Meredith LodgingReviews of meredithlodging.com

We've stayed in a few Meredith Lodging rental homes over the years and have had good experiences. I recently rented a home and had something come up that I needed help with and someone took care of it right away. Looking forward to our next Oregon beach trip!

Meredith Properties Sunriver - A Violation of Trust so Renters Beware! For our first venture out after a year+ under COVID, we chose a Meredith managed home in Sunriver, OR. We based this choice (among other options) on Meredith’s stated Professional COVID cleaning policy to ensure a “safe” experience. Turned out to be not so much so, but good marketing on their part. Getting here; the rental information provided a street address - which led us to the middle of the road - Sunriver doesn’t use street addresses - they use Loop names and sequential numbers on each house - we would not have found this location without a call to Meredith which was fortunately open at that hour. Then the house keypad access code was 6 numbers with an asterisk * at the end. We tried that multiple times and didn’t work. Again a call to a Meredith rep who said to try the keypad check mark at the end of the sequence, not the asterisk *. Finally that worked, but that correct information would have been very helpful. (If this had been a late-night arrival we’d have never found or gotten into this rental - maybe improve communications?) Cleanliness in this house was nowhere near what we expected from their COVID cleaning policy to ensure a “safe” experience. Even without COVID, this house should never have been rented without a cleaning inspection from someone. We found leftover sunflower seed shells (so someone ate them) on the living room chair, under couch cushions and on the carpet. So nothing was cleaned or vacuumed in this area. And truthfully, the carpet needs a good shampooing or just plain needs replacing - tracks from front door across living room. There were ripped off clothing tags on the floor in the master bedroom, a plastic bag behind the nightstand, and the dresser had not been dusted at all. Again, didn’t seem like anything was vacuumed or dusted in this bedroom. We found Cobwebs over the kitchen counter, there was dust and dirt in the bottom of the utensil holder on the stove. I cleaned and washed all that out before using the utensils. But the worst were the wine glasses from the cupboard that had so many fingerprints and smudges, we had to rewash them all by hand as well as cups before using them. Can only assume that the dishes and utensils were clean. And this is COVID-level cleaning? We also found one of the TV remotes stuffed between couch cushions otherwise no way to control the TV. It took us more than a ½ hour to figure out the 3 remotes and which worked for the TV, DVR, and DVD player. Instructions would have been helpful. The patio deck had not been cleaned at all. We understand that the pine trees were losing their pollen, but there were bird droppings everywhere, so once again we had to clean the table and chairs before we could even sit out there. The hot tub needs major help. Temperature adjustments ranged from 98 to 106 degrees, lights/jets don’t work. The gas fireplace was a nice, however took us a while to find the wall control to operate it. Again, instructions would be helpful. We won’t trust a Meredith managed property again. We had rented the property for 6 nights, but we left early, there was no “safe” feeling about this rental. We were greatly disappointed, sad, disheartened, irritated and unsatisfied as we wanted our first venture out after COVID to feel safe and fun, which none of this was. As a side note: we have been to Sunriver many times and this was the first time we felt totally disappointed in what should have been a positive experience. We are also world travelers, and nowhere have we run across such an organization that gave miscommunicated directions and marketed Professional COVID cleaning policy to ensure a “safe” experience that definitely wasn’t true.

When we returned for our trip, I received an email wanting to get some feedback on our stay at the Diamond K in Depot Bay. Since I had some negative things, I thought I would share them privately with Meredith Lodging, in hopes that they would care and at least take notice of my comments. I have never received an email from them, which is extremely disappointing. I guess that is why they have the rating they do. So, I decided to make my comments public so others would at least know what to expect. I have included them below: I have helped manage homes on Lake Travis for 10+ years so I really appreciate the time and energy in preparing homes for guests. And, I know no home can be perfect and do not expect that. I also understand how important the feedback can be as well as reviews. So, I wanted to take a little time and give you some personal feedback. 1) I feel the home was very clean! I was quite impressed! 2) It was also well stocked with most things we needed. The only thing we needed and didn't have was a platter or two. It is difficult keeping things stocked but you are doing a good job! And with Covid, it was nice having our own little bottles of things like dishwasher soap. 3) The carpets are in pretty bad shape, even for a vacation rental. 4) The windows are in horrible shape. I understand it is difficult to keep them clean with sea spray, but there is some kind of permanent film or calcium on the windows which made it very difficult to enjoy the view except on sunny days. When it was cloudy, the view was really obstructed. Since part of the reason we rented this home for the outstanding views, this was a huge disappointment! It was too cold and windy to enjoy the balcony so all we had for a view were cloudy windows. 5) The rug in the living room needs to be removed. Some of us tripped over it more than once!! We didn't fall, but it could be a real danger for other guests. 6) We were very impressed with the # of pillows! 7) The staff was very responsive while we were at the property. We couldn't get in because there was a problem with wifi or something but they took care of the problem for us. They also were very quick in responding when we didn't know how to turn on the fireplace. We were hoping to find a home that we could return to over and over, but because of the windows, we will look for a different home, unfortunately. It has the potential to be a 5* rental but it is not at this time. Overall, we did have a great time.

I’ve stayed with Meredith Lodging in homes on the Oregon Coast and Central Oregon. The homes are clean and I can always reach representatives who are very kind and helpful! I will be staying with Meredith Lodging for my future stays.

Updated on 5/19/2021: The agency wrote (as seen below) saying they wanted to connect with me, but they have not done so. I will hope to hear from them by the end of the day, but at this point, I call scam from this agency. I will continue to pursuit my lost money, and have reported this incident to the BBB. Disappointing. 5/17/2021: I booked a stay through Airbnb for August 9 for 4 nights on May 12, 2021. May 17, the family that intended to join me and my child had an unexpected medical diagnosis and emergency, making it impossible for them to travel to Oregon from Philadelphia. I contacted the host, and was told it was policy that they keep the 50% fully paid for reservation (yes, I did mis-read the policy which stated a 50% refund if cancelled prior to July 10). The amount they collected from me was $1534. This amount is for what, a reservation cancelled after 5 days with 3 months advance notice? I find it ridiculous to believe they won't re-book this Oregon Coast property again for August. I made 2 contact attempts via Airbnb, and was told twice “it is out policy”. After I contact Airbnb for assistance, they too met with resistance from Meredith’s. All in all, this seems like very shady practice. I wouldn’t be surprised if this agency makes most of their profits on cancellation policy collections, and hedges their bets that no one will legally follow up with them.

I rented one of their "luxury" properties in Lincoln city, the "breakwater beach house". House looked great in the photos until we arrived to realize everything was broken- ice machine, screen doors, closet doors etc. carpet was filthy in the living room. The "large flatscreen" tv would have been great to use if it didn't have a line through the screen impacting the picture. Such a cheap TV. No cable, you can access Netflix if you spend 30 minutes attempting to get logged in. I contacted the company to check the propane prior to our arrival as we rented another property with them earlier in the year and arrived to an empty tank. I didn't realize I needed to also request that the grill actually functioned, the igniter was broken. An entire meal wasted. The best part is the advertisement in the amenities list of heat- the thermostat in the basement is locked behind a glass case and cannot be accessed. What cheap people. Hilariously they sent maintenance over to fix the issue and the guy laughed and said he didn't have a key for the box. It was super enjoyable sleeping at 61 degrees in cold weather with a sheet as your blanket as the top blanket had not been washed. The TV in the "master" doesn't even work. The shades they have on are useless as they block no light, I had to sleep with a shirt on my face. Then at 12am an alarm started going off in the living room which woke the kids up, that was fun. Night two the kids were kept up by the Meredith lodging property directly next door of a large group partying outside. Every dish had food stuck to it that was put away. Oh, and don't expect two towels, expect one towel per bathroom that feels like a rag. I contacted the company about all of this, they blamed the owners and stated, "they don't decide the towels"- didn't they decide to list a property as "luxury" on their website?? I contacted the company throughout the stay due to all these issues. I received no apology, nothing. When I told them the grill they advertise for the property couldn't even be used, no response. I received a response only when I had to tell them I would be taking legal action for the misrepresentations and fraudulent amenities list. The company claims they are completing an "inspection" and will be refunding me accordingly. If that happens and I don't have to report this fraudulent company I will update this review.

I rented an ocean front home for my birthday for my family and I. There were lots of homes but I wanted one that had a hot tub. When we arrived we found the hot tub was not working at all. It would not heat up and I am sure it was not working prior to my arrival because it had a pump that wasn’t working. Also the gas stove had 6 burners and we were lucky to get one to work. It would light and then when you put the pan on it would go out and other times it wouldn’t light at all. I spent the whole vacation calling Meredith lodging to get both problems fixed. On the day before we left the guy shows up to fix it and made a point of telling me how far away he was, not my problem. He spent about a half hour working on it and then said it was fixed. He was gone maybe 5 minutes and I checked it and it was still not working. I called immediately so he could come back and fix it, he never showed up. I complained to Meredith lodging about both issues expecting them to make it right. We didn’t even stay the last night. They have been telling me I would hear from customer service and they are just avoiding me now. This is not good business practices.They should have told me it wasn’t working prior to my arrival so that I could find a different home to rent. Very disappointing experience. They have lost any future business I would have done with them. The home I rented was 5345 NW Jetty Ave. in Lincoln City. If you have a stay coming up you might want to find out if repairs have been made before going.

I had a medical emergency and had no choice but to cancel my stay. My reservations are over two months away. I paid a down payment of 2K. Looking at the same days I had reserved, today's total cost for those days is only just over 2000.00. This simply doesn't compute. IE., today's reservations are half the amount I had to pay. Because I was forced to cancel, I was charged 1200.00. Does this seem fair? My cancelation fee would pay for three nights at today's cost. While I realize there are expenses related to canceling/setting up new reservations, it is blatantly obvious this company is solely interested in ripping people off....regardless of the circumstances.