I used this site for the first time recently. I booked a holiday barn conversation in Ivybridge, Devon as I was working down there with a colleague for the week. I paid a £42.00 reservation fee & then tried to pay the remainder of the cost with Holidaycottages.co.uk. HC.co.uk said that the property was actually unavailable for the dates I had reserved, so after all this hassle taking a couple of hours, i've now got to chase my reservation fee back from Homeaway who said there may be a small charge for their secure booking fee for a place that wasn't even available!!! Steer well clear of these 2 shambles of companies & stay with likes of Booking.com or Laterooms etc. I then booked a room easily with Booking.com & the process took literally 10 minutes. Learn from my experience & avoid Homeaway & Holidaycottages.

I am a frequent traveller in Europe, self catering, booking apartments and cottages in advance, usually no problem, but I could write a book about the poor service I have received from Home Away. and their muddled and incompetent booking system! Suffice to say that 3 phone calls and 2 e-mails later I have been given conflicting information on every single occasion. They've taken my deposit and given me a reference, but then not invoiced me for the remaining installments, so I can't pay for my holiday. When I tried to rectify this I was told that there was no confirmed booking and I should contact the owner.....who confirmed I was booked in (thank goodness he spoke good English as my Dutch is non-existent).. That's the very short version of the total incompetence I have encountered from this company. I need a holiday to get over it. I will never use Home Away again.

It is a big scam!Lost more than 1000 dollars as someone hacked their account...