“I had an appalling experience with HomeAway a couple of months ago, which is nothing to do with the current Covid-19 crisis. I booked a rental property in France, had it confirmed by the owner and then very quickly cancelled by them, though not before I had booked my flights. A 'full' refund was made to me, but because the payment was taken in Euros I have ended up out of pocket due to commission and/or exchange rate fluctuation. This adds insult to the injury of having been messed about, and I do not see that I should suffer financially because of the failures of HomeAway and/or their property owners. I contacted the HomeAway call centre, and became increasingly frustrated by being repeatedly told to seek satisfaction from my bank (clearly a ridiculous suggestion). I was promised someone would call back, but needless to say that never happened. I made several further calls, none of which resolved the issue - indeed the people I spoke to appeared either unable or unwilling to understand the nature of the problem. They claimed that my contract was with the property owner rather than with them - I am not convinced this is true.
Utterly disgraceful behaviour; the actual cash sum is insignificant, but I would expect recognition for the time and inconvenience. For information, I had a very similar cancellation experience with Airbnb, but the response was entirely different: they apologised profusely, said they had taken the issue up with the property owner, and gave me a voucher for 10% of the booking amount (as well as a full refund obviously). The moral of the story: I WILL NEVER USE HOMEAWAY AGAIN. I encourage everyone else to do the same.”
“Everything about HomeAway is difficult. The customer service is very bad. The website and app does not work. I would suggest moving to Airbnb. Airbnb has excellent customers service and the website and app are easy to use. I want to give HomeAway NO STARS!!! Total nightmare to deal with. Beware of using them.”
“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.”
“MINUS 100 FOR AN APPALLING SERVICE
I wish I could give this company a minus 100, for it’s continued customer service receiving scathing reviews, and still having the audacity to carry on being intransigent, unhelpful in not recognising their own misleading descriptions of properties, and not caring about customers or customer care. They accept no responsibilities or refuse to resolve complaints in an almost psychopathic, narcissistic manner.
Expecting 3 elderly people to spend 3 days in a described small studio apartment with 2 little chairs by small table, NO third seat or other seating in what really is a bedroom with kitchenette and en-suite, is unacceptable.
Company did not state monies paid were not refundable, within up to 180 days of arrival, until they sent booking confirmation. No offer to us upgrade to more suitable accommodation, just an appalling ‘so what’ laissez-faire attitude’.
Since then, (Now realise I should have read reviews first) I read a lot of the reviews posted, and HomeAway invite people to communicate with them, but that is a smoke screen. They are not interested in being amenable and trustworthy.
NO CARE OR CONCERN ONCE THEY GET YOUR MONEY.
Also, no concern that their descriptions leave a lot to be desired, and mislead customers.
Well done, on continuing to be a company people should avoid like the plague, and they are not caring in the slightest once you send them money.
Now matter being investigated by my credit card company.
Do the right thing by sending a full refund and apology, and show people you recognise your own need to change your customer service practices.
SHAME ON YOU!!!!”
“All looked fine at the beginning when I booked an accomodation in France near Disneyland until I looked at my bank account. When I booked the flat - the money showed £ currency on the site. You can imagine my surprise when I discovered that I was charged about three times for paying from my £ account into their probably euro account. The thing is that HomeAway did not get the whole amount in one go but just split it into two halves and I was charged in overall aver £50 for all these transactions from pounds to euro.
Also , after the damage deposit was returned, it supposed to be 200 euro. Of course about £ 25 disappeared as it was taken from this 200 euro.
The thing is - nowhere on the site was written that I needed to pay in euro. All was in pounds. This is what annoyed me a lot.
This was my first and last time using them and would not recommend HomeAway.co.uk to anyone.”
