Vacation Rentals

Yes, we have used Homeaway and VRBO (vacation rentals by owner) numerous times! We recently went to Australia and stayed in a wonderful place. Last year we went to London and had the most beautiful Penthouse with a georgeous view of the River Thames. The owner was amazing. It was a last minute booking and he gave us a really good deal. We have also had a wonderful experience with a home in Utah for ski season. The owners were awesome and either left us a basket of goodies or bottle of wine to welcome us! We have had all positive experiences with both websites!

I used it to rent a little house in San Diego last year, right off the beach. It was great for us. I love the reviews on there, that is how I chose the place, and I will use Homeaway again.

Also, they had this special thing if you let them know before you sign an agreement for a rental, Homeaway gives you some sort of special coverage, I think to protect you financially if the rental or renter is bad. Read the paperwork, I missed out on it because I had already sent back the paperwork or paid or something, and you have to do it in a certain order. I didn't need it, but it is a nice extra, and I'm pretty sure it was free.

We used it to rent a house in Cape Cod this summer and had a great experience. Everyone I called responded to me promptly. Often they would say they had to check with previous renters to offer them the week first before using a new customer but I think that is a standard thing to do and a good business practice to keep people happy and coming back year after year. I like that we were talking directly to home owners and not a realtor who is just trying to "sell" you any place to rent. Good luck!

Yes! We used it to find great house for our annual trip to the Coachella Valley Music & Art Festival. We've been back to the same location for 3 years now and are in direct communication with the owner. And when she raised the rates for this year's event, we used the site to research our alternatives in the same development and eventually determined that hers was still the best price. I would definitely use it if we were traveling to a new area.

I have a rental property in Telluride, CO that we post on homeaway.com and also on vrbo.com (Vrbo and homeaway are connected). We get really great guests from both of those websites.

I would recommend that you read the notes/comments from prior guests and do talk to the people renting the property about exactly what you are looking for - you should be able to get exactly what you want. There are lots of properties avail.

Homeaway was quick and easy and I like their website set up better than vrbo. The experience that Tina F talked about is a homeowner issue, not necessarily a Homeaway issue. She should contact Homeaway and tell them of her experience as they will likely want to know this, and possibly may even take the homeowner off of their site. I have also used vrbo.

I have not with that one. I have had good experience with Vacation Rental By Owner VRBO.com

I love www.vrbo.com I've rented a few houses off of that web site. They show good pic's of the home, and there all over the world. Good Luck!

Hi J.,
We tried to use it over the summer to book a place in New York City/Parkslope, for this December. Let me tell you it was the most disappointing experience and we never even made it to putting a deposit down. It is difficult to get a timely reply when you send an email or call the tel number. One owner even encouraged my brother to check the place out for us since he lived nearby (in Parkslope, NY) my brother said it was fine, I contactd the owner and let him know we were ready to send a deposit and didn't hear back from him. I called him a few days later and that's when he informed me that another family from Europe had inquired about the same week, some time ago. Although he hadn't heard from them in a while he wanted to call to make sure they didn't still want the apartment. Are you kidding me? Then I never heard back from him until until 1 month later. Coincidentally, my brother had the same experience with a different owner when he was trying to find a place for my parents to stay, that same week. I think it is kind of scammish and the owners are looking for a highest bidder type thing. I felt as if he wanted me to offer him more than what he was asking on his website in order to book the deal. Try www.airbb.com. They have a lot of bed and breakfast places listed and my parents ended up finding a place through them for the holidays.

No..we use www.vrbo.com but there are a lot of overlap listings.

Homeaway is a very reputable company. I haven't used them personally, but know several people who have and have seen great recommendations on various magazines and travel sites.

vrbo.com is also a good source if you can't find anything on homeaway.

K.
http://www.discoverytoyslink.com/karenchao - great toys that travel well!

I have not used homeaway but I have used vrbo.com (vacation rentals by owner). They were excellent and we got a great cabin in big bear for a great price. I have also heard good things about homeaway. I highly recommend trying it.

We have also used www.vrbo.com and I would go through them again. We plan on going back to the same owner in the near future.

Good luck!