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HomeAway Reviews By Owners

I wanted to share this with the community to see what you’re thoughts are in the matter.

1) Soaring Vacation Rental Website Listing Rates: Vacation rental owners  biggest complaints are that listing websites are increasing their prices and decreasing the amount of rental leads they’ve received in the past.

Unfortunately many owners feel  stuck paying whatever fees the listing sites demand to advertise their rental property.

I have included several comments from these vacation rental listing websites I have cited directly from the Homeaway website.

These are direct  from Homeaway website members in response to Homeaways new listing price hikes and “tier” pricing.

lynnehartyNew Member
lynneharty
New Homeaway Pricing & Subcription Levels
“It’s awful – just a way for the owners of homeaway and vrbo to squeeze more money out of customers by pitting us against each other, running a bidding war.
If there were a better source I would quit. Takes all the good will out of what they offer as far as I’m concerned. Isnt’ enough that they own vrbo and homeaway and yet we pay to advertise in both of them?
I wish this community could agree to reject this new plan, but doubt that’s remotely possible. Shame on them.” ————————————————————————————————————————————–
New Member
annette
New Homeaway Pricing & Subcription Levels
“I am also EXTREMELY disappointed and frustrated with HomeAway and their disregard for owners.
This latest “offer” to “improve listing performance” is really unacceptable.
I wish we could all ban together and refuse to “upgrade”.  That would be one way to get our point across.
I am hoping other companies are paying attention to the huge  mistakes HomeAway is making with their customer base, so that a good alternative will be made available to us in the near future.” ——————————————————————————————————————————————-
miljb53New Member
miljb53
New Homeaway Pricing & Subcription Levels
“Completely agree with your comments. It is deplorable, $300 for a basic listing!! and $999 for the top listing!!!
Someone is having a laugh! but it certainly IS NOT the property owners!!
Do HomeAway not realise the current state of the worlds finances? People are struggling to to keep up payments on their holiday properties with reduced rental rates and fewer people out there able to afford holidays at all.
Corporate greed at its most obvious. I have been with HA for several years now but will not be renewing when my current subscription expires as I hope is the case with many current subscribers.
There are plenty of smaller sites out there and I am sure they will welcome any defectors from HA and offer reasonable rates and probably better service.
HA need to rethink and fast! From a very angry JB” —————————————————————————————————————————————————

2) Disconnect and disregard for property owners: Vacation rental owners have questions, comments and suggestions which seem to fall on deaf ears.

Owners seem to be growing more and more irritated with large vacation rental listing websites like Homeaway.

I’ve heard rental owners complain about them all including Homeaway, VRBO, VacationRentals, TripAdvisor/FlipKey. Here are more comments cited from the Homeaway website. ————————————————————————————————————————————————-

New Member

bridget
New Homeaway Pricing & Subcription Levels
“I so agree with this posting… I have completed about one month of debating back and forth with horrible customer service… hold times of up to 40 minutes… waiting for managers to call back for 7 days and then dealing with the ‘new hires’ who have no experience – unreal!!!
I have lost all regard for homeaway and hope they don’t ruin VRBO also.
 Because of the new policy/extortion at homeaway one is forced to pay for the ‘featured listing’ to get any exposure at all or buy into their tiered system which is absolutely so expensive and prohibitive for homeowners with more than one property.
Shame on homeaway for offering nothing new for three times the price. I hope enough people get angry with this and force change.” The comment above addresses points 1 and 2 ———————————————————————————————————————————————————-

karen.longNew Member

karen.long
(in response to bridget)

New Homeaway Pricing & Subcription Levels

“Same here. I wrote in about a problem and got a rude email answer back.” ——————————————————————————————————————————————————–

New Member

susanedwards
New Homeaway Pricing & Subcription Levels
“I just learned about subscription levels, when I tried to call to ask questions, I was on hold.  I decided to put on speaker and get work done, they took 1 1/2 hours to answer and the person was really rude.  said she had been getting lots of calls about just this.” ——————————————————————————————————————————————————— 3) Decreased exposure for their vacation rental property:

Vacation rental owners have been very vocal about these vacation rental website listings price hikes. Owners reviews of the listing websites advertising results  have not been positive.  Owners complain that they are no longer getting the exposure on these websites which they once did. Here is yet another comment from a vacation rental owner regarding the new price increase for listings and the actual consequences owners are facing with Homeaway. ——————————————————————————————————————————————————-

tahoepanoramaNew Member

tahoepanorama
New Homeaway Pricing & Subcription Levels
“I have noticed that since the introduction of the tier pricing plan, I have not received a single inquiry and the number of people looking at my listing has basically stopped. I think what made the existing customers mad is the fact that HomeAway does not provide actual incentives with the new higher pricing plans. These higher pricing plans are simply to stomp over their existing customers. If these high pricing plans provide any real incentives such as increasing actual number of inquirers or help to raise the rental rate, then everyone will be happier and they will expend their business as well, rather than just squeezing for golden eggs.” ——————————————————————————————————————————————————

Be aware of the pros and cons when advertising your vacation rental on listing websites. That’s not to say you shouldn’t use vacation rental websites to advertise your vacation home. In fact I recommend you do. Don’t become a victim of the monopoly the vacation rental listing sites have on rental owners. Stayed tuned to this vacation rental marketing blog to learn how to beat this system. Need help marketing your vacation rental? Push the easy button! Contact us today for a free marketing solutions -Call Now 1-800-856-8641 https://villamarketers.com  

One Comment

  • Chris says:

    Homeaway is Just Gouging it’s Owners & Property Managers

    I have managed multiple properties with Stayz since 2005, and recently had to migrate all of them to Homeaway when they took over Stayz.

    Apart from a major exercise due to the hundreds of mistakes made in the process, I have now discovered that Homeaway will not pass on guest payments until a MONTH after the guest arrives.

    They claim it is a security measure. This is absolute rubbish! Homeaway is just gouging property managers and owner; making money on the held funds for an extra month. They claimed it would only happen on the first booking for EACH property, just to verify the owner. This is a lie, as we have been given two late payment dates for the same property this week. It is also rubbish, because once an owner or property manager is verified once, why would they need to be verified again for the other properties they manage?

    This delayed payment means that we don’t find out for a month after the arrival date if we will be paid. How are owners meant to keep track of payments that are related to an arrival a month ago? This will involve extra time, extra staff hours, extra costs for us to monitor.

    Further to this, property managers generally have to pay their owners at the end of the month for all bookings received during that month. If they haven’t been paid by Homeaway, and the guests have been and gone, how can we pay the owners? We are not financiers. We are not a benevolent fund.

    Alternatively, how do we not pay the owners, keep track of which bookings from the last month have not yet been paid for, and pay the owners the following month? They may not receive payment for a completed booking for up to nine weeks or more.

    This is outrageous.

    We can see no alternative but to charge higher rates on Homeaway, compared to other sites, to cover the extra delays and costs. Guests will go to other sites as Homeaway complaints continue to increase, and hopefully they will see that they need to manage their income producers much better than they do at present.

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