Sykes Cottages Reviews

Name: Sykes Cottages
Address: Sykes Holiday Cottages Lime Tree House Hoole Lane, Chester
Rating: 1.20

1.2 Rating 1,528 Reviews

5 %

of reviewers recommend Sykes Cottages

Company Reviews

Metrics

1.2

Based on 1,528 reviews

Shipping & Delivery
Delivery Methods	Own Driver
Customer Service
Communication Channels	Telephone, Email, Live Chat
Queries Resolved In	Over A Week
Customer Service	1.1 out of 5
Returns & Refunds
Refunds Process	Difficult
Returns Process	Could Be Better

Location:

Sykes Holiday Cottages Lime Tree House Hoole Lane
Chester
CH2 3EG

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Sykes Cottages 1 star review on 27th January 2025

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Sykes Cottages 1 star review on 17th November 2024

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Anonymous

Anonymous // 01/01/2019

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“I wish we had read this before we booked with them. About to spend 50th birthday in one of their cottages we paid £1750 for, we have all come down with Covid, they do not care, no opportunity to amend booking to later date, they are an awful company with zero compassion, do not book a holiday…..we also spoke to a hundred different people but by far the worst was Stuart smith (I think he was lying to me about his name) who when I asked, so Sykes is happy for us to spend 4 nights in one of your cottages with Covid, he said fantastic.”

Helpful Report

Posted 1 year ago

“Discussing company with no morals! I tried to re arrange a booking due to my farther being diagnosed with a brain tumour and suddenly taken a turn after a bleed on his brain he was taken to a palliative care hospice we lost him within two weeks. I spoke to to several different people and eventually they stopped answering me online. My sister also contacted them and when she asked if they could show some compassion and have a heart they said “we deal with terms and conditions not hearts” absolutely disgusting company.”

Helpful Report

Posted 1 year ago

“THE WORST COMPANY IVE EVER ENCOUNTERED IN MY LIFE, they have caused so much upset, and are the lowest form of life out there”

Helpful Report

Posted 1 year ago

“Very poor service for owners - Absolutely agree with previous owner comments I have seen; It is a relief I’m not the only owner that feels like this. Ran the let myself for 7 years as a profitable business, now with Sykes for 3 years and it’s running at a significant loss. Sykes control bookings and rental charges. Cancel bookings without authorisation. When something goes wrong, or you need support they wash their hands! Can’t wait to get free of them. Will be contacting a solicitor and the financial conduct authority to try and get my money back for cancellations and compensation for poor service.”

Helpful Report

Posted 1 year ago

“VERY POOR SERVICE FOR OWNERS. The site works on algorithms that change the pricing and add discounts for no good reason and e Westbourne any notice so, despite their mantra that You the owner is in control, you are not! Very poor customer relations who just give platitudes. No help when they make errors. You get passed around to other departments and other advisors for it only to come back round to them. They say anything just to get you off the phone but do nothing to help resolve. If it involves Sykes making any refund, no matter how much proof you have that they slipped up, you just get ignored. My advice, take the complaint to the financial conduct authority/ financial ombudsman!”

Helpful Report

Posted 1 year ago

“Shocking business! Check you T&Cs”

Helpful Report

Posted 1 year ago

“I have managed my own holiday rental property for many years and decided to pass the online management to Sykes to avoid the calls from guests late at night asking random questions like some guests do and are intitled to do so. So I signed up with Sykes even though they charge a massive 17% to 20% commission for the bookings including VAT. After a totally disjointed onboarding experience being passed to so many different people at Sykes all asking the same questions and all of them had a different option on things such as the fire risk assessment which I was told i could complete a form for but turned out I need a professional fire risk assessment which took ages to sort out. There were to many issues to list with going with Sykes but one of the biggest issues was that no one at Sykes told me that their system would not allow different check in days for different parts of the year, I always had Saturday to Saturday in summer and any check in day for the rest of the year. I kept asking them why they were not getting many bookings and they responded that it was a slow year! Eventually I looked on their site and put in dates for a weekend (Friday to Monday) as this was most popular in the previous 7 years of bookings. As they had used for the check in/out day as Saturday the charge for a weekend was the price of 2 weeks as it bridged over either side of Saturday so charged double!! I lost thousands of pounds worth of bookings in the year I was with Sykes and I would never recommend them to any owner looking for them to manage their holiday rental bookings, their customer service to owners is terrible and I'm surprised how big the company has got. There was a guest that booked through Sykes that had a issue with the hot tub and the lady from Sykes that called just asked me do I have the guests number to call them and sort it out! So basically Sykes don't even help when there is a issue at the property even though they had the hot tub maintenance guys number to call in case the hot tub had any problems!”

Helpful Report

Posted 1 year ago

“To the customer who wrote this please get in touch with Sykes unhappy customer page on Facebook Thanks https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1798518660580366&set=gm.3471742119741740&idorvanity=1827406157508686”

Helpful Report

Posted 1 year ago

“I have read most of the reviews about sykes cottages and I most say that there is a pattern to sykes ripping off people. i booked for april 2023 for the captains cottage scarbourough paid in full . I was offered a clean cosy relaxing well equipped cottage with parking .no mention of a school opposite parking so bad that your car cannot be moved if you do manage to get one. The smell of cannabis up and down the street that's before you enter the cottage through a door that doesn't lock cleaners that have not been in from the last guests. the stench that takes your breath away.the peeling wall paper the damp .the bags of rubbish in the back garden the decking covered in weeds the noise from next door all hours .sykes forgot to mention any off this in the advert .but you dare to point it out to them .that is if you manage to get through to the couldn't careless staff. but they are quick to react about how much they are taking from you for cancelling. Come on Sykes it should be us poor suckers taking money form you listening to your lies that made us book these slums they should be a law against you and to be honest I thought they was call trading standard but you cover your back so well . So people don't be another victim of unscrupulous company .like others never again .”

Helpful Report

Posted 1 year ago

“I had a problem in changing my booking I called customer services this morning and spoke to Heather she was so helpful. Nothing was too much trouble my booking problem was solved in an efficient, helpful friendly manner. Heather is a member of staff who you need to look after. Excellent member of staff.”

Helpful Report

Posted 1 year ago

“If you want a bad customer service then book through Sykes Cottages. Our holiday was booked, paid for, enjoyed BUT THE ACCOUNTS DEPARTMENT PUT A SUBSCRIPTION ON MY BANK ACCOUNT FOR A HOLIDAY I PAID FOR. SAID THEY HAD I.T PROBLEMS AND INITIALLY BLAMED MY BANK FOR THEIR ACTIONS., AND SAID THEY COULD NOT REMOVE IT. MANY CALLS AND WHATSAPP MESSAGES LATER IT IS STILL THERE. LOTS OF PROMISED CALLS NOT RECEIVED. DO NOT RECOMMED. GO ELSEWHERE”

Helpful Report

Posted 1 year ago

“Booking Ref 6L5UB-23-EN Very poor and unprofessional service My experience is worth a minus 5 stars. I have used Sykes Holiday Cottages before and generally they have been OK, however they have now (since 2019) outgrown their capabilities to provide a reliable service. In April, they took my deposit money twice and it took 5 days to reverse the error. Not even an apology because it was computer error!!!!!! It was a good job I had the funds in my account and that I noticed it, because I doubt that they would have said anything. Today, I received a message from the property owner about our rental starting tomorrow. I wanted to reply to the message, but it has to go through the Sykes App/Website but the message was not showing there so I could not answer directly. I tried the website CHAT (@76 yrs old I hate those things) but that waited until I typed in all I wanted to say, before that told me that they were busy and to try later!! I tried telephoning but the telephones where not working. Their text/messaging service wasn’t working either. Their telephones are now working but you have to listen to being told twice to make sure you make the correct choice, so you don’t get through to the wrong department and even then I had to twice suffer around 30 to 40 minutes of very tinny music made worse by the sound of radio static before they answered and I had to fully explain the communication problem I had to two different people to find out they both did something, but the problem is still not resolved, because they obviously did not listen when I told told them of the problem. The icing on the cake is when an email to the CEO, the Customer Relations Manager and to their general info@ email addresses has gone totally ignored. They clearly have problems with computers, telephones and despite having at least 14 Directors and Chief Officers, they are clearly short of people to deal with customers!!!!! I doubt if I will ever use them again. I will even check their subsidiary companies and not use them either.”

Helpful Report

Posted 1 year ago

“Had a stay at far horizons in Newquay last week. On Friday we’d been out all day on our return it was obvious someone had been in the property. The door wasn’t locked properly as we’d left it, my make up in the bathroom had been moved and an artificial plant that had been on the shelf above the sink was in the bath. I emailed sykes straight away no reply, the following Monday I emailed again to receive a reply asking for details of my complaint which I sent. Now several emails later which have been ignored I’ve had no explanation as to who has been in that property whilst we were out and for what reason. Shocking customer service. We will never use sykes again. Doesn’t even deserve a 1 star!!”

Helpful Report

Posted 1 year ago

“Truly a terrible company with no customer service or morals. The website malfunctioned during my booking and the wrong dates were ascertained to my booking. I immediately called - their IT department admitted the fault - put me through to the cancellations department - who refused to refund. Once they have your money they do not care. Avoid.”

Helpful Report

Posted 1 year ago

“Customer service poor. Told to seek small claim against the owner (booking 8-15 September), as they had refused to reimburse us for having no bathroom light for 6/7 nights, no light around hot tub area, no instructions for using oven, microwave, fire etc. It seems that Sykes are always going to be on the side of the owner, as they make them money. We have used them many times previously with no issues, but this last experience at Sion Lodge, Belbroughton in Worcestershire means we won’t use Sykes again!”

Helpful Report

Posted 1 year ago

“Horrid organization, absolute trash service and what a bunch of scammers. I booked a place based on the description provided, primarily the location. I checked the advertised location with Google maps and found there was no building of any kind there. Sykes refuses to give you the actual location until just before your visit. I contacted Sykes and after repeated attempts was told the cottage is actually four miles from the advertised location. I told them this was unacceptable, and they cut me off from communicating further. I disputed the charge with my credit card company and now Sykes claims I never contacted them but somehow the owner mysteriously cancelled the booking. However Sykes insists I owe them because they have a no cancellation policy. So they lied about the location, lied about me contacting them, and still think I owe them. If you order a gold necklace and you get a tin can would you accept a no return policy? That’s called fraud and guess what Sykes, that is a crime.”

Helpful Report

Posted 1 year ago

“The holiday cottage was called Bourlach in Mallaig Highlands., the location was 100% however the accommodation was filthy. It was in actual fact an Airbnb which I would never book., Food still left in freezer personal books beside the beds, long hair in shower trays.. sinks in bedrooms with water that did not drain away after many days., only booked 5 days left after 4 . You could say why not leave earlier thank goodness we didn’t as Sykes cottages could not and would not have been able to rectify this one ., and if anyone has been to the Highlands it’s not a place that you can just drive away from that easily although beautiful it’s miles away.. and as check in was 18:00 hrs on a Sunday impossible I am sure you would agree .. anyway no joy from Sykes despite a conversation I have been left feeling that the issues raised were blown out of proportion. I am truly sorry that I have had to be negative on forums however people need to be aware of this company .SYKES”

Helpful Report

Posted 1 year ago

“In July this year , we booked a dog friendly cottage in Yorkshire and we took out Sykes cottages Insurance. Our dog took very unwell the week we were due to go and the vet advised us not to travel. We phoned to cancel which didn’t seem a problem but when calling their Insurance Co , we were told no claim available as the dog getting ill is not covered . Nothing Dog Friendly about this Company. No refund and we had a £4000 vet bill . A very expensive month and wouldn’t recommend Sykes to anyone . They have never replied to any of our letters either.”

Helpful Report

Posted 1 year ago

“We booked 23/06/23 to stay at Muddykins Cottage in Devon for one week from Saturday 26/08/23 – Saturday 02/09/23. On Saturday 26/08/23 at 12.30pm I received a telephone call from a Sykes advisor to inform us that we can no longer stay at Muddykins Cottage as it has been “damaged”. We were given no further explanation and were told we would be emailed alternative available properties. We were already in Devon, having driven three hours from our home with a packed car, two children and one dog. The three alternative properties sent were in mid Wales (a further four-hour drive), a house in Dartmoor without a garden and a cottage on Exmoor. When I explained these weren’t a match for what we had booked, I was advised to “pull over to search on the Sykes website to find an alternative property”. As you can imagine, this was extremely difficult driving in rural Devon with poor reception. After three hours parked up in a car park, over twenty phone calls to Sykes, no further details or apology and an emailed list of “one bedroomed alternative properties” we were eventually advised there was no similar property available for our holiday. We then had to drive the three-hour journey back home with no apology, no further explanation and no holiday. As we had been let down at such short notice and on August Bank Holiday weekend we were unable to book anything else. We contacted the representative of the owner Muddykins Cottage, who had been advised by Sykes that we had been found an alternative property. They had no idea the short notice we had been given, the lack of an alternative holiday nor the fact we had received no apology. They were horrified we had spent nine hours in a car travelling with children and a dog / parked up trying to liaise very unsuccessfully with Sykes. We then contacted Sykes by Messenger on 29/08/23 and was told by Connor that this would be looked into and someone would contact us. To date we have heard nothing. To say this was an awful experience for our family was an understatement. We have never experienced such atrocious lack of customer service or empathy from any company.”

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Posted 1 year ago

“Just came back from pwllheli and we stayed at a fantastic cottage it's name is Swy - y Mor great place to stay and many things can be reached from this destination the owner Martin is so kind and caring nothing is to much trouble well work a look ideal for buses aswell Mr Colley”

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Posted 1 year ago

Sykes Cottages is rated 1.2 based on 1,528 reviews