Owners Direct 

Cookies. There is no option to reject all so unless you want to spend 20 minutes going through every vendor and rejecting, the website is unusable. This has cost someone a few thousand pounds as I'm off to use an easier website. Shame

We stayed at thorness bay holiday park in a private caravan adevertisd by direct holiday homes.
The caravan was poor quality,boiling scalding hot water and the front steps dangerous. Getting our deposit back was extremely challenging,we had broke nothing yet the owners tried many ways to keep hold of our deposit.
Beware
Lj holidays iow. And their caravan 8758 on direct holiday homes.
I don’t want people to have the trouble we have had. Awful.

Blimey just reading the horrific reviews on here about owners direct is bad enough let alone booking anything with them. Literally just about to part with a big chunk off my credit card to pay for an apartment in Spain then almost as an after thought I said to myself hang on better have a quick look at the reviews. Glad I did, what a laughing stock, how the hell are they still in business lol. My credit car staying firmly in my wallet and I will book with Simply owners

So relieved to read negative reviews by other owners - I thought we were being singled out for special treatment. As stated by others, since coming under the HomeAway / VRBO umbrella this has been a painful experience. My formal complaint lodged in July remains unanswered and we will in future be putting our business through FloridaRentals.com.

This is the basis of my complaint.....
For the avoidance of any doubt this ‘feedback’ is a Formal Complaint but as you make it so difficult to raise a complaint – a highly arrogant stance – I am summarising here my issue. The inconsistent and dishonest responses I have received so far from your agents leads to me express doubt that the facts of my case have been accurately recorded in your records.
• In response to an email received (telling me unless I submitted the appropriate form I would be liable for Withholding Tax) I telephoned VRBO Customer Support on 13 Feb at 21.00 UK time for some guidance. For information this call lasted over 30 minutes and cost me over £50 on my phone bill. The Agent I spoke to was completely unable to help, claimed to be a supervisor when I asked to be transferred, and in the end told me to just reply to the email. Great Service.
• With some scepticism I did as suggested only for the email to be returned as undeliverable a few days later
• I then received a further email and as a consequence completed form W-8ECI and returned this with the email on the 12th February – there was no other instructions on how to lodge the form
• On the 1st June I received a Deposit Statement showing that £216 withholding tax was applied to booking reference ########. I phoned Customer Support and spoke with an agent that I now consider to have been utterly incompetent and ignorant to the situation. I was given ticket no ########## and told I would receive a response within 24 hours
• I chased on 3rd June having heard nothing and was basically fobbed off
• On 10th June I called again and was then told – having expressed my displeasure – that the agent would escalate the issue and again I would get a response within 24 hours
• Having heard nothing again I tracked down a Premier Partner phone number (clearly having such status does not guarantee Premier Service). Having explained the issue again the agent asked me to email her the W-8ECI forms I had completed in February which I did. Receipt was acknowledged. I was told to expect an initial response within 72 hours and given another ticket no – ########
• On the 22nd June I get another deposit statement that showed for booking ####### I was deducted another £195 withholding tax
• On 24th June I phoned the Premier Partner line again. This time the agent walked me through changing and completing tax forms via my Dashboard – why was I not given this guidance back in January / February or on any of the subsequent calls? I was assured that 1) the forms were completed and submitted correctly and 2) upon action by the appropriate team the 2 x withholding tax sums would be refunded to me.
• On 27th June I get an email which includes “Thank you for contacting HomeAway. I am following up with you about your questions about being refunded the tax that was sent to the IRS. Once the taxes have been sent to the IRS, we are unable to refund those to you.”
To say I was furious with this latest development would be an understatement.
Having responded by email I was informed I could call and ask for a ‘Resolutions Agent’ to discuss. So once again you put up barriers to me making a formal complaint about the incompetent and misleading replies I have received. Not only that you expect me to incur the cost of another transatlantic phone call to speak to an organisation I have completely lost faith in. Insulting of me as a client to say the least.
I would far sooner spend my time continuing to look at the alternatives to Home Away as frankly I see no reason to renew as this is how you treat your partners.
As already mentioned this is a formal complaint and I want a response and financial compensation for the withholding taxes deducted that should not have been, and would not have been deducted, were it not for serial and institutional incompetence on your part.

We’ve used Owners Direct a few times , most recently at the end of 2019 and we’ve always found the process pretty seamless. Fees all as expected, deposit refunds made when promised.
We’ve never had to cancel so can’t comment on their handling of such matters, but for us they did ‘exactly what it said on the tin’ and we were perfectly happy and wouldn’t hesitate to use again.

I am a holiday cottage owner, and have used Owners Direct as my booking portal for several years. When they were a UK company I paid an advertising fee of £220 per year and guests booked directly with me. Then they were bought by HomeAway (owned by Expedia). During the covid-19 crisis they have been given $3.2billion funding. My guests pay up to £230 "travellers payment". I pay £300 advertising fee, AND a payment processing fee of £70 per booking. The guest therefore pays extra, I lose £70, and guess what? My guests weren't refunded for 7 weeks when they cancelled for Covid! I gave every guest 100% refund on the day of cancellation, but those who booked through Owners Direct waited weeks, I had to call 6 times and email 4 times for my Easter guests alone. And my first guests this year arrived on Friday 17th July, and paid weeks ago - I still haven't received a penny! Owners Direct say there's a payment delay, why?? If you're an owner don't advertise with them, if you're a guest, google the property on Facebook or Instagram and book directly with the owner. You'll save money and be better looked after. I take pride in looking after my guests and I am furious I've been ripped off!

hopeless. Expensive, greedy.
Make sure you read the T And c's. Heres an extract explsimg where their exorbitant charges go...12.1 The Site is merely a venue allowing you to view Properties listed on the Site, communicate with Partners in respect of any queries or questions you may have, or to make a booking with a Partner for the rental of a Property. ....
That's it merely a web site.
Do yourself favour and book directly with the owner. And save££££s on their service and bank charges. Theres not one iota of support or protection.

In 2009, I booked a property owned by a Mr. Paul Staff called Apartment Lydia, situated in Cala Mendia, Mallorca. On arrival we found hundreds / thousands of ants parading from the front bedroom into the kitchen, feeding on food waste left in the pedal bin, as well as crumbs on the worktops. Also, bed mattresses were wet, and the air conditioning stank like sulphur. On contacting Staff, he agreed to charge for one night and to refund the rest of the monies which we had paid, by paying me by BACS, and said he was happy for us to move to alternative accommodation. We are decent folk so we foolishly cleaned Staff’s property, getting rid of the ants in the process.

When we returned home, Staff had not refunded us, and when I contacted him he refused to do so. I went ballistic, but Staff like a lot if lying cheating thieves, made a pre-emptive strike and contacted my local police force
making accusations of harassment against me !!!!!

Owners Direct were a disgrace, and offer me no help whatsoever.

To this day this makes my blood boil, hence this review.

The message here is avoid Owners Direct and especially avoid any dealings with Mr. Paul Staff, a former British “man” now domiciled in Mallorca.

Just realised we’ve been charged £170 for a service charge, on checking this out apparently it’s a charge for being charged?... won’t be using Home and away again.

Tried to book a holiday. Even though the dates we wanted were available and accepted on the website the owner of the apartment in Rothbury Northumberland then cancelled our booking. He blamed HOme and Away saying the system should not have accepted our booking. They blamed him saying he had made an error in his diary. So now we have no holiday. Have raised with Home and Away and they are not interested at all and have fobbed us off. They charge an extortionate additional fee to the traveller on top of the booking. My advice would be go to a proper letting agent and not this company

Whilst not perfect Owners Direct I have found to be a good source of bookings for our holiday rental. It was better when you could take your own payments and just pay the annual subscription as guests and home owners are now forced to pay extortionate fees for advertising. However they are certainly not the worst and I would say are the best of a bad bunch (a certain review site being the worst)

To all the owners out there I totally understand your frustration, we moved over to Owners Rentals 3 years ago after a long time with OD, Owners Rentals . com have been around just as long if not longer since 2001 I think, have better rankings and we get loads more bookings at a fraction of the price. OD were really outstanding until they were taken over 10 years ago, shame. i'm sure the original owners are sunning themselves somewhere, and good luck to them.

What used to be a good company is now the opposite.

The service level has dropped an they prices have risen. Bye bye owners direct.

If I could, I would give them zero stars. They treat their clients with contempt, pursuing hard-line policies and tactics at our expense. I'm an owner and have listed with them for years. They have insisted that I sign up to online payments when I renew instead of continuing to receive my fees directly from my clients. They just don't understand or care that the people who want to holiday in my property are MY clients. The money they pay for rental of the property is MY money. OD provide a service to me, through which such bookings can be made and I pay them an annual subscription in return. MY clients, also pay them a booking fee. The problem is that OD partner with a third party online payment platform - one that they choose and that they agree terms with, which are beneficial only to them - and I, as their client, have no say in who they choose or the terms that are agreed. This third party they have seen fit to appoint hangs on to MY money until the guest checks in, even when a booking has been made and fees received by them many months, sometimes years, in advance. They then deduct an additional 3% of the value of the booking, their “processing fee", for the privilege of hanging on to MY money. By my reckoning, if you multiply the amounts they hold onto across OD's many thousands of clients, often small, private owners like me who rely on this income to pay their running costs, they will be making millions at the expense of OD's clients. OD don't seem to care, and I expect they also benefit from this in an indirect way as this will be built into the commercial terms they have agreed with the supplier. All I want is MY money from MY clients in full and in a timely way. They won't do that, so why would I continue to be their client? Well, the short answer is, I won’t.

Quite simple the worst company i have ever dealt with in the holiday market. I have advertised with Owners Direct since 2004 when they were excellent. The current offering is shocking and i have cancelled my subscription

We do most of our holidays with them. They are not as good as they were, more fees, but overall still a good option. With Trip advisor now offering a similar product it may get better?

I HAVE BEEN USING HOMEOWNERS DIRECT FOF OVER 5 YEARS NOW AND SINCE THEY HAVE BEEN TAKEN OVER by Home Away/Expedia I THINK THEY ARE DREADFULL
The charges they charge clients are putting a lot of people of.
the website has a lot of problems.
the worst bit is you have to use their payments system they are a company called yapstone International Ltd. this company charges 3% of your payments, they handle all the payments from the holidaymaker and they pay the owner. I thought this was good as it should take the hassle away from me. Until I got an email one morning demanding I pay them £6700 immediately. I thought this was a scam until they told me they had paid this into my account in December, it's now July.
You may ask why I had not noticed I admit I should have done but I often get amounts like this for a few deposits at a time. I did not for one second think it could be an error on their part plus I was very busy and my accountant does the books once a year.
The reason this happened is that someone was trying to book my house online and the website for HO was not working, so she paid a deposit 11 times and it appeared to her that it had NOT gone through. I was not even aware of her booking. Eventually, she contacted me to tell me what happened. I called OD and they said they were having a few problems with the site but not to worry they would refund her the full amount and start a new booking which they did. I thought no more of it.
So why on earth would yapstone pay the money into my account especially as they take 5 to 7working days to pay and they were aware of this the day after the Lady paid so many deposits? Mistakes happen, but they take no responsibility and have kept all the money owing to me without my permission it has come at the worst time for me and left me without my normal income.
The stupid thing is I get a lot of repeat booking people ask if they can go to
me directly I said I'd rather they used the OD site so I didn't have to bother I now wish I hadn't. They have also taken 3% of the amout I have to return, that is £200 they havent even mentioned that. Sad when a company one liked so much has become so bad.

I am giving two stars but only because I do get a lot of bookings through them.
BUT as a place to advertise my property, which is in the USA, I am still very unhappy. Since Owners Direct was swallowed up by HomeAway/Expedia, nearly all my bookings come from the USA and are mostly short term, 3-5 days. This of course costs extra with the frequent cleaning etc. Plus we then have the problem of my advert being in UK£, Americans want it in US$, Canadians have the problem of two exchange rates etc., as they want to pay in US$. It is difficult to know what to tell them the rental will be, as who knows what exchange rate HomeAway use? Also, as my bank account is in the UK, with no option for my account in the US, I lose out on the transferring to my account here and then, to add insult to injury, I lose out again in sending funds out to the US for upkeep and bills! With the extra fees charged, ostensibly to build a better website, comes a load of nonsense information. I don't need 'ranking metrics' or any of the other things to know how I am doing, I can actually tell through the number of bookings! Hate the website! Will look at other companies to advertise through.

I received a booking via Owners Direct from someone in Germany for the week commencing July 21st.In order to access the property it is necessary for the visitors to get instructions about how to open the key box in the porch of the property.Because of the non communication policy contact with the visitors has to be done via OD which has been done with a request of confirmation.I have also sent an e mail asking for confirmation of receipt without any success.However I have also looked at the payment schedule from this visitor and see that the second instalment has not been paid.This is beginning to look like the booking has been cancelled and if this is the case then. I have lost the opportunity to let the property in this week in spite of having had the opportunity to let it on several occasions.i have contacted OD by phone but they have not been able to give me any information.I would welcome an answer on this site

I am very disappointed that owners direct use the tactics they do to stop you talking to customers. Also making you use online payments which they then hold until the customer has gone to the apartment therefore keeping your money and obviously earning interest on it. I feel like I’m held to ransom and don’t want to advertise that way but they seem to own all advertising sites . Very underhand tactics and charges are too much