HomeExchange.com Reviews

I have received prompt and efficient help.

My overall experience with Home Exchange has been very positive but since the pandemic, they have surpassed themselves. Their customer service is excellent and the range of properties is very wide and appeals to all point levels. Five stars and two thumbs up.

Reliable apartment exchange platform, I have experienced connection with great people, the helpers are very effective in solving problems

No extension of mandatory paid membership (you used to be able to pay nightly) with Covid although most people have not been able to travel.
During July/August it is almost impossible to get an exchange in Europe.
Very few owners update their calendar so they show as available but they' re actually not. If we have to pay £130 annually, what do we get that for that - not very much if we can't actually exchange when we want to travel. HE doesn't put pressure on owners to have current availability.
Very few owners write in their profile their requirements - ie. No exchange less than 5 days etc.
Absolutely awful customer service where you just get fobbed off.

Due to Covid 19 two of our exchanges got cancelled, one reciprocal, one with GP. Home Exchange gave us our GP back without any hassle! Also our GP exchange this summer got cancelled due to Covid 19, luckily we found an alternative but were missing some GP to finalise the exchange. Home Exchange was so kind to offer us the missing GP so we could finalise the exchange. We are so happy to be able to travel this summer! thank you very much Home Exchange!!

I have been a member of HE for many years. I have had some good experiences, some bad. The time of the merger was terrible. However I thought things were improving in their customer relations department. I now see a post on one of their Facebook pages which is trashing another company’s reputation. Not only is this post not removed but they encourage the poster to leave a negative review on Trustpilot, whilst at the same time asking people to leave a positive review for HE, something they appear to claim they don’t do. I find this unethical and disappointing and once again their style of management and their arrogance appear to be moving back to the days of the merger.
EDIT
The “community member” is in fact a member of the HE admin team and the comment was only removed yesterday after I understand complaints were received.
The other site was easily identifiable from information given
HE requires preapproval for comments on the page and censors anything it doesn’t like so to talk about transparency is nonsense.
To try and justify leaving this type of post proves my point

For one full year we had the chance to open our place to wonderful travellers from different countries and in turn we have stayed at fantastic places. Great feeling at each exchanges! We are looking forward to continue being part of this great family and travel again when the world health situation gets better.
Homeexchange has demonstrated a fantastic support during this odd time. The whole team is responsive, friendly and super comprehensive.
Thank you so much for everything and looking forward to a great "re-start"!
Sandrine

I am relatively new to exchanging homes and I am thoroughly happy and impressed with HomeExchange company. They are responsive, helpful and well organized. The whole experience from exchanges to the customer service is great!

Be warned. Homeexchange points can be taken away by its support staff without warning. Homeexchange started allowing members to exchange by using Homeexchange points. I allowed other members to stay at my home for more than 21 weeks last year. Without warning, homeexchange cancelled my account. Thus, all my homeexchange points are now gone.

Home Exchange do not care. After updating their website I could not access their website, and I had messages waiting. Their website management is at fault, I had that checked out, but they seem to refuse to do anything about it.

Additionally, even though they've failed their contractual agreement, they refuse to refund the membership fee I paid in good faith.

There are some wonderful people on Home Exchange but it doesn't seem to stretch to the people running the thing. What a shame I had such high hopes.

I will be posting negative reviews everywhere from now on because there seems to have been a complete breakdown in trust and communication. Currently I am researching alternatives and wondering whether a healthy lawsuit will be worth the time and money. I don't like being conned.

I HAVE SINCE BEEN WELL LOOKED AFTER BY HOME EXCHANGE, ONE SENSIBLE COMMUNICATIONS WERE ESTABLISHED. I'M GOING TO GIVE THEM THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT AND TRY AGAIN.

Support when needed was excellent.

Trying to delete my Account. Totally impossible. Faq guide instructions are not correct

Since the merger the site has become a disaster. I have complained to our Happiness Supporters (what?!!) to no avail. I have been a member for 18 years and live in a very nice house in Thailand by the beach etc. I have always had plenty of enquiries on a weekly basis but since February NOT one.
I was told to put in travel dates as people now search via dates as opposed to places!! What is wrong with äny dates" I ask?
It is so sad that an excellent site with a few issues has become a train wreck.
I am now advised that an unknown number of Members cannot be contacted because I am not a Verified Member!! So they have removed a major/minor ? part of the Membership from my subscription but will not tell me what the numbers are.
Any site that has to call their support team Happiness advisers obviously has a major problem.
Any other Members reading this please let me know if you have found an alternative site that I can join.

I have been a member of HomeExchange for over 5 years. I have successfully exchanged with over 40+ homes and have made friends from around the world. At first I was a bit nervous about the changes with the merge but now I believe it provides more opportunities. HomeExchange is an affordable way to see the world, live like a local and meet wonderful people.

8 years with homeexchange.com says it all and now with an enlarged, enhanced database of exchangers. Once the gremlins and shortcomings of the new website are resolved it will be back to 5+ stars.

I have been a member of Home Exchange since 2014, and can honestly say that it has changed our lives....for the better! I was concerned about the amalgamation with Guest to Guest, and initially found the new website more complicated to use. However I have now discovered several advantages, including the points system and the increased number of possible exchanges.
I will look forward to continuing my membership and enjoying many more successful exchanges.

Homeexchange.com offers a well organized opportunity to share homes with vetted people around the world. New features such as alerts when your home is added to a list of favorites encourages new contacts. Frequent communications about listings corresponding to preferred destinations is also helpful. Photos, home and location descriptions and guest reviews make it easy to choose the perfect home. I have had only positive experiences using homeexchange.com.

We have made many successful exchanges through homeexchange.com and always felt well supported by the homeexchange team.

We love HomeExchange.com! It is our preferred way of traveling. We have over 18 exchanges in five years and have never had less than an exceptional experience with the exchanges or with the professionals working at HomeExchange.com. We have made friends with several of our exchange partners and have kept in contact over the years.

Ever since the beginning, we have been able to get the support we need from HomeExchange for any questions we have had. During the recent merger in early 2019, it was slower to get responses to questions on the new website, but we ultimately did get answers to our questions and HomeExchange was very apologetic of the issues and the timeliness of response. These are issues that commonly occur with any business when websites are changed and mergers occur. HomeExchange.com was very transparent with members to explain the process and issues as they were occurring.

As we got to know the new website, we have come to appreciate the significant improvements. The GuestPoints provide us with a lot more flexibility in accepting guests for shorter and longer term visits and also provides us many more options for our travel plans that we did not have with the Balloon. The calendar is a great feature and helps us keep our guest plans visible so we don't make inadvertent scheduling errors and helps significantly reduce requests with date conflicts. The merger also opened up our travel opportunities to an even much bigger market, although it was huge before.

We are confident that we will being a member for life. Thanks for providing a great travel website for such a low price. What an amazing value!

Client service is almost non-existent as they require you to e-mail them and wait for days for a response, again via e-mail. When you dial their phones, you get a recording saying they are disabled, as is their chat mechanism. At the same time, they revamped their computer systems, which caused errors and difficulties on the website. For instance, an inability to access someone's profile and errors like duplicating the number of previous exchanges in a person's profile (so looks artificially high). Very frustrating.

Horrendous -- there is almost no customer support or functionality.

I arranged to rent an apartment on HomeExchange (what they call a "non-reciprocal exchange" - basically using HomeExchange as AirBNB). I assumed that after I'd paid I'd be sent an email confirming the address, but nada. I contacted HomeExchange about ten times over the course of a week, but all their emails bounced back at undeliverable, their "24/7 online chat" function doesn't appear to exist anymore, and their "Contact a HomeExchange Ambassador" leads to a page about something completely different.

Finally I got a reply from a customer service rep who was rude, sarcastic, and barely spoke English. She kept saying, "Yes the address is listed right there" but it was not, under "Address" was only the name of the neighbourhood. After I pointed out to her that I wasn't exactly renting an entire town she did a 180 and sent a very unprofessionally worded email saying, "Oh people on HomeExchange aren't allowed to give out their full address."

Please let that sink it. "People using a homeexhange website to rent out their apartment are NOT ALLOWED to give out the address of that apartment."

Not sure how HomeExchange is supposed to work without being allowed to know the address of the home you've paid good money for, telepathy??

Love home exchange. Joined when it was Guest to guest. Great concept, people are friendly and respectful and we look forward to more exchanges at Xmas. Great to get points to start off with (for sign up etc) without even hosting. Keep up the great work!

Easy to use and wonderful homes available.

Hopeless since the takeover. I feel it was fraud to take a renewal of my subscription and then change the whole structure of the company. A search for a possible exchange has become a search for the impossible. Guest to Guest is controlling this. The support system is an exercise in cynicism. Avoid if you’re looking for an exchange site. I’m leaving.

We have been doing home exchanges with this company since 1991 and it has gotten easier with time. We have had no issues, only a couple of questions which were answered quickly.