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Is HomeAway Reliable,
Legit and Safe Today?
Pros: HomeAway Review
Visitors to HomeAway.com will be greeted right away with a simple and intuitive home page.
In keeping with another recent trend, HomeAway.com contains all of the primary content vertically-aligned on a single index page, allowing the user to scroll down to access the content rather than having to click around.
Right at the top is a rental search box for those who want to get started researching listings right away.
The browser is packed with options, allowing you to search by property type (e.g. a villa, condo, beach house), location type (such as beach, golfing, mountain, skiing), features (like a fireplace, grill, hot tub, pool), and more.
The options and filters are truly impressive, as per the HomeAway reviews, allowing users to find the properties that best suit their needs.
HomeAway.com offers a variety of wonderful travel ideas to add to your vacation agenda.
The possibilities are endless on HomeAway.com!
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- Over 1 Million Listings
- In 190 Countries
- No Travel Fees
- Easy Booking
- Secure Checkout
Cons: HomeAway Review
HomeAway.com has a few things to really take heed to.
It is highly recommended that before booking a vacation rental that research is done.
This may seem like a hassle but it is extremely important to take the time to read HomeAway reviews, look at every picture and detail of the property so that a vacationer knows what they are getting.
Then they need to talk with the owners so they are comfortable with their decision.
This also goes for owners – make sure to ask questions to the potential vacationers.
Peace of mind is well worth every effort put in to getting a fantastic place to stay or being able to rent your own property to some happy vacationers.
As with any rental, there is a risk to having damage left by the vacationer, and it is highly advised to have nothing of significant irreplaceable value.
Also, the vacationer can purchase ‘Damage Protection’, especially if they have children.
Scams also happen so it is vital to follow the instructions given in the ‘Security Center’ on HomeAway.com to insure the payment is secure as a vacationer, or for receipt of payment as the owner of a property.
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DO NOT BOOK THIS VILLA- ORLANDO
HA-6T57KM
#4257329
I would like to make other travellers aware of the very strict cancellation policy of this property owner. During the COVID-19 epidemic, we were naturally forced to cancel our Florida holiday in Easter 2020. The property owner refused to reimburse us any of the money apart from the damage deposit of $750, which left us $2574.40 out of pocket. I assume we would have been receiving this damage deposit after our stay regardless. The property owner even kept the money for heating the pool. Ridiculous! HomeAway urged all their property owners to reimburse their customers as this was unforeseen circumstances, however, HomeAway cannot force the homeowners to reimburse any money. I have spoken to five different people at HomeAway who have all tried to contact the property owner regarding our refund but the property owner has not replied to any of their emails or phone calls. The property owner was informed that our travel insurance was not covering our expenses but she showed no sympathy to our predicament. I would not recommend this property owner to any travellers as I don’t want anybody to find themselves in the same situation as it has been very time-consuming and stressful. Do not book this villa!!
We booked a dream family holiday to Florida with HomeAway but due to unforeseen circumstances had to cancel.
We trusted that our booking was safe as we booked through their website and paid via PayPal, the promise was 100% money back if 30 days’ notice of cancellation.
We initially paid initially through the HomeAway site payment wouldn’t go through to owner for some reason so they advised me to pay owner direct. They also advised me to liaise with him directly. I did and went on to sign the rental agreement as I was assured it was normal practice.
When we cancelled the owner refused to refund the money and kept the 1200 even though we gave 100 +days notice, on the rental agreement I signed it stated (in very small writing) that he could keep ALL of the money regardless of how much cancellation was given. It was never made clear that this agreement would supersede that of the booking agent. In addition the agreement was signed after payment!!!!
Home away said that the agreement superseded there’s and refused to help any further!!!
DO NOT USE!! They are obviously well versed at scamming people.
I booked a place in the morning, but it was cancelled by the owner in the afternoon. NO one in HomeAway knows why. NO one was able to help to find a replacement
We booked for an upcoming trip in December to Japan. However, the owner declined our booking because he stated that the price that we paid (which was reflected on the website) was the wrong price and he had to contact Homeaway to modify the prices reflected on the website before we could book again. Since the owner declined, we shouldn’t have been charged for the booking. However, we received a message that we were charged to our utter dismay and right now, we are still trying to recover our payment. Terrible, really the worst experience ever. Never, ever book using Homeaway. Unreliable, not trust-worthy, poor organization, unethical business practices, basically any planning traveller’s nightmare.
I have booked a proprety in France with HomeAway,I received payment instructions via e mail from Homeaway,payed 5000 euros.
Next day I have received the confirmation of the reservation and the confirmation of payment from HA.
After two weeks I got a mail from HA saying that they have delisted the proprety due to suspicion of fraud and offering me a refund of 800 euros.
How is this possible?
No not at the moment, far from safe. They ar curenntly creating a massive backlog of payments to their home owners. This means if you book a holiday with this company in August of 2020 the owner of the property WILL NOT RECEIVE YOUR MONEY
I booked the apartment on Homeaway website. I was charged with first payment even though the owner didin’t confirm booking. So Homeaway canceled my reservation but I received only a part of my payment – without VAT and reservation fees which were charged by HomeAway. i asked for total refund. Homeaway wrote that the owner had my money,. The owner showed me the photo as a proof that he got only part of the payment. He wrote to Homeaway. They didin’t answer. I wrote again and didn’t got any response. After over 2 weeks I wrote that I was filing an official complaint about HomeAway to the Better Business Bureau. Victory – they wrote they’d give me the rest of money. – without any explanation. Everything went on almost one month. Never ever booking on Homeaway website
Property #617129vb, owner Yuliya Didin, address 117 Steam Engine Drive, Brian Head, UT 84719 #117. This property was very disappointing, there are many holes in a wall, holes in the sheets, bedding has not been changed in 20 years, carpets are dirty, sandy grit on floors and counter tops. Also, smelly towels, very sick from drinking the water, all in all I was shocked and disgusted. Had booked for 6 nights, however checked in on Saturday and tried to check out before 11:00 AM but couldn’t reach anyone. Would like a response.
I booked an apartment for my daughter and her friends for one nights stay. When she arrived at the apartment at 8.15pm no one there. I called homeaway and was told they had to speak with my daughter, so she called them and they informed her she had to go to a different address to collect keys and they would wait for 15 mins for her to collect, (by now it is 10pm) she arrived at the address given within 5 mins but no one was there, so she had to book into a hotel at a massive cost. I have spoken to Homeaway and they said no refund would be given for property as she was given the chance to collect keys. I received a confirmation email at 10.14pm informing me she needed to collect keys up from different address. (BIT TOO LATE FOR THIS INFORMATION)
I am furious with this company for only sending confirmation email re collecting keys from different location at 10.14
WILL NEVER BOOK WITH THIS FIRM AGAIN
I booked a place with Home Away in the morning. But it was cancelled without any reason. HomeAway did not give me an answer and not able to help to find a replacement unit
I booked on August 10th for an arrival date of October 05. I was forced to cancel on August 14th due to unforseen circumstances. The rental agreement stated that a $50 deposit was required and that only half would be refunded unless 60 days notice was given. Well anyone that can count can see that there are only 57 days from August 10 to October 05 so 60 days notice was impossible. No big deal. I would be out $50.00.
Well they also had another condition stating that the property owner had to approve and cancellation and refund. They dinged my credit card for the whole rental amount of $873.00 and then generously offered me a 50% refund. I actually received ony $390.00 and they blocked my IP address so I could not leave a review on the website.
I could not recommend this site and it’s service to anyone and wish I had never heard of them or of Property ID 887303, Mahone Bay NS.
Stay away folks and save yourself a lot of aggravation.
Homeaway customer service is quite possibly the worst I have ever encountered. 6 calls to customer service and 5 weeks later and I am still waiting for my deposit refund. Completely incompetent organization.
CHEATS AND FRAUDS!! BEWARE OF HOMEAWAY AND VRBO!!
I recently booked a 4 bedroom luxury apartment in London on HomeAway. I was travelling with my husband and 3 kids.. the youngest being only 5 months old! Upon full payment and agreement of how and when we’ll meet our host, all through Homeaway, imagine our horror when we realized THE APARTMENT DID NOT EXIST AT ALL!! The address given to us was an office space for rent. We immediately contacted HomeAway, but instead of putting us up elsewhere or refunding our money, they kept transferring our call from one customer care representative to another.. all to no avail. Finally, they contacted me through email only to tell me that they had nothing to do with the booking I had made and the site I had gone through was fake! Well that’s rubbish!! They insist that my booking invoice is from a fake website impersonating them and not from their ‘real’ website. So I asked them for their ‘real’ official website… and guess what.. IT IS THE SAME WEBSITE!! NO DIFFERENCE!! I would still make my bookings from there if i didn’t know better! But they mindlessly insist it’s not the same! What a joke!! ( can’t post the two links coz trustpilot doesn’t allow it) Also, they have made no attempts to catch the culprits or stop them in anyway. Should they not be concerned if there’s a parallel website (like they claim) that’s cheating their innocent clients in their name?? All the urls, domains and logos are identical on every bit of correspondence I’ve had with the impersonators. There is absolutely no way of knowing if you’re dealing with homeaway or the frauds. Yet, Homeaway is doing nothing about it.. all HomeAway is concerned with is trying to wash their hands clean off the case so they don’t have to refund my money. DO NOT USE HOMEAWAY. Use any other site! Having a website that’s not trustworthy is as bad as being a company that’s not trustworthy!! And by the way, on their so called official website, I CAN STILL SEE THE FRAUDULENT LISTINGS!! And they’re just waiting for some innocent client to fall into the trap!! BEWARE!!!
There were so many things wrong with this house that it was almost comical.
1. The stove didn’t work; they sent a repairman unqualified to work on gas stove, so he couldn’t do anything; preventing me from baking all of our traditional July 4th dishes
2. Pool pump was broken and was replaced 24 hours after check-in
3. Was told repeatedly that could not check in before 3:00 pm; yet when we arrived at 3:30, the cleaning crew was still in the house cleaning for another 30 minutes
4. There was debris (cigarette butts, etc.) by the pool area and lots of leaves; Owners informed me that landscaper only comes on Thursdays (just too bad for us that we were in house Sunday – Thursday, so we just lost out on a clean yard).
5. Nasty fry pans
6. The TV in one of the bedrooms didn’t work
7. One of the showers didn’t work
8. One of the bedroom closet sliding doors fell off when opened
9. One of the bathroom door lock gets stuck so hard that people repeatedly got locked in, making that lock unusable
10. Master bedroom door gets stuck whenever closed completely
11. Smoke detector outside master bedroom chirped entire time because needed battery change
12. There was a hole in the wall of the pool room
13. A towel bar was broken off the wall of another bathroom
14. In general pretty poorly maintained, e.g., dirty walls, stained seat cushions, holes in throw pillows, etc.
Both owners/managers, Jan and Kelly, debated with me about these issues and said that they would repair the pool pump (they did) and stove (they didn’t), but INFORMED ME that the other things were not important and did not affect our use or enjoyment of the property. HOME AWAY AGREED WITH THEM!!!!!!!! A partial refund was mentioned, but never received. HomeAway said conditions would have to be at the level of bedbugs or a hole in the roof before they would force a rebooking or refund. That’s their standard!! Be forewarned. This was our third year in a row renting a house from this site. We will never do so again.
I booked vacation via Home Away to a cottage in Scotland. I was advised that the owner would email me instructions upon arrival @ cottage within 7 days prior to arrival date. After several phone calls, emails I eventually was contacted by owner by email 1 day prior to arrival. As I was touring Scotland at this time, this was very stressful and frustrating trying to get an answer from Home Away. The cottage was in fact perfect exactly what I expected. Unfortunately it took almost 4 weeks for me to get my damage deposit back. I sent several emails that where ignored, emailed the owner also. I called head office in Texas from Home Away and they said yes I did not have my refund and they did not know why? After getting somewhat annoyed with them they got onto it and I received my refund 4 days later saying there was a glitch in the system hence the reason I had not received my refund. Definitely would not use Home Away again, should not have had to spend so much time trying to get instructions upon arrival then the same problem receiving refund.
BOOK THRU EXPEDIA NEWPORT COAST VILLAS, FOR $2292, DAY LATER THEY ASK FOR ANOTHER $719 IF I DON’T PAY THEY WILL BE “””HAPPY TO CANCEL AND REFUND MY MONEY”””
WEIRD
HomeAway, which is now owned by Expedia, is indeed not paying property owners. Since owners have costs, the owners may therefore ask for an additional upfront guarantee (to be reimbursed if they receive your payment from HomeAway) or maybe even cancel your reservation. For existing customers, if that happens, contact your credit card company and contest the transaction. For those who have not yet booked, I would recommend you avoid all Expedia brands for now.
My two experiences with HomeAway have both been extremely positive. The accommodations (a beach house in Cayman Brac and a Studio Villa on Grenada) were completely as advertised, clean and lovely. Management and staff were very accommodating. The locations were stunning.
Buyer Beware… if you are considering booking a rental listed below.
Michel Saumonneau
http://www.luxuryvillasworld.com
Rental Vacation Homes
Property ID – 506895
My family booked this house for a trip to Disney world and had paid in full. When Disney closed their doors due the CV pandemic, I contacted HomeAway regarding my options in cancelling due to these unforeseen conditions. Mr. Saumonneau has a no refund policy, however, due to the circumstances, I was hoping they would relax the policy. Shortly after I contacted HA, they contacted Mr. Saumonneau and told him that I wanted to cancel my reservation… This was not the case at all as I was only inquiring what my options were. I could have cancelled myself if I wanted to. Despite my request for a full refund, my reservation was canceled without my authorization and Mr. Saumonneau would not issue a refund. My advice would be to stay away from this property and any property that does not offer a full refund. HomeAway offers the renters zero protection when people such as these pull such stunts. I personally will steer far away from HomeAway. It is not worth the $1500 of stupid tax that I paid.
FYI… We did purchase the travel insurance, however, it appears that we are only covered if one of the travelers becomes ill with CV. I have tried to contact CSA, however, I have not had any luck.
I would have give homeaway a lower rating bt it wouldnt let me. We saved up for a year to take a vacation in Puerto Rico. After the hurricanes, we reached out to Homeaway to assist with an owner that was not returning our calls. They called the owner and the owner said the property was fine. The owner continued to give us the run around and we continued to request assistance from Homeaway. After 60 days, it was to late to challenge the transaction. The owner sent us an email informing us that the property would have water in a couple weeks and power in January. (Two wks from our departure date) We lost $1283 to the property owner. Homeaway was worthless in, and during the process. We will not use them again!
As a result of an owners last minute cancellation of a reserved rental Homeaway.com agreed to provide me with a reimbursement because I had to reserve a higher priced accommodation. This was in January. The amount they agreed to pay was approved by their Trust & Security Operations Senior manager by the end of January. As yet no payment has been made. Whenever i contact them to inquire about payment they tell me they must contact their accounting department but never get back to me with the accounting department’s reason as to why no payment has been made. I am beginning to believe this is a cash flow issue with them and am not sure about their continued existance.