HomeAway United Kingdom 

I am a host we had a two week booking and a one week booking from Homeaway in July 2021, they said they would pay us on client arrival, clients paid back in May,
4 weeks later and still no money, 30 phone calls lots of emails, 100 excuses from them, now we are ignored,
we are owed £4300

Date of experience: August 04, 2021

John and Sue M. August 2020
Great apartment with fantastic views. Very clean. Owner was very helpful. Good clear instructions to get to apartment. Great peaceful location. We have visited on two occasions and will be going again next year!

Date of experience: August 29, 2020

I cancelled a holiday through home away in 2020 going to Soller in spain and have now cancelled my second soller holiday because of Covid. Both times so easy to cancel on Home Away website. Both times excellent service from the host Andrea and both times received refund back to my card within a few days. Thank you to Home Away(Vrbo) and thank you to Andrea. It is a terrible time for the tourist industry. I hope both buissinesses survive. I recommend and i will use again.

Date of experience: January 29, 2021

Booked a stay via Vrbo which had to be cancelled due to covid. I requested a refund which was denied at the time, instead I was assured that I would be able to change my dates when we were able to rebook. Now that travel restrictions have lifted I tried to contact Vrbo multiple times with no luck, I was then able to reach them and a case was raised but still no contact was received. After raising a complaint I have been told I will not be able to rebook and they will not honour a refund. £600 down. Thanks Vrbo

Date of experience: July 30, 2021

Unable to go on holiday to France due to Covid restrictions. Unable to roll forward to next year, unable to get a refund of my deposit. Owner refusing to communicate, VRBO maintaining that deposit conditions state non-refundable, so nothing they can do. Credit card company contest that Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act doesn’t apply as the debtor, creditor and supplier link has been broken as the contract is with the host and the payment was made to another retailer ie VRBO.

I’ll never book anywhere again where this contractual relationship exists.

The whole experience hasn’t been helped by VRBO’s customer service representatives not responding to emails and communicating poorly by phone.

Date of experience: August 03, 2021

We recently stayed at Thrigby Thatched Cottage in Norfolk. It was our first visit to the Norfolk Broads and what a lovely time we had. The weather helped and we were able to do a boat tour of a couple of the beautiful Broads.
Thrigby cottage was a great base. The beds were comfy and the kitchen well - equipped, the living room cosy in the evening. The wildlife park next door added to the holiday, as did the lovely garden at the cottage.


comfy,

Date of experience: October 19, 2020

Due to the ongoing issues with travel due to COVID19 we have been forced to cancel our bookings with Homeaway or VRBO as it is now.
The T&C’s says 100% refund, I received my service fee straight away but I have not yet received the refund for my booking. They informed that they have paid it but it is not in my bank, they gave me an ARN number which the bank doesn’t accept and have consistently ignored my concerns and won’t fulfil there side of the conditions. They have also issued my other refund via a cheque from the property company despite me asking for this to be paid back to the card that I was charged. The amount of times being fobbed off is absolutely disgraceful to what I thought was a reputable organisation

Spoke with VRBO support (Sergio) and after confirming with my financial institution I have now been refunded the monies, thanks very much to all involved

Date of experience: February 16, 2021

My wife booked a short break on Anglesey, Llanerchymedd “Little Mountain View.”
Sat, 22 Aug - Tue, 25 Aug 2020

Reading the previous reviews it’s hard to believe this is the same company, however I can only post a review based on my personal experience, ours was far from negative.

I have to say as we got out of the car and walked to the caravan we were met with impressive outside facilities.

On entry to the caravan we were greeted by a very well-appointed interior, tastefully decorated and furnished, we had everything we needed for an enjoyable stay.
Having suffered from two blonde moments that required contacting staff/management, I was very impressed with the ease of communication and speedy resolve to my problem, a degree of professionalism and personal attention rarely encountered these days, everyone was very happy and eager to assist, my issues were dealt with in very short order and to our full satisfaction.

We really enjoyed our stay at “Little Mountain View,” a booking here Is highly recommend, we will absolutely book again.
Mr & Mrs, J.T. Knowles.

Date of experience: August 29, 2020

Very difficult to get hold of anyone. Have been cut off several times. My Travelnest account no longer recognises my name/password. Feedback form sent in June but holiday had been postponed, and taken last week, but no feedback form sent this time. Phone number ending 1971 on company info not functioning. Very poor quality cottage, dirty, owners denying responsibility via rude email to me.

Date of experience: September 28, 2020

Holiday Ref: HA-524JK4 booked for 20/6/20-27/6/20
Hayle property ref 8026534

I canceled this holiday on the 17/3/20 at 08.47
have still not received a refund having spoken to the property owner he said he has a no refund policy. I then told them I would put in a claim for cashback on my credit card to which he said he would take me to the county court if I did.

10 months and still no refund
will never book with them again
Mr Carl Bolding

Date of experience: January 14, 2021

Dear Homeaway, I am chasing a refund on behalf of a guest who had to cancel with us due to Coronavirus rules. You told us you were issuing a full refund to on 24th September but he advises he only received a part refund on the 29th. I can't find an email or an address for your customer services on the website? Please advise how we make contact with you?

Date of experience: October 01, 2020

My apologies to the owners of Villa Verde but I assumed this was a review site and not a forum. Little did I realise that my honest account would land in the middle of a long standing dispute with HomeAway (since 2015 judging by your own reviews). You clearly have no current rental business with HomeAway. Why are you even allowed on this review site when your own website mentions your Facebook campaign against 'the lying and cheating ways of HomeAway'. As stated, all of my guests who decided to cancel have RECEIVED A FULL REFUND OF THEIR DEPOSIT from HomeAway. All of my other guests (so far) have RECEIVED THEIR FULL REFUNDABLE DAMAGE DEPOSIT from HomeAway and posted 5* reviews for my property. On that basis I've raised my review to 5 stars. If you continue to embroil me in your squabble I will contact all of my past guests and ask the to review HomeAway on this site. All of my reviews have been 5* and so I imagine my guests were also satisfied with HomeAway.
Regarding one of the points you made, please see the complaint regarding HomeAway acting as a 3rd party for James Villas (which is a company when I last looked). Your entry on booking.com shows your property as an apart-hotel so you can't possibly have had this if you were ever listed on HomeAway because, as you say, HomeAway only deals home owners.
Your comments on this site place yourselves firmly at the top of the moral high ground and yet your web page shows you decided to stop receiving guests because of your own health worries with Covid 19.

Date of experience: August 16, 2020

Comms was fine until it came to deposit refund. Got a message saying it had been done but days later = no money.
Only contact is via chat and agent dropped chat then tried again, got to ask where's my money = agent dropped chat.
Annoyed I spent half hour looking for feedback or complaints- there isn't any!!! Its only the chat or call options- - guess that would if complaint detected = drop call or chat 😆
Advise using other provider

Date of experience: September 02, 2020

As an owner who has just had to cancel a booking due to the worsening Covid situation, I’m not happy that Homeaway have rescinded their policy whereby the owner did not get a black mark in their metrics system when cancelling with a full refund due to Covid. We now get penalised for following the Government Covid regulations. As the pandemic is probably worse than ever this seems a ridiculous situation.

Following the response from Matt, I think the ball is in Homeaway’s court. I was told by their Customer Services that they changed their ‘no penalty’ cancellation policy last July. I was informed that, as it it stands, the only way I could ensure that the guest got a full refund was for me to cancel the booking but that it would detrimentally affect my record in spite of selecting Covid as the reason. Nothing more I can say to Homeaway other than asking the to reinstate their previous policy of allowing no fault Covid cancellations.

Date of experience: January 02, 2021

Following my review below I was contacted by Vrbo. The excellent Sergio contacted me and has sorted out my refund. Happy days!

Date of experience: February 18, 2021

Good for booking but did nothing to support us regarding covid cancellation. Have lost 90% of cost of accommodation due to how close to departure our flight was cancelled.
Under normal circumstances their cancellation policy seems to be fair, but under these circumstances I would have expected some discretionary good will on the part of the property owner which I feel home away should have supported us on.

Date of experience: August 15, 2020

Still Waiting for Booking Fee Refund.
I cancelled this booking on 10th Sept, and was advised that I would get 100% refund. The owners of the property were really helpful and immediately authorised a refund of their portion of the money and the damage deposit. Homeaway (VRBO) have not been so helpful. 4 weeks on from cancelling this booking I am still waiting for the return of the booking fee.
PS. Tried sending email to contact email address,
but my mailapp did not recognise the address as being a valid one.

Thank you for response. Where do I find your Private Message that you sent me so that I can respond.
I have tried contacting you via the other ways you suggest without success!!

Date of experience: October 13, 2020

I have just come back from a lovely weeks holiday in the new forest. I booked with HomeAway and angie was lady I dealt with. I could not say enough good things about angie she has been brilliant. From the time I booked the cottage to the day I left angie was there if I needed her. The cottage was spotless well equipped and lovely log fire. I wouldn’t hesitate to book again.
Thanks angie

Date of experience: October 16, 2020

HomeAway were pretty much invisible. All thy were was a website. There is room for improvement in regards to aftersales/ after stay feedback. The cottage itself was Good. The only complaint I could make is that I was not met by the cottage owner even though I was in constant communication with her before arriving. She told me last minute that her Mum would meet me but when we arrived it was her Dad. I got the impression that she was annoyed that I told her I would be checking in 4 hours later than the earliest checking in time. Since leaving 3 days ago I have not had any communication at all from the owner which is impolite. The mad Scottish woman next door was anti social as were most of the elderly people living or staying in the vicinity. What is wrong with people! People need more education!

Date of experience: August 21, 2020

Booked a lovely cottage in Devon and from the booking, communication to the stay and after, everything was flawless.

Date of experience: September 10, 2020