HomeAway
reviews and complaints

I have so far welcomed two sets of guests to my property in St Lucia through Homeaway - I have not yet been paid a penny - HomeAway now owe me @5, 000 GBP in unpaid rentals which is unacceptable - The first guest left on 1st Jan 2020. I told Homeaway before the guests left that I had not been paid - since then I have been battling to be paid - I have called on numerous occasions to be given conflicting advice - I was told at one point the payment for the current guests would be made but now I am left to understand it will not be paid - I am told we cannot speak to anyone other than an agent who cannot help beyond to say that they will raise it with their technical team - It has been with their technical team 8 weeks! I have lost confidence in them as an organization and would delist my property but we have other guests coming in who deserve to have their holidays - I wonder how many renters know that Home Away does not pay their partners - All I have asked for is assurances that I will be paid and a timeline for payment

Its very simple, lack of customer support from the agents answering the phone, because they are limited with info, and there never seems to be a supervisor on hand.
Next we have been having issue receiving our payments, instead of the payments being dispensed in 7 days as per there policy, its taking up to 21 days. And again the agents cant give you a solid answer as to whats happening, and again there are no supervisors on hand. When asked to speak to a supervisor, I m told it will take 24 to 48 hrs to get a call back. But at times it does not happen.
So were concerned with the drop off with homeaway and the quality of service were getting now, it was never like this, and we've been with them for 3 years now.

as a host I had a bad experience with a guest who paid for up to 6 guests but had 9 there on one evening and 14 on another despite being subject to 70pppn in extra guest fees the client says he rented entire house.in booking process my house clearly shows additional fees due for over 6 guests.as im going to court and have done noting wrong, i rang in to seek support.ive just asked for something in writing I can produce to show the guest has abused the house rules and owes me 770 in extra fees.on the ohone I was told nothing is possible, not even a simple email explaining the booking and charges entered into on this booking for me to produce in evidence in court.we are in usimess together and should support eachother when things go wrong, i find this attitude very disappointing and hope that you can reconsider this and help me with this simply rectified situation.yours tavion lewis

case: [protected] Res.ID: HA-BRL7SY
Review 29 607 455

a renter gave an unbalanced and misleading review (amongst others complaining of missing Christmas cookie sheets)but giving an overall 4 star rating.
The review passed the review team and was published
After mailing and chatting for 2 weeks, arguing the review did not come up to the rules VRBO is selling, the case was transferred one step higher. There it rested for another week unresolved, much as if a compromised credibility does not matter.

We received a booking and confirmed it for 2 guests.
Four arrived to pick up the key. One said he wasn't staying.
They complained that they had to pay for the extra person, over two, that intends on staying.
They asked for a key to the second building that we use for extra guests.
The main cottage has a queen and a bunkroom.
I invoiced them, through the system, for the extra person and advised them that they would get the extra key when that invoice was paid.
They also said they were having a dinner party. I advised only paying guests should be on the property.
They have been intimidating and rude continually arguing they paid good money and it's not good enough.
HA-YM55FB·[protected]

https://www.homeaway.com/vacation-rental/p1654591vb?adultsCount=8&arrival=2020-01-30&departure=2020-02-05

Accomodation: Property # 1654591vb

We recently booked this property for family visiting from the UK. On paper the property looked great...I can honestly say the experience we had from this owner ruined our family holiday. We'd booked a penthouse in Glenelg, fantastic, a villa in the GoldCoast, amazing and then this property, our experience was absolutely awful. Before we arrived we messages the owner to ask about the location, so family could book nearby, majority of our party were in their late 60's and 70's. The 1st message from the owner, was this property is for your guests only and not for parties, if you want large gatherings book another property. We explained the ages of the family members and that parties wont be happening at our age, this was the first of a series of aggressive texts from this owner, sent to a 71 year old lady. We contacted the owner to access the property on arrival and were met with a second response "why do I need to come down there to let you in, I've sent you the instructions". Not helpful at all, eventually a family member found the code in the booking and gained access. We were also contacted by the owner and told "do not touch any controls for air con, pool, do not leave ovens on, do not go in the garage, do not touch the car, and do not go near any of the boxes in the garage, these have been checked and photographed". This was an extremely bizarre request and made us feel like petty thieves, we've never experienced such aggressive communication from a property owner in all the time we have rented property. This made our elderly members extremely nervous whilst staying in this property. On arrival of the property, I have to state this, it was absolutely filthy, and I mean filthy. The floors were covered in dust, within 20 minutes of arriving our whole party ended up with black feet. from the dust and dirt on the floors and carpets. We took pictures it was that bad (see attached). The toilets were dirty, one even had excrement on the side of the toilet (picture taken of this). The bed head-boards were covered in dust, with no hoover to clean up only a brush. We wanted to complain about this to the owner, however, after our initial exchange with him our elderly members were frightened on his reaction. We visited the local shop and bought cleaning products and cleaned the property ourselves. A few days in the cistern stopped working in one of the toilets, we felt duly obliged to inform the owner. He told us "to hire a plumber and get it fixed immediately" another famiy member resolved the issue. But we were then sent 6 or 7 messages repeatedly by the owner threatening us with eviction. These were extremely aggressive, we thought to call the police. We eventually fixed the issue with the cistern and informed the owner he eventually clamed down and let us stay to the end of our holiday. This owner is unfit to rent property and very aggressive, he should be removed from your listings immediately. I look forwar to hearing from you.

The property rep for the rental I have on Sunday, January 5 in Puerto Vallarta asked me today, January 2, for papers I had already sent months ago. Through the message board he explained it away with the papers got lost in their move. I sent part of the paperwork to him but have not heard back. I asked Andre, the property rep, to call me to sort this out but have not had a response on the message board. I have tried calling him but the message machine does not give his name, and I have not heard from him since I left 2 messages. I just want to make sure this is legitimate. He has been very good about responding to any of my questions in the past. My rental is
HA-78P6B1 in Puerto Vallarta for dates January 5 thru 10
I just want to know if this is legitimate. I have used HomeAway for 15 years and have never had this kind of thing happen to me. I usually get my check in info 2 wks prior to arrival. I paid on time so that is not an issue. Could you help me out.

I refer to booking reservation ID HA-S5LF25 on property #9183049.
Having made this reservation on April 23 2019, it was cancelled by the owner on November 7 2019. This was five weeks before we were due to arrive at the property and four weeks before we left on our journey. The money paid was refunded after 10 days, having sat in someone's account for seven months.
After frantic efforts I found another property suitable for my family at an extra cost of £1000.
Had I cancelled, I would have been penalised financially. There seems not to be any penalty that the owner pays, no compensation for our extra payment and distress.
I am asking that you meet my extra cost for my new rental, and would suggest that you consider a recent case taken against Airbnb which has been settled in the European e court. I can supply evidence re. new booking of required.
Barry Edwards

In August, we vacationed in Italy. After a fraudulent property cancelled our booking in Cinque Terre, we were in desperate need of another large home to book to accommodate our group of 9 adults. In a scramble to find a property, I booked a property in Masa Lubrense, on the Amalfi Coast. It wasn't our first choice to stay, we had to adjust all of our plans, lost money on hotel nights in Florence, changed our car rentals, etc as no other property in Cinque Terre was able to accommodate us. We switched our entire location for the week to the Amalfi Coast.

Upon reviewing the property photos and then seeing some reviews online, I noticed that not all of the property images were shown with Property #6481436. I inquired about the property to the manager and asked more questions and asked for more photos. After my 4th request, she sent me a few more photos, one showing the "pool" which is actually a self-made wooden hot-tub (see photos). We had 9 adults travelling and expected a large pool for our family, as shown in the property listing. The photo is skewed and looks like the pool is a beautiful huge, in-ground pool. It is nothing like that at all.

I contacted Maria and told her that the property did not meet our requirements and we could not possibly stay there in the heat of the summer with this tiny "pool" - that it would not accommodate our large group and wasn't appropriate for our family size, nor did it match the photo showing online. I was also quite concerned with the reviews I saw that showed dated rooms and a tiny kitchen and discussions about other renters, apartments, etc.

Please see letters and photos attached...

I would appreciate some follow-up as this has gone nowhere with Home Away. It is absolutely the worst travel experience we have ever encountered in our 20+ years of travel throughout the world. We travel abroad approximately 4-5 times per year and throughout North America and weekly throughout Canada. This is not our first time renting... we have more than 20 years renting with VRBO, Airbnb, Quintess, Luxe, Private Property Rentals, Abercrombie & Kent (Fitch), and more. There does not seem to be any accountability with Home Away, nor follow-up, nor any department to handle complaints of any kind. Home owners can post their properties, without full disclosures, with skewed photos, pretending to be much better amenities than they actually are and can completely get away with it. It is appauling!

Sincere thanks for taking the time to read through this and consider the situation.

Lois Vanderhooft

I rented this property in the perfect location around June 21, 2019. However, I was never told on arrival and prior that their was rennovations going on in the building on an above apartment.

We saved and spent over $5000 on transportation to the property and never was told of the construction and noise. I was informed that the owner Matteo was arriving after me by his agent and certainly someone was aware. The owner acknowledged they knew at the time of arrival and from what I could understand from others in the building, he obviously knew well beforehand.

So on the first Monday thru Wednesday morning of the rental at 8 in the morning, there was reciprocating saws cutting wood, hammering, etc, which vibrated through the entire apartment. The owner's response to me was he would give me my next visit to his property at 1/2 off. So I am expected to fly across the Atlantic and arrive at his cottage and expect a discount. I got taken advantage of, as well as Homeaway and would not trust this person. In addition the property has shown total unavailability since my stay which only adds to the suspicion of fraudulent behaviour by the landlord and unfortunately, perhaps through Homeaway.

Read Matteo's reply and my messages to him. Basically he took advantage of me and Homeaway. Unless this is brought to light I will never book through Homeaway.
Mr Matteo stole from me, and I have a strong suspicion that he owns the property above his apartment.

I have should been notified of the repairs upon arrival. I could have changed my plans, moved my paid tours around, etc. I was left at their mercy, with no knowledge of the noise going on about me, and not even knowing how long it would last. The landlord took advantage of both me and Homeaway. So my question to Homeaway is, what are you going to do about it.

I am going to review my payments and if no reply I am going to my credit card company and put in a problem with my purchase. I spent thousands to get and stay there to what was not the dream it was supposed to be. Rather a nightmare and thousands paid to hear Matteo's noise. I have additional text messages to prove I know nothing and that they did.

Jeffrey Rotter

We stayed at a property in Felton, CA and were very good guests. It's unbelievable that the property owner gave us a bad review and he had no details why. We reached out to Homeaway, Addi (customer service rep), case [protected], who said he would contact the property owners for why they gave us a bad review and ask them to withdraw it if there were no details. He sounded like he was not going to do it at all. He promised to email us. Needless to say, there were no emails back from him. This was back in August. We contacted HomeAway again today (three months later) to find out nothing had been done.

I have been waiting for 4 weeks to get a refund for a service charge as the Villa's owner cancelled within 12 hours of the booking.

The customer service is poor and slow and has stated that they made the refund but 10 days later informed me they had a system problem and had made the refund. Still no sign of the refund.

I am concerned that they are in financial trouble and this is the reason the refund has not arrived.

I cancelled my accommodation on 8th October. I was told my service fee refund would take 14 days. I never received. When I followed up, I was told it would take another 5 days. I still haven't received. I keep sending emails over and over again and no refund. The reservation number is RES-03730 for a booking in Hawaii. I am travelling from Australia. I only want my service fee refunded as they guarantee on the booking. I received a full refund from the property owners the next day.
Please help!
Kind regards
Andrea Goff

For over a month I have been contacting homeaway to deposit in my homeaway checking account.
They have been depositing in my general account since they started homeaway payments.
Previously homeaway remitance deposited in my homeaway checking account
Now they are holding funds saying that it may not be my general account( which it is)- their account information will not let me change it back to my homeaway checking account)- So therefore they conclude they have the wrong account
No one has called me from homeaway
Billing is not allowed to call to correct
The people that answer the phone do not know how to help
Everyone you talk to no one knows how to fix the problem.
They say they escalate it.
I have made over 10 calls and 10 emails

I Need to know the number of someone in charge that can do something
I hope someone can send me that information

305824 listing number

Property ID 6555693

Vila com estilo Marrocos/ Luxury Villa . Rua do Clube Carvoeiro

Name on the Booking : Homeaway UK Rebooking VR

Post Stay - 1st of September to the 8th September

Guest : Nicky Heathcote

Homeaway.co.uk HA-HYJJXS

Payment of 2, 800€ not received

my email: [protected]@sapo.pt

To whom it may concern, I would like your help to why
i did not receive this last payment in my account.

Thankyou

Regards

Cristina

Reference: Tropea Property ID 8486344

On 4/18/19 I made a rental property payment of E226.75 ($251.19 converted on 10/26) to "Giuseppe", Reservation ID HA-W3JB9D. The rental dates were to be September 23-26, 2019.
On 9/3/19 I made the second rental payment of E491.25 ($544.21).
On 9/3/19, immediately after sending that payment to Giuseppe, I received an email that the reservation had been cancelled.
I since received a VRBO invoice showing a partial refund by the owner of E81.88 ($90.71) and E245.63 ( $272.11).
We are still owed a refund of E390.49 ($432.58).
I have contacted Giuseppe by email twice concerning this issue. He has said that the refund will come from HomeAway. I have contacted you previously through your complaint form process but have not received any response from you. Please advise as to your planned course of action.
Sam Pronesti
10/26/19

Hi

I have spent the entire day trying to resolve issues with my messages not going through to the owners and still have got nowhere with it. I initiated chats 3 times that got disconnected after I explained and repeated everything to them. Subsequently, I called in where I spent close to two hours trying to resolve my issue getting transferred to various departments and repeating myself a dozen times.

My issues is not resolved and I have spent an entire working day (close to 8 hours) simply tryoing to send inquiries to teh owners. This has been an extremely frustrating and waste of my time.

In addition to this, I want to point out that the website has very little information about the properties, several times teh owners have rejected my booking when it was showing the property is available and it has been an all round poor experience for me.

Pragati

Booked and paid for a property via HomeAway (HomeAway.co.uk) months ago for a break in France. Had an email from the owner 7 days before traveling to say the property had been sold, was no longer available and that I would be refunded within 7 days.
HomeAway were useless in responding; the people dealing with the situation were polite and tried hard but could do nothing beyond ask that I book something else and they would help me do that. I explained I needed the refund in order to be able to do that but they didn't seem to understand; things got worse when I explained I'd booked transport to France - they just didn't get that I was significantly out of pocket. No email address on the website to complain to; ridiculous, unprofessional response overall.

Last night I emailed the owner of cabin in TN,
asked a couple of questions as not familiar with area.
We are driving from Miami, FL
Received a response this morning from a Cindy Mann
which I believe was the owner.
She goes on to tell me that the cabin is not available as it
it up for sale, well ok and wished her luck.
As I continued to look, her cabin kept popping up with
days I was interested in, I called customer service and was told
cabin was available.
Confused as to why this woman would lie to me, I decided to check
cabin was reserved before week available as well as following month.
I started to consider she blatantly lied to me or worst yet a racist who
wanted nothing with a Latino renter, sad to say I would never use, look or
recommend Homeaway for above mentioned reason.
We were fortunate we found another cabin a bit farther but seems to be brighter
nicer and more comfortable, luckly I did not stop looking but renters beware of this Cindy Mann and her cabin, if she lies about something so small what else can she lie about.
Shame on HOMEAWAY but thankful what I found was through another site.

Can please tell me, when I booked and paid for this apartment why wasn't I advised at the time of booking instead of having a nice peaceful/ restful holiday my wife and I would be in middle of a building site ?. Work starts at 7 am and continues through the day including lorries, fork trucks and all sorts going on. Not happy and very disappointed with this situation. I look forward to your response at the earliest convenience. Regards Patrick Carvell.