HomeAway booking

dwill1503

We made a booking on 23rd March for property 664701 via the HomeAway website and paid the vendor via the website £3369 for the full amount due for our booking for 15 nights in August.

In April, I emailed the vendor to ask if they needed any further information from us and the lady replied to say no, nothing else was needed.

On 26th May I received an email to say that our booking had been cancelled because the vendor had sold the property and we had been issued a refund.

This in itself has caused great problems trying to find a mother house suitable for 10 people but now we are even further more distressed to find that the refund that has been issued is £144GBP less than what we paid due to the difference in the exchange rate.

Given that the vendor has the opportunity to earn several hundred dollars in interest from bookings and payments taken that are then just refunded, we find it a great concern to hear that there is no procedure in place to protect customers who make payments for bookings, only to then have them cancelled. They are "simply a marketplace and cannot mediate". And we are now also 144GBP down due to the change in exchange rate.

Does anyone have any experience of dealing with HomeAway or is able to advise on what we can do to retrieve the £144?

lynx10

FYI: For the past decade, our deposits for overseas holiday rental accommodation, booked 6 months in advance, have been 20-45% of the total charge (25% deposit being the norm).

However, a HomeAway rental in Italy in which we're interested is seeking a 100% deposit, 6 months in advance of the rental period.

Expedia - the owners of HomeAway - have been reported to be trying out new business models.

Update: The owner has since confirmed the deposit as 30%, in spite of the initial confirmation message from HomeAway implying a 100% deposit:

1st Payment Due 07-Dec-2016 € [total]

Other renters using HomeAway might wish to be aware that, regardless of the full balance appearing to fall immediately due, the usual 'deposit/balance later' arrangements may be possible.