Owners Direct 

So glad to see these reviews, particularly having spent 45 mins the other day with an inquiry to Home Away's online Help Chat (a clear misnomer) Time wasted partially due to the operator clearly too busy to respond to each question quickly, some gaps of up to 5 mins, after having spent almost twenty minutes convincing them that I was in fact a client.
Have used Owner Direct since 2014 without issue, but as soon as HA moved in, up went the fees, robots replaced humans. Awful. Am now looking for a replacement.

Cutting the long story short, the booking I made through OD got cancelled by the owner the next day. This resulted in a saga of trying to get my deposit money back which lasted several months. After numerous assurances that I will see the money on my account soon I finally received an official reply via email that I will need to request the refund through my credit card issuer!!!!
When speaking to my bank, they have never heard of such practise when clearly the cancellation wasn't my fault and the refund from OD should have been straightforward. However they did agree to raise a chargeback after I supplied them with all the evidence. The bank then applied a credit to my account from their own money while waiting for a reply from OD.
OD rely on people not pursuing their claims as it is completely ridiculous having to contact your bank for a refund when OD are the ones who took the money in the first place. The banks should seek to withdraw the card paying facility from these scammers.

Farewell Owners Direct/HomeAway...........I am off to Simply Owners - fantastic site, one off payment - no 5-12% commission on top of advertising cost,no debit/credit card fees for owner ,no service fee for guests. Monies guaranteed Job done
A shame really because OD used to be really good.

As though things hadn't got bad enough, HomeAway have now removed the PRICE LIST ("Rates") from my listing with no prior warning or reason given! This is unreasonable and I'm inclined to say unacceptable - except that one is faced with either accepting it or leaving because there is no discussion, no consultation with their owners who are also their customers.

Consequently the very useful "currency" drop down menu enabling travellers from around the world to obtain a guide price in their own currency has also disappeared. Going to the "owners dashboard" reveals the previously entered rates to the owner only but even then the "currency" button no longer works. The currency sign before the prices changes but not the actual numbers!! This impacts greatly on guests from Ireland for example who use the UK HomeAway website but have Euros as their currency.

I have no idea when this rates panel was removed but to imagine its sufficient for travellers to only be able to see the price of the period they have inputted without seeing weekly rates for all other months, is a huge marketing error. Everyone wants to scan a price list seeing the peak and lowest priced months. Reading a price list / looking at a menu is in our nature and to deny people this is unforgiveable when as an advertiser I signed up and paid for a listing that portrayed a price list.

It also disables owners from introducing "stand out and named" special promotions previously visible on the rates list when last minute offers could be highlighted for unlet weeks in the near future. Such stupidity doubtless instigated by unimaginative people who have never had to run a business or promote a product or service in their lives.

No explanation for either deficiency has been forthcoming from their so called Customer Services, manned it seems by a call centre in Bulgaria.

I should say that I have been advertising with Owners Direct for many years. My calendar is always updated, I have 6 five star reviews and, unlike many owners, I have no quibble with the introduction of the so-called service fee levied upon the travellers, my guests. Those that pay it to HomeAway obviously believe it is worth doing so (not one has complained to me about it).

But the "offering" has now moved so far away from the formula that was the recipe for success that it's easy to imagine Expedia or whoever bought these businesses seeing serious shortfalls from their original business plans once competing websites develop, gain search engine prominence and offer owners and travellers alike the product they used to enjoy and still very much crave.

Bad experience with this company.Prices seemed to change a lot before booking.After booking and paying a deposit property owner came back a few weeks later cancelling the booking saying she felt the price was too low.

No one in this company can take a decision or say anything at all when you have an issue. We suddenly got our account dismissed for accepting bookings outside of their portal which has absolutely not been the case. All they could say is that according to their algorithm we have been avoiding their commission. I would have been happy to pay their commission if they would have gotten us a reservation in the first place. We do not miss not advertising on this site and the other HomeAway partner sites as the conversion was super low anyway. It was just a frustrating process how they kicked us out without being objective for a moment.

Very poor service where we had a claim against the English gite owners for the unjustified non-return of the damage deposit. Owners Direct (OD)(Home and Away) didn't want to know claiming it was a matter between us and the gite owners who we then couldn't contact as all contact is only through the OD site. Guess what, the owners refused to answer our online communications. What as nice little Catch 22 racket that is. Left with the choice of suing the owners which seemed a bit much for the £250 involved or claiming through our accidental damage Europ Assist policy - sold through OD! Claim was protracted and required much effort and a very forceful case on our part to eventually persuade settlement. In the end a lovely lady in the complaints department sorted everything out. Bye Bye OD for ever p.s. looks like the offending gite is no longer listed :-)

VERY disappointed as a renter. Tried to book 3 different properties all showing available at time of inquiry. Each time we were told that the owner did not update there calendar in a timely manner and the properties were booked. After calling multiple times and trying to find a solution for a property in the area we were told that this is a Canadian company and we don't know the area (Disney area) that well so they could not provide a search for me. They apologized very well but unfortunately that does not translate into a rental. Would not recommend.

We have been with owners direct for over 10 years and had no problems at all but since being taken over by homeaway its been a nightmare!
We have always had on average 8 booking per year and had contact with our customers from first enquiry and taken payments direct.
But now homeaway say we cannot advertise with them unless they are allowed to take the payment. So thought we would give it a go.
What a mistake!
Apparently as this payment was the first to be taken by them,( even though we have had 10 years of bookings with them) they will not release it over to us for 30 days by which time the clients will have been and gone out of our villa.
What right have they to do this! Who's money is it?
Also not only do we pay to advertise on their site, they now take an extra £109.20 off of our clients which is bad enough but then they are charging us 3% to have our money paid over to us. It unbelievable how they are getting away with it!
In fact it is illegal to charge credit card fees since January this year please see below link
Consumer Rights (Payment Surcharges) Regulations 2012.
(I suspect that they wipe this link out.)
Have tried 3 times to sort it out over the phone but have got no where, even asked to speak to a manager but they said they could not put us through but will pass the message on for someone to ring us.
They never rang also asked for a complaint form ( as all you can find on the web site is a complaint form for holiday makers) and all you get is a survey.
As soon as we get our money(or whats left of it) we will be leaving homeaway and they can stick their website where the sun dosn't shine.
We have now started advertising on Simply Owners who are seam to be a reputable company who don't fleece honest folks for every penny they can.
I suggest all owners who have experienced any of these problems to leave this crap company homeaway. You will certainly be better off!
Without owners this company would not exist.

You have not answered my question in your reply e.g. how can you charge customers a fee for payment when it is not legal in the UK and you never state who your payment provider is so how do we know it is not part of homeaway. You also state that we can accept payments without going through you but you do not let us have any contact with the customer to us.
Also you never have given us a complaint form only a survey which is not what we wanted.
Our number is S8536 you can contact us anytime but if going by your previous customer service team I will not hold my breath.

You state that if we give you our identity number which we have you will contact us and STILL you have not got in touch with us or answered any of our Questions!!!!!

I have advertised with owners direct for many years and they have got greedier and greedier every year. Charging a service charge to clients when they book, forcing you to use their online payments then keeping your money for eight weeks until clients go to your place. I could go on. They are a disgrace and home away and holiday Lettings are part of them. I was determined not to use them ever again and looked to find an advertiser that wouldn't rip everyone off and loads of people have gone with simplyowners so I have as well. You should be ashamed of yourselves owners direct

This company is awful. Please do not book via them or Homeaway. They lie and don't repay your deposit (our holiday ended 4th August and still no return of depisit- which owner of property authorised on time). I had to contact them several times before and after the holiday and each time they just fob you off and are unhelpful. Please use someone else if you want to have a good holiday. Ps - it seems there stock response is to blame the owners for things and for not responding! Which having now read the owners reviews here i suspect is another lie!!

Owners Direct (aka Home Away) provided me with the worst holiday booking experience I've ever had in over 20 years of renting holiday villas in Spain & France. Owners Direct's "approved Spanish agent" (a property rental company), claimed to speak fluent English on his website, but in reality did not speak or understand a word. I booked a family villa with pool for 2 weeks then after paying the total amount in full, was then told by the Spanish agent that a further £350-£400 was chargeable for use of towels bed linen & air-con. I have never encountered this type of extra charge in 20 years of renting villas in Spain or France, where all these services have been included in the quoted rental price. I complained about this issue to both the Spanish agent and to Owners Direct's HQ Customer Services in London. Owners Direct/Home Away agreed that their own website & price quoted clearly stated; "No Additional Charges are Applicable for this Booking", however they refused to do anything whatsoever to assist, instead referring me back to their Spanish agent who in the meantime had actually cancelled my booking without informing me! I then had to claim back the £3k rental fee I'd paid in good faith, while trying to locate another suitable family villa at short notice. Finally got my money back minus £100 due to exchange rates - Owners Direct/Home Away have failed to respond to my further requests to even compensate me for this amount. The Owners Direct legal rep was exceedingly slimy in stating; "Although we are concerned, since we are only an advertising company, we do not get involved in any contractual issues". Owners Direct/Home Away represent the property owners & property rental agents only and obviously could not care less about the paying customer. (Having said that judging by all the negative reviews given by property owners, it seems Owners Direct/Home Away are equally useless at dealing with these customers too!). Hopefully this means Owners Direct/Home Away will lose all of their future business to more user friendly and customer focused property rental organisations such as AirBNB, etc. I suspect the name change from Owners Direct to Home Away is simply an attempt to disguise their awful reputation for customer service. I for one despite this disgraceful company's change of identity will never use or recommend them again.

Je suis dégoutée ! Des commissions tellement exagérées... des frais cachés, même quand tu paye un abonnement à l'année, en plus des 141€ qu'ils font payer à ton client, voilà quand tu pense enfin recevoir tes sous (résa début mars, l'argent reçu fin juillet), une commission de 65€ a été retirée de mon argent... je le découvre maintenant ! Je suis tellement en colère de leur système de destruction... Se faire l'argent sur notre dos, grosse arnaque pour le client mais surtout les petites entreprises qui essaye tant bien que mal de survivre dans ce monde pourri. Owners Direct était tellement bien il y a 10 ans quand ils se souciait de leurs clients (autant les propriétaires que les locataires), à présent je vous dit bon vent !
Disgraceful ! Where on earth is my money ?! They charge exaggerated commission (paid by the clients who booked 141€) and then extra commission on top for me to pay (out of the blue 65€, just received less money then I was due) : just says commission, didn't know that was going to be taken from my hard earned money... I do not count my hours spent to run my little business... Where did the friendly "Owners direct" website go ? They used to be amazing...
I thought the pay per booking was crazy (the amounts charged and deducted from my price...) but tried the annual fee this year, oh how much do I regret... still get money taken from me every booking, oh and had barely any bookings through their website this year, really does not work, you have to be pay per booking. I am completely outraged by this money making company on our backs... I am so mad right now, booking paid in early March only get the money after people have arrived (nearly August)... Where the hell is the money in the meantime... Why should you have it ??? Do you speculate with it and kill the economy of the planet ? Why shouldn't the client be earning with that money in their bank until it's time or us little business'.

Owners Direct (indirect) I am an owner and we are now being forced to add another 3% to our holiday prices because greedy owners direct is forcing us to use their online payment system. Add to that that they hold onto the money until 24hrs after the client walks through the door, clearing havoc for owners cash-flow. If anyone would like to get to start a class action against them...

Your reply contains more lies I am afraid. Perhaps, since you assure me that I can continue to receive payments by other methods, you can explain your email to me saying that I can only renew my subscription, only if I allow you to bully me into accepting online payments ONLY? Also if you only hold onto the money for everyone’s security, why are you actively trying to find an instant payment solution for all of the owners who are complaining, or is this another lie fed to your customer service representatives?

I spoke again today with owners direct after my listing was not renewed because I refused online payments. I just noticed too that the payment management fee they charge for online payments STARTS at 3% and goes up if clients pay by credit card. such a totally unfair system, as owners have no control, and will not know how much money they will receive form every booking.

Owners Direct's claim in their responce to this thread is rather contradicted by the message on my dashboard...

"Your subscription expired on 18/8/2018. You must enable online booking
"

I am going with Airbnb and local agencies. I will not be bullied by them.

I have been with Owners direct for five years and the deal for owners has got worse and worse in my opinion.

My Advisor at owners direct has promised to pass on my feelings, I will keep this thread updated...

i could not understand why we had no bookings now its clear all these bad reviews are all what has happened to me .o\d hold on to your money far too long ,Also the website is on and off,For the last few months I was unable to log on to my account because although it said owners direct log in it was actually home and away ,what a waste of money .Dont bother with them is my advice

This is an edited update as Owners Direct have now been totally subsumed into Home Away and no longer exist as a brand. I have written a detailed 1 star review against the Home Away brand and I just want to say here to all owners that I am compiling a complaint to the competition authorities against this rip off company for abuse of market position.

I have renewed my subscription for a year paying £299 for the privilege. In addition I have to pay a 3% payment processing fee for their compulsorily handling payments on my behalf in spite of fact that I don't get paid until 5 or more days after my guests have checked in.

If you do find a property via their site, look for it on an alternative such as simplyowners to avoid their horrendous fees.

If as an owner you wish to join my action of abuse of market power please get in contact.

Re response below - I was mistaken in stating that HomeAway were charging an extra payment fee, it turned out to be a misapplied setting which mistakenly applied a % per guest as opposed to the overall booking. This has now been corrected. However I still have major issues that this company takes money off our guests when they book but does not process the payment to owners until 5 working days after they begin their stay. There is no justification for this.

I found a beautiful villa & the owner has always been so helpful with fast response time, looking forward to going back to Florida.

If I could rate no stars I would!
Appalling customer service despite all their "guarantees" of full refunds.
I had made a booking for a large group of people last November to rent a house to celebrate my birthday with my friends. I had paid a 50% deposit and thought all was well. The owner contacted me 6 months later to say they were double booked and offered me the following weekend. I explained that it had been hard enough to get a date all 12 guests were available for so the booking would need to be cancelled. I thought it would be straightforward but boy was I wrong! Even though it was not my choice to cancel I have been fighting to get a full refund. They have refunded the majority of the money (after several phonecalls and emails) but I am still trying to get my £96 "Service fee" refunded even though the cancellation policy says 100%.
Avoid this company at all costs!
My property ref was #8239025 and booking ref HA-TXT35V

I made a complaint about being charged for my booking in dollars despite being a U.K. Tax payer who used the UK website and a UK credit card to make a booking. I have been charged by my credit card company for this transaction. 11 days and 2 complaints later, I'm yet to receive an explanation from Owners Direct let alone information on how they intend to rectify it. Very poor and unprofessional. I will never use this company again and intend to advise friends and family to steer clear.

I have left a review here on the 4th of June. I have lined out all the issues I have had with OD when renting a property (Booking reference: HA-JZ7ZSC). I have also stated that my review of the property has not been published and it is still not. 3 weeks after I submitted my review I have received an e-mail that the it can not be published as it includes a customer service related issue and I have to deal with OD direct to sort this one out (the CS issue in my review was that OD stopped answering my e-mails and are in no way helpful - so doesn’t that cat chase its tail here?). I have then had a click to chat conversation with OD on the 21st of June to sort the review issue out so future travellers are allowed to find out the truth about the property but the lady could not help as my problem needs to be handeled by the “relevant” team - which was not her.
She promised me an answer within 48 hours this is now 7 days ago and I still have had no reply (reference number 16540833).
I will keep everyone who is interessted informed here until the issue is solved.