Help with a booking on HomeAway please

Does anyone have the HomeAway UK Customer Service number please? I’ve searched and searched but to no avail. I know it exists as I spoke to them last year.

I booked an apartment through them last week and am becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the antics of the owner. Having paid through HA in full, I get an off platform email from the owner, with a “Booking Form” attached, including asking for my bank account details. Like, why? I’ve paid through the platform. He said it was for tax purposes…

Poor Mr Joan was awoken by my ranting at 7 am - he needed to get up early anyway - but when he looked at the booking form, he decreed it was an off platform attempt at a contract.

I get taking passport nos for Gov’t reasons, but actually, neither do you need my home address. Even if I was paying you directly, I need your bank account details to do so. You don’t need mine.

Today I get a further email saying that there is a 40-45 euro charge by their management company for checking us in late, and this is stated on the website. So 9 pm is late? And the listing has disappeared from sight, for every dates I’ve checked outside of our own.

I’ve had no response, as yet, to my polite but to the point reply.

Any advice most welcome, particularly a contact number for CS. I have apartment Plan B, and C, ready to go!

I think I would just cancel, if you can do so penalty free. This owner sets of my scammer radar, big time.

I guess if there is a Property Management company involved 9 PM is too late - staff has already clocked out for the day. Another reason to just cancel.

Can you just send a general message to HA through Facebook?

Sadly, no cancellation option, not without complications. However, having asked Mr Joan to search for the number, the creep found it, and we’ve been on the phone for half an hour.

He’s a fairly new host on HA, but has been operating in his own right for 12 years. Allegedly. Obviously doesn’t get the nuances of a platform v in his own right.

HA are going to contact him, cc’d to us, with the contract Ts&Cs, and we will wait to see what transpires.

HA does not have any issues with owners contacting guests via their own personal email, but they did say that the sudden demand for a check in payment was off the wall; what we paid was what we pay.

We shall see. My best hope is that HE cancels, a full refund and we go for plan B or C.

And thanks!

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This is why I don’t take chances with new hosts. Just not worth the few dollars I may save.

Agree 100%. Host sounds like a very sketchy dbag and/or fraud attempt.

https://www.google.com/search?q=HomeAway+UK+Customer+Service+number&rlz=1C1SQJL_enUS846US846&oq=HomeAway+UK+Customer+Service+number&aqs=chrome..69i57&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

image

https://www.homeaway.co.uk/discoveryhub/ask-an-agent/communicating-with-the-customer-service-team

https://help.homeaway.co.uk/articles/Who-do-I-contact-if-I-have-questions-about-my-reservation

What a load of bollocks. Booking form with a request for guest names is ok, but bank details, no, overly intrusive.

At this point I’d have walked.

Sorry, didn’t see this till after you’d got the number.

If you need an alternative, you can use +44 208 827 1971, although that may be the one you have already.

JF

I’m unaware that I said this is a new host. He’s been on HA for a year according to CS, but has been hosting on his own account for 12, and has used the same management company throughout. He quite pompously , but perhaps inadvertently, gave the the company’s name.

@Jefferson, thanks for all the info. When I searched my account last night, in a nutshell, I couldn’t get in, along with “no upcoming trips”. It transpired that Mr J set me up yonks ago with a googlemail, rather than gmail. Or somesuch, but it’s now sorted.

Agreed, but it’s a 50% cancellation penalty. I think he’s a platform naive arsehole, who thinks he can operate ON platform in the same way he did/does on his own account.

He most certainly did not get my bank account details, nor did I fill in the booking form as it could be construed as a contract with him in the UK.

I told what he needed to know, and nothing more. He’s been very quiet since I was scathing about the check-in fee.

I misspoke, I meant to say new listing. I only want to stay at a place that’s been well reviewed. But I guess I imagined it all. Memory is going, that’s for sure.

Don’t worry. I found the iron in the fridge this morning, after hunting in the most obvious place for it, like on the ironing board in my study.

The bugger of an owner hasn’t come back to me after my stinging riposte to a “late” check in fee. I was hoping he’d cancel, on the grounds that I am clearly a PITA

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I list on HA now called VRBO. You can contact your credit card company, and do a chargeback on any fees/charges that you don’t want to pay.
It’s a real bitch for the Host- trust me. I’ve been hit with 2 from spoiled, entitled guests. Visa sides with guests which is why I’m going to de-list my home from that platform.
Go for it. Seriously.