Homeaway

[Malibucyprus]

Hi, does anyone have any experience of booking a villa via Homeaway?

We've only ever had 'package holidays' but they're working out so pricey, it's thousands cheaper to book a villa and flights separately. I'm wary though as we've never done things this way before.

Is our deposit safe with them? Is our booking guaranteed? If Brexit has an impact on our holiday, and flights are cancelled, will we lose our money?

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Yes, have used them several times and only have good things to say. They are a reputable company.

You are only booking the accomodation though, not a package, so you will not have those usual protections

Ok thank you.

I've sent a couple of questions to an owner and the only replies I'm getting are a request to submit my payment? And then a warning saying I have 24 hours to pay.

I definitely clicked the "ask the owner a question" button, and not "request to book" so was a little worried about that one.

Home away are a listing site for owners. They will take a commission from the deposit from both you and the owner if you book via them. You may then pay the balance to either homeaway or the owner depending on how they’ve set up their account

I listed properties with them for about 20 years and it was all ok, although I disliked their ever increasing meddling in our rental business - but as a renter you should be fine. Not sure if they’ve added anything Re brexit to their t&cs

I think the request for payment is an automatic response if you ask a question. I asked the same question to a number of property owners and got lots of these requests for paymebt!

We advertise our villa on Homeaway and a lot of owners don't realise that you can reply to an enquiry without sending a payment request! The Homeaway system is structured in that way to encourage owners to send quotes to all enquirers. I always go for the 'reply without sending quote' option and send a personalised reply to enquirers who just have questions rather than wanting to book immediately.

The Homeaway commission (as with Airbnb) makes the villa more expensive than booking with us direct, but some guests are happy to pay extra for the guarantee!

We have used Homeaway a few times and have always been happy with our accomodation.

Is it fairly standard to pay a 50% deposit when booking?

It depends on the owner. I used to charge 25% deposit

We’re looking to book for August and being asked for 100% payment. I’m wary. It’s a lot of money to lose.

Malibucyprus if you are paying via the Homeaway payment platform (either with Instant Book or 24-hour confirmation) then the owner won't actually receive your money until after you've checked in. But if you are paying the owner direct it may be different. I would check with Homeaway (there's a booking assistance phone number under the owner's name). 100% up front does seem rather odd. We always ask for 25% and we don't see any of the money until after the check-in date. Are there lots of reviews over a few years, and have you googled the villa to see if it appears on other sites?

To be fair it was April last year, but we had a Homeaway nightmare. Even after trying social-media shaming we still didn’t get out problem resolved (but ITV did contact us to see if we wanted to take our problem onto a show!).

I was not the lead booker, so couldn’t confirm the exact set up, but we booked through their website (didn’t do a direct transfer to a homeowner). We found out with 48hrs notice that our accommodation for 9 people was “unavailable” (a message from the owner). HomeAway offered us alternative accommodation, but it was a) more expensive b) quite far from where we actually wanted to be. We managed to find some pretty random alt accommodation BUT couldn’t get a refund until we’ll after the event, so we had to find the money again in the meantime.

Image attached of the enormously unhelpful message they sent us. We were able to get the money back through the bank, about 10 days later (so, a week after we needed it).

I really don’t know if any other booking sites offer anymore “protection”?

This is so bloody difficult! I’m not usually this indecisive, but so worried about being scammed!

So, I found a lovely villa, messaged the owner, guy called Stavros, he replied within seconds confirming availability etc...decided to google the villa and found it on Tripadvisor, where it looks as though Stavros has written his own reviews, also found it listed on getawayvillas.com where the reviews mention the owner with a completely different name. Called Getawayvillas and she claims she’s known the owner for a long time and his name is NOT Stavros!

I just don’t know who to trust?!

I’ve found the same villa on booking.com where it’s £100 cheaper!! 🤯

I have used Homeaway twice and had lovely holidays. We are due to go to another one next month.
It's a good sign if the owner replies quickly and if they have good reviews and also if the villa has a name and you can google that name and find its own website and other listings.
I think if you are worried about this particular one you'd be better avoiding. My sister works for a bank and says people do get scammed. She would never book through them.

We’ve booked through Getawayvillas now, lots of good reviews on Facebook, google and Tripadvisor. Company from Leeds, spoke to them on the phone and she answered all of my questions. Whereas with Homeaway I called them twice and neither agent could understand what I meant when I asked what their process was for vetting owners to make sure they’re genuine.