arrival. They advised me to move forward with the reservation and show up at the home and try to contact the owner upon my arrival. Well, I did as they instructed and the owner would not answer my calls or respond to my text messages! I tried to contact Home Away customer service because they stated that they would try to help me find other lodging in the event that the owner did not respond, and after being on hold for over 20 minutes, I finally gave up. This was, hands down, the worst experience I have ever had!!!!! WORST CUSTOMER SERVICE EVER!!! Not only did the owner never respond to me, but I ended up having to pay for a reservation that I was not able to use! The owner never refunded me my money and when I contacted Home Away customer service to seek a refund, they told me it was between me and the home owner. Are you serious? The same home owner who did not respond to ANY of my numerous texts or phone calls? THIS IS A SCAM!!!! I took this matter all the way to the CEO of Home Away and they refused to issue me a refund! This is the worst company ever! Do NOT use Home Away!!!

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.

I requested to book a property and never heard from the site manager or got a confirmation only a bill for the deposit. I had already booked another non-refundable property for the same time from Air B n B. The site manager is not responding and Home Away will not help me. I am out $2k. Air B n B is a much better and more reputable service.

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.

Got scammed. HomeAway won't pay back my money. They asked me to contact my bank for a possible solution instead of fixing it, which any other proper company would do.

STAY AWAY!

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.

Absolutely shocking company to deal with Worst customer service ever.
8 months before our trip to America, we booked our villa For 20 people 6 weeks before departure. After full payment had been made , our villa was changed,(Without informing us) to a new villa that would not accommodate us all.
They left us in an awful situation of trying to find a new American villa for 20 people over the Easter period With 6 weeks to go.

Even though it was their error, we did not have a full refund and had to wait 10 days before getting most of the money back. I had to chase both companies, Home and away and Executive villas( who you can never get through to ) for refunds which was not Fully returned to us, no matter how many times I contacted them. It was one excuse after the other.
Be aware they say they have no responsibility after booking and you have to deal with the owner. They just take a finders fee are are no help after booking

Paid in full for accommodation to home & away under the home & away payment protection
Accommodation was cancelled by the owner and am now 2 months on and home & away have told me I have to dispute the payment with my bank There Payment protection is crap does not cover nothing and getting no help from home & away I would not recommend this company at all disgusting customer service and £1300+ out of pocket

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.

I booked with them for 10 years and never had an issue. But this year I ran into an issue where the property was listed as refundable but after booking it, all that text was removed from their site. When I contacted them, they told me that its all through Turnkey and couldn't help me. So no change management on what is posted on their own site, and no ownership for the booking. I will be canceling my business with them.

I rented a property pack of roaches and rats I called them and they open 5 cases and never
resolved nothing the kept the money!!

HORRIBLE- Bait and Switch for rates on 2 separate reservations!!! DO NOT BOOK WITH HOMEAWAY. We booked two reservations within 4 days and both said they needed higher rates or they would cancel. The one simply stated (after booked and confirmed through Expedia) "we can get a higher rate" and they cancelled our reservation. We had already booked $4200 in Delta flights and $2600 in ski and cat ski packages, so now we are screwed!! HOMEAWAY says they will put a penalty message in under these property owners, but cannot do anything else!!! HORRIBLE way to conduct business, especially being a Lifetime Titanium member with Marriott, I am used to book accommodations that are not just cancelled out from under you! BAD BUSINESS!!!!
Addresses are 1482 Empire Ave and 1415 Lowell Ave- both in Park City

Never would I book again with HomeAway they are the most appalling company to book with , however just heard they are going into receivership and I am not surprised . The reviews on all social media say the same .

Booked & paid in full including a deposit for a 3 bed penthouse apart on 43rd floor day before advised unavailable and moved to 3rd floor 2 bedroom apartment.

We were scheduled for three nights at the moon star cottage just north of Sea Ranch. We called in the morning and spoke with Elizabeth and she told us that there was no power in the area, and there was an evacuation warning, This was October 27, 2019. She indicated we would get a refund. But then no refund or even a credit?!?!?!

I would never use HomeAway again.
I made a reservation and needed to cancel it within 12 hours. HomeAway refused to refund it's $60 fee. You can expect the same quality service. Go elsewhere.