HomeAway - www.homeaway.co.uk

DO NOT BOOK THIS VILLA- ORLANDO:

#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 chose a cottage yesterday and were told it would cost £1180 approx with an immediate deposit of £396 approx. Gave c/c details for deposit. Showed kids the house; everyone happy and excited for next years holiday.

Then, later in the evening the owner emailed me saying the house would cost £800 MORE than the first price to reflect next years fees.

With HomeAway, all communication is faceless and there is no redress or person to complain to, no emails, no way of raising the issue! The owner has the upper hand entirely.

We won’t be paying the extra £800 however, I’m sure some people would do so believing they’re in some sort of contract.

By the way, should you still want to use them, avoid ‘WOODGATE’ farmhouse (near Crackington Haven, near Bude), as this is the house!

Have booked many villas over 10 yrs or so when it was owners direct and never had an issue, this year was a nightmare villa owned by English couple.

After arriving it was clear the pool hadn't been cleaned, a filter on the bottom was missing leaving a hole, one pool light was smashed and had half the surround missing.pool cleaners were due twice a week they came twice in a fortnight.

Half the light bulbs had blown in and outside the property, there was snot and bogies wiped down the wardrobes, 4 windows didn't fit in the frame and had huge gaps that you could fit fingers through to outside, bedside lamp had broken wires inside the on off switch held together by tape around the switch as if you moved the cable the light would go on and off.

The roof terrace looked nothing like the photo, bbq had been spray painted to hide the rust, the burners had been eaten away by rust, there were Also several other issues, pillows were heavily stained. I wrote a bad review to home away regarding the property which hasn't gone up,yet good ones that were wrote after mine, have. I also complained that our holiday was ruined as we couldn't use pool and definitely couldn't have a bbq, and as such the photos were not a true depiction of what I booked.

When you choose a property because of one certain feature of it and then when you arrive its nothing like the photo seems to be acceptable

They don't get involved as a 3rd party and now both home away and the owner, consider these things a minor inconvenience!

They sent me a list of their terms and basically it even states that if the property is different to advertised basically you still have no come back, you can only complain if the property is uninhabitable, things like non working a/c, grills and anything not directly part of the property it seems are acceptable if they don't work or unusable

I booked an apartment in Paris for 8 days through Homeaway. 

The rental monies were taken and I then received an email from the property manager to say the booking was cancelled. No more information than that, just cancelled. Asked for more information, but nothing.

Raised a claim with Homeaway.

Still waiting for refund - property manager has literally just refunded 10% of the cost, so back to Homeaway.

I won't be using them again and I'd recommend that you don't either.

I booked Meadow View House on HomeAway for a weekend away with my mum and the family. She has a brain tumour, time is limited and we wanted to spend some quality time with her on mother's day weekend - I would like to add that the Dr said she was fit to travel at the time of booking.

I made the owner aware of this at the time of booking and she very quickly accepted the booking and my £850!

Unfortunately, my mums symptoms worsened and she was admitted to hospital 11 days after booking and roughly 7 days before we were due to travel. With this I quickly emailed the owner and called HomeAway to explain the situation and see if there was an opportunity to get some money back under the circumstances. As you can imagine a stressful time enough!

The owner very quickly referred to her 'no cancellation' policy and after some messages agreed to re-advertise the booking. HomeAway and the owner have even refused to refund the cleaning costs - NOBODY WAS AT THE PROPERTY!

I would avoid this company like the plague as they lack compassion and have are devoid of any empathy. Even their response to my emails have been lacking and have required chasing to get a response.

I will be taking this further but I wanted to share my honest opinion of this company before you book and PLEASE go to more reputable businesses that are willing to go the extra mile when times are tough rather than being passed between the owner of the property and Home Away.

Will never use again. Owner was slow to give refund and all they did was send him a couple of emails saying he had 48 hours to do the refund or his listing would be removed. He didn’t and his listing was not removed. HomeAway then suggested I contact my credit card company and try to get a refund off them first, and then (if they wouldn’t) come back to them with a letter from the bank saying why, along with copies of passport, credit card statements etc. Ridiculous customer service. 6 months later the owner finally resolved his problem with giving the refund and I got it sorted. Incidentally, the reason he couldn’t give the refund was that the wrong amount was on the online form sent to him by HomeAway and it couldn’t be amended. Despite numerous phone calls and emails to them, they didn’t seem to grasp the problem until the very end. Not the owner’s fault at all, in fact his patience was amazing.

There are a few booking companies to choose from, often for the same property, and I would definitely recommend using one of the others.

Homeaway.co.uk We've just had my cottage booking cancelled two days before our start date, in a semi detached property in Highcliff, Chritchurch, Dorset, having put all my plans in place,and having booking events etc. No reason was given. There is no facility to leave a review on the site if your booking is cancelled, so beware of all the positive reviews on the site. Others have said it's almost impossible to leave a bad review. In the case of cancellations it is impossible because no link is provided until you have left the property. Who knows how often this happens? We are now left completely in the lurch. If you can't trust your reservation when it's been confirmed, it seems pointless. It will take a week to get my payment back, although they managed to take it immediately. If I had cancelled I would have lost my payment, there are no consequences for them having cancelled. Unacceptable, I will never use Homeaway again.

Disasterous Experience just like the rest the of hundreds of good people who have made similar complaints with TrustPilot and/or Sitejabber.

I booked the apartment on Homeaway website. I was charged with the first payment. Subsequent to my booking I had to make a cancellation due to the original apartment booked not being available from the property owner. I eventually managed to obtain a partial refund from the property owner - without the processing and service fee charged by HomeAway. Homeaway told me that the owner had my money. The owner showed me a photo as a proof that they only got part of the payment.

I was subsequently forced by HomeAway to contact my bank to request they refund me the amount as a means of deferred responsibility. After a very lengthy process of my bank refusing to refund me the amount, I then submitted a refund request to HomeAway with my bank denial to reimburse letter. HomeAway then sent me service fee charge amount but not the processing fee amount. I'm still have to go through this extremely lengthy and painful back and forth correspondence to obtain a refund for an unauthorised payment I made almost five months ago. HomeAway is simply the WORST GARBAGE OF THE EARTH COMPANY THE WORLD HAS EVER SEEN!!  DO NOT BOOK with this company or else you will regret it!! I regret not reading all the negative reviews from customers first before booking with this website.

dont loose your money with them

As owners stop pay subscriptions or make bussiness with them.THEY DONT PAY BACK THE OWNERS AND THEY KEEP THE PAYMENTS FROM THE GUESTS

Make dispute to your bank and get your money from subscriptions and close them

horrible stealers .

Having seen continuous homeaway TV adds I decided to browse their site and found a holiday rental of interest. Next day phoned to book but before booking needed to clarify parking facility. Was told I would have to phone the helpline who would give a contact Tel no to contact the owner to answer that question however this was wrong information as Tel no can't be given unless you have already booked but the lady said she could e mail the owner who would email me back but nothing at all has Come back

Other negatives were they wanted £150 on arrival which was refundable but big chunk to pay before you've even started the holiday

They also wanted full payment there and then rather than just a deposit.

Decided not to bother with them dread to think what the actual holiday would turn out like if you can't even get past the booking stage without all that agg