HomeAway
reviews and complaints

Mon. 07/21/15 called booking dept at [protected] talked to Qwaiin about renting a property (3724272) in New Orleans, Lousiana. Told him the dates, he quoted me the same price as on website. He took my deposit paymnet of $280.00 (what was taken from my bank accoutnt was $215.50 - Fraudulent practice). Once I received the confirmation email from the homeowner, Mr. Andrew Craig [protected] it had the wrong dates of travel. I told him Sept. 4th to 7th and he put Aug. 7th to 9th. I immeiately called the homeowner who said the rates quoted were not right as that weekend there is a big festival. I told him then I just want to cancel and get a full refund. He told me I had to call customer service [protected] talked to Clifford and Gina (managers) and numberous other representives that all tell me there is nothing they can do the homeowner needs to initiate the refund. Now homeowner is refusing to answer my calls and respond to my text messages to him. Mon . 07/27/15 called HomeAway booking department again. Supervisor, Errol told me to call the payment processing department for a refund. That department said they could not do anything for me. I already filed a formal complaint with HomeAway and was told this: "Ido see on this case that you have spoken with multiple Sr. Agents, we apologize for any standards that we may have set in this whole scenario. The main point that should have been conveyed is that our complaint process if for recording and keeping record of this owner and how they treat travelers. At no point can we process a refund for an owner which is why we will continue to let you know that you need to continue reaching out to the owner to attempt to recover funds.". Please DO NOT use these worthless company. You will loose money and get horrible customer service. I also put in a complaint with the BBB, now investigating. Tried to put in fraud report with my bank and waiting on that too. This was my first time using them and believe me my last...

Beware of homeaway.com. most rentals are now being booked through homeaway.com. on sunday i tried to book a rental and had to give my credit card, thinking that once the rental was confirmed they would debit my card. no, they took the money $2, 000 out there and then and five minutes later i received an email saying the rental was unavailable. today, 3 days later i still have not received a credit. upon contacting them i was told maybe by friday i would receive a credit. be careful using this company! the owner of the property said that she had contacted them and that they would credit my account on sunday when the whole incident occurred.

I want to warn all people that the website www.homeaway.co.uk is real scam. I found the apartment on this website and paid deposit for it, but it turned out that the location was wrong. These jerks intentionally provided fault address and afterwards they refused to return money. They are liars and scammers, and I want to find other deceived customers, who lost money. Please we need to stop this company and return our money. Post your comments.

I contacted the agent from the website www.homeaway.com.au and asked them to place my ad about house for rent. I was away for several months, so I decided to rent my house out. The agent took my personal info and money from my card, but after that I haven’t found the ad about my house. I tried to contact the agent again, but the phone was switched off. These people are scammers and liars, who take money and provide nothing. Please post your comments about this company.

We rented a condo on VRBO - Home Away and had a horrible experience. It was listed as a luxery condo for $3000.00 a month.
We rented for the month of Feb 2013. We arrived to find it filthy and the property mngr. had no clue and accused us of creating problems. The furnishings were cheap and in bad shape the master bed was a futon mattress on a slat frame from Ikea. One of the other beds was also but on a broken frame the owners refused to replace. It was a nightmare. It is relisted as Ahwatukee, Arizona Vacation Rental by Owner Listing 321138ha on Home Away. Stay Away is our recommendation. I posted a few of the pictures we took while there. The soiled sheets we found in a drawer in the bedroom, full of mold ! The shower was dirty as was the bath in the other room. The walls throughout were filthy. The list is long and endless !

What a total rip off. Their policy is for customer to pay in full and Home Away will get to your ad when we feel like it. I paid for a platinum membership on Jan 1st with the understanding that my ad would not be posted until I had all the information in the ad. I had info in by Jan. 2nd...and called Home Away/VRBO and asked them when the ad would be posted. She said in a few days. On the evening of Jan. 8th I called Home Away/VRBO back and spoke with John G. (they wont give out their full name). I had given him my name and property owner # and he confirmed the account. John G. said I didn't have my rates in...so I signed in and saw that I did indeed have the rates entered into the website. He said oh!...I thought you were someone else! Did he even bother to look at my account? Ok..so John G. said he would send a note to production. When I asked when the ad would be posted, he said 3-5 business days. Ridiculous!...its already been 3-4 days past their promised posting date. Meanwhile I'm paying top dollar for the ad and he can't expedite it any more than that...nor will they offer any refund for the week that they wasted! I asked to speak with someone in management and he said he could have someone call me back in 24-48 hours. Wow...more incredibly poor customer service. I had no other option but to ask for a refund and cancel my account. We'll see how long that takes if I in fact ever get the refund. What a poor experience from Home Away and VRBO!

After filing a complaint with Homeaway which didn't produce any results I tried to post a negative review about a property owner, Irina Velichko, who took advantage of me during the hurricane Sandy in NYC. Very aggressive and unethical person. Homeaway made me edit it at least 3 or 4 times after agreeing to post it. But my review never showed up as the listing 66945 on vacationrentals.com became expired. When I tried to post a review for another listing by the same owner which markets the same apartments Homeaway refused to allow it. Now the apartment where I stayed reappeared via another listing that doesn't allow reviews, www.homeaway.ca/cottage-rental/p445073vb. So, the owner is still renting and I'm still waiting to get my $500 back as Homeaway is only there to protect the owner.

This property owner has tons of only 5-star reviews which, after a closer look, seem a bit suspicious. Some other listings are: 418780 on Homeaway.com, 135411, 234041, 355219 and 423346 on vrbo.com. Her business site is www.aurenyinc.com.

I was going to write that the customer service couldn't get worse, then decided that was misleading. There is no customer service. We have been members for 4 years, gold level (they just increased the cost from $700 to $750 for guaranteed placement) for 3- long enough to know without a doubt that they make many, many mistakes (at the owner's expense) and couldn't care less. For instance (and I could provide many other "instances"): I found my house listed on page 5 after doing a search using the parameters our house falls under. I called and asked why we were bumped from page 1. She said "up your subscription level".
I said "We're gold. these are all platinum above us? In our small town?"
"No. its a seniority issue."
"We've been here longer than almost all of these other listings."
"You don't have enough reviews."
"We have more than almost all of these listings."
"You dont have enough pictures"
"We have as many as you allow... are you even looking at our account? We are listed after basic level, brand new, non-reviewed houses with just a few pictures THAT DON"T EVEN FIT THE SEARCH CRITERIA!"
"Yes maam."
"Then why dont your responses make sense? Let me talk to a manager."
"Theres no one here like that. I'm sorry maam, I've done all i could."
That's HomeAway for ya!

We used Home Away for the first time last month so my family, parents, and brother could all stay together the weekend of my brother's wedding. The condo we reserved was fine and well supplied until we discovered one night that a corner had 20+ insect eggs burrowed in and insect larvae burrowing out of the carpet (we have a video if anyone is up to see at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtMDuZKoQmA&feature=channel&list=UL). We let the owner know immediately, but as it was over the weekend, she couldn't do much, which was understandable.

We wrote a very professional and polite letter requesting a partial refund from the owner, as we felt we would request the same if we were staying in a hotel. Having been landlords in the past, we felt that if we were in the owner's shoes, we would be horrified for the tenant. We told her it was our hope to resolve things amicably and to be able to leave positive feedback for her.

The owner refused and told Home Away we coerced her into giving us money for a good review, and Home Away agreed and told us we were ineligible to leave a review of her property. I endured a lecture from a CSR who insisted on addressing me as "Customer" rather than my name on how reviews are an avenue to benefit future travelers (considering that my review was in regards to a possible health risk, I found that highly ironic), not to extract demands from homeowners.

I asked to speak with a manager. A man named Jason claiming to be senior personnel called us, read my original email to the owner himself, and AGREED WITH US that we did not coerce the owner into anything, but claimed he was unable to do anything, and this is a closed matter.

So, if you use their service and nothing goes wrong, great. But if you do use them and something does go wrong, good luck - these reviews here and their online record with the BBB attest to that. I just can't believe that in light of both of those, they appear to be not even care about cleaning up their corporate image.

Their email signature: "Thank you for using HomeAway— the world's most trusted online vacation rental marketplace." What a crock.

I have used VRBO mainly in the past and have had wonderful vacations. Recently I used HomeAway? The owner received my money and then the manager of property notified me the day before I was to arrive that the owner had booked over me with a personal business acquaintance? I have been in email conversations with property managers and so called other business accosiates of the owner and expected full reimbursements as promised...to then receive a check for an outlandish amount and told to cash it, deduct what I am owed and then return the remaining money to ? YES! I was scammed big time. The owner has a very impressive FB profile. Have yet to Hear anything from him after sending personal messages. All phone #'s do not connect. Everything before hand checked out as legit...but it wasn't! These people whoever they are...are good at what they do to string you along. I lost over $3, 000 for rental...but to have cashed that check would have ended up costing me over $8, 000. more. I've just recently contacted HomeAway...I have not heard back from them...but the property is no longer on there site. Renters beware!

The customer service is basically worthless. I have had multiple problems with guests writing reviews and they don't get published. My guests are getting very upset because they often submit 2 or 3 times and weeks later the review still is not posted. Reviews used to be posted in 2-4 days. now I have had reviews 'sit in the pile' to be pushed through for 2+ weeks. When you call they basically do very little and say they will 'try ' to get the review posted but it still takes several days. Although they are usually pleasant, I am getting tired of having to call repeatedly just to get a review posted..

And if you want to talk to a supervisor, forget it. They tell you that they will 'start a case' for you but it is often days before a supervisor calls you back. I have never dealt w/ a company where a super is not on staff during regular work hours to assist w/ escalated matters.

They have been saying that they are up grading their site, when I complained over a 6 month time after I signed up for a year, they stated: "we do NOT guarantee service at all times". They have been giving me a run around for 6 months about their glitch in their system that does NOT allow the owners to log in, and in a rare instance if you are allowed to log in then it takes for ever to go from one page to the next hence they win the award for having the slowest service. I video taped my back yard because I have incredible views of the nature & the large back yard which is my biggest selling point, but they prohibited my video on Homeaway.com but allowed it on VBRO.com. A manager called me finally after 3 days and basically said the same thing as the above complaint and said that my video should have something to do with my property, I told her it was from MY back yard and if she was worried then go remove all the beach/ocean pictures on their site since NO one owns that but she got even ruder and advise me to call their legal dept. when I mentioned I would call the better business bureau and sue them. Had they told me about their horrible service I would have NEVER ever gave them a dime to advertise my home. They SUCK, do NOT prescribe to their services. They are hungry for money only, will push your listing up ONLY if you pay way higher price and once the sale is done you will NEVER hear back from them again! This is my opinion with this horrible site, use your own caution, better yet go to some other site!

I have used this website in the past to find lodging. I will rethink that action as after staying at a very mismanaged property/mold, etc... I tried to write in a negative review. The owner disputed this review. After several phone calls and an email requesting 3 or more types of documentation - rental agreement, picture inside the property, receipt, etc.. (1 of which should be more than sufficient). I found that the "customer service" at this company is almost completely totally lacking, in specific Ron was unhelpful and rude on call. I would avoid this company and try for other companies that are showing up trying to do this process right. Beware Homeaway, VRBO, and vacation rentals.com are all the same company.

Homeaway is a scam for the home owner. They have an auto renewal policy once you sign up. I realized when I saw my credit card statement, tried canceling, even asking for it to be pro rated, and was denied by their "review board". I was told you can turn off the auto renewal under account settings, but there was nothing to turn off. Once they get you in, they count on you being oblivious to the auto renewal charges. During the last year and one half, all of our renters have come fom VRBO. Not a single one fom Homeaway. Certainly not worth the $329.

I had a terrible experience with HOMEAWAY.COM and would advise against using their service. They are quick to collect their payment but took 3 months to actively post my photos on the listing. $400+ later, I received only 7 inquires in the entire 12 months and numerous times tried to speak w a supervisor . Each time I was told that I would be called back that day. On only two of those times a supervisor called me back but it was several days later and I was never given a direct phone number having to initialize the original call spending multiple hours of my time hanging on the phone. I absolutely hate this company. I don’t even hate a fly, but I do Hate Hate Hate homeaway.com . I would recommend saving your money and listing it yourself as we did way better. Or call a local property management firm and let them deal w the hassles. Avoid at all costs homeaway.com.

I had a terrible experience with HOMEAWAY.COM and would advise against using their service. They are quick to collect their payment but took 3 months to actively post my photos on the listing. $400+ later, I received only 7 inquires in the entire 12 months and numerous times tried to speak w a supervisor . Each time I was told that I would be called back that day. On only two of those times a supervisor called me back but it was several days later and I was never given a direct phone number having to initialize the original call spending multiple hours of my time hanging on the phone. The worse supervisor that I spoke with was a guy named Michael who simply justified their position. I absolutely hate this company. I don’t even hate a fly, but I do Hate Hate Hate homeaway.com . I would recommend saving your money and listing it yourself as we did way better. Or call a local property management firm and let them deal w the hassles. Avoid at all costs homeaway.com .

This website SUCKS for listing owners!Also it seems to be a good tool for to get direct access to owners renting their properties, the customer service is HORREND for owners listing on this website. The site is constantly down, does not work 100% properly for listing owners, has many glitchas - and technical support/ customer service NON-existent. The only thing excistent is their steep annual rate hikes by up to 300% after they purchased all other rental listing companis in thsi market ;-(

Rude patronizing staff on calls and very unhelpful. Discovered even though the marketing material on site and in emails is "customer service" heavy there is actually no customer service...the agent tole me that they are just an advertising site with no contorl or service level agreements with owners - BE VERY CAREFUL